Obs. [Of uncertain origin: perhaps orig. an error.] A name applied by Hall (a. 1548) to some part of the body-armor; thence, by modern antiquaries taken as a name for the vertical central ridge of the breastplate.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. IV., 12. One company had the plackard,… the tasses, the lamboys, the backpece, the tapull, and the border of the curace all gylte. [Meyrick, Anc. Armour (1824), II. 258, commenting says ‘Perhaps the projecting edge perpendicularly along the cuirass, from the French taper, to strike.’ Hence the following:]
1834. Planché, Brit. Costume, 243. The breast-plate was still [reign of Hen. VIII] globose, but towards the end of this reign rose to an edge down the centre called the tapul—a revival of an old fashion.
1869. Boutell, Arms & Arm., ix. (1874), 155. A ridge (in England called the tapul) which divides the breast-plate and cuirass into two compartments, and is carried out to a point … over the middle of the body.
1870. C. C. Black, trans. Demmin’s Weapons of War, 226.
1896. E. J. Brett, Anc. Arms & Armour, Plate 1.
1709. Ashdown, Arms & Armour, 283.
