leather cuirass

[Matthew Amt]

Not necessarily. There are representations of a garment which is not armor but which is, nevertheless, worn in battle. A tunic, for instance. So, the above images could represent a garment which was not armor or subarmalis, but which was warn in battle.

OH! I see what you mean! Okay, I'm good with that, though I think we're basically talking about the same thing, a garment which has evolved from the subarmalis but is no longer meant to be worn under armor nor offer *significant* protection from weapons, yet is still aping the appearance of either the armor or the subarmalis. I was thinking only for non-battle wear, but it is true that not everything worn in battle is armor! So yes, that's a possibility. HOWEVER, as much as I dislike making baseless assumptions, I still think that aristocrats would tend to wear actual armor in battle. So to me, "costume armor" would still be for non-battle or ceremonial events. Frankly, though, I still lean heavily towards the thing simply being a subarmalis--we know such a thing existed, so we shouldn't be surprised at seeing it.

I know you want to stay on topic, Dan, but since an awful lot of the argument for the leather cuirass is based on depictions like these floppy things, we're still more on track than some threads get!

Valete,

Matthew