mamelière

plural mamelières · alternative mamellière · alternative mamillière

1. A circular armor plate (of metal, leather, etc) worn over the breast of a fighter to hold chains to which the sword, dagger, or helmet could be attached, so as to be recoverable if knocked from the fighter.

   On the neck is the gorget of plates, and on the cuirass is seen one of the mamelières or ornamental circular plates to which the chain was attached for holding the helmet.

   1895, The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, page 253

   5 more examples

   During the following reign an increased quantity of plate is visible, and small circular plates, mamelières, so called from their position, and to which chains were attached, that were secured at the other end to the helmet[…]

   1885, Frederick William Fairholt, Costume in England: A History of Dress to the End of the Eighteenth Century, London : G. Bell & Sons, page 150

   For the first time in the Seals the pomel of the sword is fastened by a chain to a mamelière. The examples of monumental effigies and brasses exhibiting these features are far from numerous, and they are always associated with[…]

   1888, The Archaeological Journal, page 103

   Mamelières prevailed during the fourteenth century, more especially in the first half. Examples are rare. These plates are present on an effigy in Tewkesbury abbey church, the date of which is doubtless about the middle of the[…]

   1898, Archaeologia Aeliana: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquities, page 221

   There is a brass in Minster church, Isle of Sheppey, which represents an armed figure with only one 'mamelière;' it is on the left breast, with the chain going up over the left shoulder.

   1899, Archaeologia Aeliana, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, page 221

   Clearly defined are the quatrefoil piercings in the lower front that were used for attaching the helm, by means of a chain and bar, to the mamelières of the breastplate. From this same Kaiser Dom of Frankfort we take our next[…]

   1920, Guy F. Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms Through Seven Centuries