bishop's mantle

plural bishop's mantles

1. A tippet (shoulder protection), often with a collar and/or cape, of mail.

   I was dressed as a Landsknecht captain. I was wearing a chain mail bishop's mantle and carrying a short sword. […]

   2009, Kimberly Tony Korol-Evans, Renaissance Festivals: Merrying the Past and Present, McFarland, →ISBN, page 175

   3 more examples

   The second illustration shows a case devoted to the equipment of the "Landsknecht" soldiers, that famous body […] High up in the centre is a chain mail tippet or "Bishop's mantle," so frequently depicted by the engravers […]

   1925, Royal Ontario Museum. Division of Art and Archaeology, Bulletin, Issues 3-5; Issues 7-11, page 18

   German 'Landsknecht ' or professional foot-soldier, wearing mail 'bishop's mantle', carrying a two-handed sword, and also another sword with typical S-shaped quillons; from a contemporary woodcut, time of Henry VIII […]

   1958, Austin Lane Poole, Medieval England, Clarendon: Oxford

   Right : Robert Taggert (Lars Holtzclaw) wears a "bishop's mantle" of mail around the shoulders. He is a German soldier, or Landsknecht, and is a member of King Henry VIII's royal guard. His helmet is called a sallet.

   1997, Barbara Lane, Echoes from Medieval Halls: Past-Life Memories from the Middle Ages, Are Press, →ISBN

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bishop, mantle.