the.com/pauldron
the shoulder pad that turned medieval knights into the original menacing silhouette.
means A piece of plate armor that covers the shoulder, often extending over the upper arm and the gap where arm meets torso.
from From Middle English 'poldron,' borrowed from Old French 'espaul(l)eron,' a diminutive built on 'espaule' — shoulder — which descends from Latin 'spatula,' a broad flat blade or shoulder blade (itself a little 'spatha,' or sword). So the word for the armored shoulder traces back, oddly enough, to a kitchen-and-battlefield root meaning 'flat blade.' It's a close cousin of 'epaulette,' the decorative shoulder ornament that softened the same idea into braid and tassels.
- job
- Guards shoulder, the body's most exposed swing zone
- name origin
- From Old French espaule, meaning shoulder
- asymmetry
- Often uneven to free the sword arm
- layered design
- Overlapping lames slid like armadillo plates
- modern afterlife
- Now obligatory on every sci-fi space marine
henry viii's armor — royal workshop greenwich produced ornate pauldrons for the king's jousting armor, 1544
maximilian armor suit — fluted steel pauldrons characteristic of 16th-century holy roman emperor's personal armor collection