pauldron

plural pauldrons · alternative pouldron · alternative powldron · alternative puldron · alternative polron

1. historicalA component of plate armor that protects the shoulder, generally covering more than a spaulder, also protecting the armpit and overlapping with other armor over the upper chest and back.

   Upon the espaulieres are placed pauldrons, also ridged, with the edges turned up, so as to form the prototypes of pass-guards.

   1834, Matthew Holbeche Bloxam, A Glimpse at the Monumental Architecture and Sculpture of Great Britain from the Earliest Period to the Eighteenth Century

   3 more examples

   […] a pair of pauldrons with the light horizontal bar which in later years developed into the high neckguard of the sixteenth century; numbers of gauntlets, visors of helmets, and other pieces, the handling of which is a sheer joy […]

   1976, Apollo: A Journal of the Arts

   […] the elbow cop or coudiere for the elbow; and the rerebrace or arriere-bras for the upper arm. The shoulder cop, pauldron or epauliere which covered the shoulder, and often a large part of the breast and back, was usually considered a part of the arm guard.

   2004, Kevin Grace, Tom White, Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 142

   This rim involved a raised rolled edge on the rerebrace that was inserted into a raised lip on the lower lame of the pauldron.

   2013, Paul F. Walker, The History of Armour, 1100-1700