grapper

plural grappers

1. A metal ring or leather strap on the base of a lance behind the grip, designed to stop the lance from moving backward by catching on the lance rest or on the lancer's chest and arm when the lance was tucked into the armpit.

   1997, Professor Department of History Sydney Anglo, Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy, Oxford University Press on Demand Likewise , if the jouster's spear were tied with 'thonge' or 'grappers', he should be ejected ignominiously.

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   [Grappers] were first introduced in the early fourteenth century and became standard after the introduction of the lance-rest in the late 1300s. A description of the grapper as it was configured in 1446 is provided in an anonymous French manuscript as follows: Item, the said grappers are intentionally full of sharp little spikes like little diamonds, similar in size to little ...

   2010, Noel Fallows, Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia, Boydell Press, →ISBN, page 119

   Nor was the danger entirely at the point of the lance. An inexpert lancer, because the grapper transmitted much of the shock to the feltlined lance arrest secured to the right side of his breastplate, might be flung from saddle […]

   2014, Karl Edward Wagner, Dark Crusade, Gateway, →ISBN

   It's got a lance rest to fit the grapper to. It makes the whole breastplate take the shock, and not just his arm. You brace the end against your side; that'll give you firmer balance, see?” Noel nodded, and Tobin sprang away.

   2015, Deborah Chester, Time Trap, Diversion Books, →ISBN

   But do not joust (to break) fifty or sixty or one hundred lances as you are accustomed to do. To avoid such unpleasantries as severe injuries […] The grapper or (in its earlier name) grate was affixed to the lance behind the grip.

   2020, Alan V. Murray, Karen Watts, The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle: Tourneys, Jousts and Pas D'armes, 1100-1600, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 80

   Synonyms: grate

2. obsoleteA grappling hook or grappling iron.

   Without the help of vellicles, hooks, or grappers.

   1676, Henry More, Remarks upon two late ingenious Discourses, page 145

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   We fastned grappers in her, and soe towed her a head.

   1625, John Glanvill, Voyage to Cadis, page 61

   Then began a sore battle on both parts: archers and cross-bows began to shoot, and men of arms approached and fought hand to hand, and the better to come together they had great hooks and grappers of iron to cast out of one ship into another, and so tied them fast together.

   1905 (quoting an older work?), Essentials in Medieval and Modern History, page 230

   […] we sailed in towards the city, and let fall our grappers [grappling irons] betwixt the island and the Main, right over against the goodly Garden Island.

   1910 (quoting an older work?), Voyages and Travels, Ancient and Modern, page 161