Faulds and Tassets

About

Faulds & Tassets Faulds and tassets are the plate armor pieces that protect the waist, hips, and upper thigh: the junction between torso and leg that a breastplate above and cuisses below both leave partially exposed. They are not the most immediately obvious addition to a plate armor kit, but they are often the one that makes everything else read as complete. Without them, even a well-assembled harness has a visible gap at its center. With them, the line from chest to leg is closed, the silhouette reads as a full harness, and the most prominent weak point in the mid-body is covered. What Are Faulds and Tassets? The two terms describe related but distinct pieces, and understanding the difference matters when building a harness. A fauld is a series of overlapping horizontal steel plates attached to the lower edge of a breastplate, forming an articulated steel skirt around the waist and hips. The overlapping plate construction allows the torso to bend, twist, and rotate without the armor binding or gapping, which is the engineering challenge faulds were developed to solve. Early faulds appeared in the 14th century as armorers began replacing mail with plate, initially as simple bands of steel below the breastplate. By the 15th century the Gothic plate tradition had developed elaborate segmented faulds with decorative fluting, and by the 16th century the form had evolved further still, with tassets extending almost to the knee as armor adapted to the demands of pike warfare and early firearms. Tassets hang from the lower edge of the fauld or from a separate belt, covering the upper thigh in the area between the fauld above and the cuisse below. Where a fauld wraps around the waist and hips, tassets are the pieces that extend that coverage downward onto the leg. Worn together they form a continuous defense from the lower edge of the breastplate to the top of the thigh, closing the gap that neither torso nor leg armor fully addresses on its own. Why Faulds and Tasset