A piece of armor for the hips and thighs: one of a set of plates (each being of one piece or segmented) hanging from the bottom of the breastplate or from faulds.
This included the head-piece and gorgett, the back and breast, with skirts of iron called tasses or tassets covering the thighs, as may be seen in the figures, representing the exercise of the pike, published anno 1622, by the title of the Military Art of Training; the same kind of armour was worn by the harquebusiers.
Inherited from Middle English tasse (“armor plate protecting the hip”), derived from Old French tasse, tasche (“purse; pouch”), derived from Frankish *taskā (“pouch”), derived from Proto-Germanic *tas...
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