The cuirass consists of breastplate and backplate, which pieces are usually fastened together by straps and buckles, but screws are sometimes used, especially for tournament armour. It was probably introduced into England in the reign of Henry V., and the form is an excellent guide as to date. The word, or rather its prototype “quirettæ,” occurs in a “Roll of Purchases” (1278) preserved in the Tower of London. The armour for the breast was considered next in importance to that for the head, and inventories of the fifteenth century frequently refer to “pairs of plates, large, globose,” which sufficiently indicate the period. Breastplates were used by the Franks in the eighth century, and probably by the Norsemen about the same time; that of the fourteenth century was without the salient ridge in front called the tapul. The Rev. T. N. Roberts, vicar of Cornforth, county Durham, to whom the author is indebted for several hints, reminds him that it is difficult to say whether it is correct to speak of the fourteenth century breastplate as a cuirass or not. In effigies, brasses, and illuminations this part of the armour is always concealed by the jupon. When the jupon disappeared (temp. Henry V.) the breastplate is revealed always in two pieces; afterwards (temp. Edward IV.) in only one piece, as a true cuirass. On a monument in Ash Church, Kent (dating about 1335), where the lacing of the surcoat at the side permits the body defences to be seen, “rectangular plates like tiles riveted into a flexible garment” are discernible. The only remains of an actual cuirass of fourteenth century date were found at the castle of Tannenberg. The figure of St. George in the Cathedral square at Prague has a flexible garment covered with very small rectangular plates like tiles, and over this a breastplate--not a complete cuirass. All this leads one to suppose that fourteenth century breastplates were not cuirasses so much as additional plates of various shapes over the hauberk, the skirts of which appear below the jupon on effigies, etc., of the fourteenth century. Still, it must be remembered that an effigy of the preceding century in the Temple Church exhibits both front and back plates. The standard of mail is a feature of the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. It was designed to protect the weak place between the gorget and top of the cuirass--it grew, in fact, out of the camail. Almost all effigies of the period exhibit these pieces. The tapul first appeared in the fifteenth century; this ridge after being discontinued reappears later, when it often swelled out to a hump, either over or below the navel. This, indeed, was a decided feature of the second half of the sixteenth century, when the cuirass had often one overlapping plate under the arm. Occasionally it was provided with transverse bars, forming a cross. The Gothic type is very beautiful, and is usually in two or