Breastplate (body armour): HEN.M.3C-1933

Maker(s)

Production: Unknown

Entities

• Breastplate (body armour)
• Skirt
• breastplate with associated skirt

Categories

• Armour

Description

Breastplate with associated skirt, for light field use, decorated with bands in the 'black and white' fashion. Formed of main plate with moveable gussets at the arm-openings and an associated skirt of two lames. The medially-ridged main plate dips down to the centre of the waist, and projects forward over the belly. The gussets and the broad, shallow neck-opening have bold, file-roped, inward turns. Secured by a single externally-flush rivet within the upper end of each gusset is a double-ended, tongued iron buckle to receive the shoulder-strap of a backplate. The lower edge of the breastplate is flanged outwards to receive a skirt of two upward overlapping lames. The lames are attached to one another and to the breastplate at their outer ends by modern round-headed rivets with octagonal or square internal washers. The lower edge of the second lame of the skirt is cut with a shallow arch over the crotch. The arch has a file-roped inward turn. The lame is pierced over the arch with a possibly modern hole for the attachment of a cod-piece. Riveted at each side of the second lame is a modern strap for the suspension of tassets. A third strap may at some time have existed between them, but is now represented only by a plugged hole. Vacant rivet holes, representing former articulation-points, exist at the upper corners of the first lame of the skirt. Part of the composite half armour HEN.M.3A-E-1933

Notes

History note: Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex

Legal notes

J.S. Henderson Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1933-03-16) by Henderson, James Stewart

Dating

16th Century
Circa 1570 CE - 1580 CE

Note

South Germany, Nuremberg

The breastplate is decorated with recessed, bright bands and borders against a blackened ground in the 'black and white fashion'. The vertical bands are medially-ridged. The associated skirt is decorated in a similar fashion, with raised bright bands and borders against a blackened ground.

The bright bands of the breastplate and skirt show a light patination with some patches of heavier pitting. The intervening blackened areas are worn through to bright metal at some points.