“Spanish tilting Breastplate, middle fifteenth century, composed of breastplate and over-breastplate, screwed together. The breastplate, tin-plated to avoid oxidation, preserves the nails of the brocade with which it was covered. The over-breastplate was also called ‘the volant’--a defence much used in tilts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was strengthened with iron, as stated in the description of the honourable passage of Don Suero de Quiñones. It is doubtful if this second piece was also covered with rich cloth, like others of a later period; it has its original hollow lance-rest, for tilt, fastened with a bolt and four staples. It has also a piece of iron, which we call _flaon_, used as a wedge between the shield and the breastplate, and forming a resisting whole against the adversary’s lance. This _flaon_, the only iron one we have seen, serves also to fasten the helm to the breast”--in the manner shown on the piece A16. [The _flaon_ was nearly always of wood.] The headpiece was correspondingly strengthened. Referring more particularly to the tilting helm that forms part of the suit (A16) belonging to Felipe I. of Castile (1478-1506), from which the casque worn by Don Suero probably did not differ, the Conde de Valencia says: “The tilting helm, or round closed _almete_, as it was called, appeared at the end of the fourteenth century, and continued in use, with slight modifications in each country, until the beginning of the sixteenth. Designed to resist the impact of a lance in front, the part around the vizor, or the horizontal opening between the crest and the face, was strengthened, attaining a thickness of nine millimetres in some places; in others, as the sides and occiput or back of the helmet, it gradually diminishes. Its vertical and almost cylindrical length, is such that it might rest on the shoulders, so that, fastened to the breastplate by the hinge, and to the backplate by a strong strap, it might protect the tilter’s head without inconveniencing his movements. In certain tilts, this resource was insufficient against the violence of a lance-thrust at full gallop of two horses going in an opposite direction, and then the horsemen protected the head with a stiffened cap, which in German was called _harnisch kappe_.” The armet, the most graceful form of steel headpiece, also seems to have been introduced into Spain about the middle of the fifteenth century. A fresco in the Escorial, copied from a painting of the first half of that century, representing the battle of Higueruela, depicts men-at-arms wearing this species of helmet. It superseded the bascinet for use in war, and will be described further on in these pages.