were plates attached to the armour, variously applied for the shoulders or any weak places, later specially to defend the armpits, where there was a vulnerable place called “vif de l’harnois,” and later, “defaut de la cuirasse,” and leave the arms free to parry or strike. These pieces assume various forms, and were not invariably in pairs; in cases where they differ, that over the right armpit is the smaller--an instance of this may be seen on a brass in Harpham Church, Yorkshire (1420). In this instance the left rondelle is round, while the other is scroll-shaped. There is a portion of a “Gothic” suit at Dresden with an oblong rondelle on the right side, while a projection on the épaulière, to a certain extent, protects the left armpit. They appear very early, and may be seen freely and beautifully applied on a figure in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, of the earlier half of the fourteenth century. They vary very much in size, and in armour of the next century were very handsome, being ridged throughout with escalloped flutings, and often charged with a heraldic rose, and sometimes spiked in the centre. They became very large in tilting suits, little short of a foot in diameter. The earliest application of these discs was to the elbow-guard. Rondelles for the armpits reappear freely in the second half of the sixteenth century, as shown in examples at Dresden and Berlin. They are frequently on the right side only. REREBRACE, COUDIÈRES, AND VAMBRACE (FRENCH BRASSARD, ITAL. BRACCIALE). These pieces are the armguards--the rerebrace for the upper arm, the vambrace for the lower; they first appear in plate in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, and became general a quarter of a century later. Coudières for the elbows first appeared in the thirteenth century in the disc form, about the same time as genouillières for the knees; and these pieces exhibit one of the earliest applications of plate to body armour. Both may be seen on an effigy of William Longespee the younger (1233) in Salisbury Cathedral. Coudières are elementary in the early stages, with rondelle, then cup-formed and laminated both above and below the elbow, with shell-like side expansions to protect the inner bend of the arm, and later going all round the elbow joint. This was the completed form, but all these improvements did not come at once. The De Bohun effigy exhibits the second-mentioned form. The outer guard assumes many forms, fan-shaped, bivalve, escalloped, etc., and is sometimes preposterously large. The rerebrace and vambrace do not appear in England before the fourteenth century. The effigy of the Black Prince at Canterbury exhibits these pieces. The armour for the arm, that is the three pieces dealt with, is termed brassards or brassarts. The garde-de-bras, an additional protection for the left arm for tilting, attachable to the elbow plate by a screw, was introduced in the fifteenth century. GAUNTLETS.