Fig. 371.—Salade, Maximilian, 1520. (Wallace Collection.)
Fig. 372.—Breastplate with tapul. (Tower of London.)
The Breastplate is short and furnished with goussets sliding upon almayne rivets; a cable pattern appears upon the turned-over edges, and flutings radiate from the waist upwards. A placcate is often found reinforcing the breastplate after the manner of the fifteenth century Gothic suits, and this feature may be seen exemplified in [Fig. 224] in the Wallace Collection. If a placcate is not used, at times a thick band of steel makes a reinforcement round the waist, forming an integral part of the breastplate. The taces are generally three or four in number, and to the lowest are affixed the tassets, which are laminated, and of three or more plates, taking the place of the now obsolete tuilles. To the backplate is affixed the garde-de-rein, or kidney guard, which may be of chain mail, or laminated scales; if of plates these are placed inside each other upwards, so as to guard against the thrust of the pike from a footman. The scales, if used, are also turned in the same direction.
The breastplate of the earlier part of this period was more globular than the Gothic example; the slight ridge down the centre gradually developed into a strongly marked tapul ([Fig. 372]). In the first years of Elizabeth’s reign the tapul was humped in the centre with a very marked projection, but as the reign progressed this hump descended until it was near the lower edge and produced the peascod form (Figs. [373], [374]), which was an imitation in metal of the doublet then prevalent. For combats on foot the breastplate was often made entirely of lames of plate moving upon rivets, thus insuring great freedom of movement for the body ([Fig. 375]).
