Obs. exc. Hist. Only in pl. tasses, in 6 taisses, 6–7 tases, taces, 7 taishes. [In form the same word as OF. tasse purse, holster; in sense = F. tassette, obs. tassete, a small pocket or pouch, a steel plate intended to guard the thigh, dim. of tasse.
The connection of sense is not clear; but cf. It. scarsella a pocket; scarselloni bases or tasses for a horseman (Florio, 1611); Sp. escarcela, ‘escarcelle, gibier, bourse; aussi la tassette’ (Oudin, 1660): escarcela, a satchel, pouch, or bag; the armor from the waist to the thighs (Stevens, 1706).]
pl. A series of articulated splints or plates depending from the corslet, placed so that each slightly overlapped the one below it, forming a sort of kilt of armor to protect the thighs and the lower part of the trunk.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. IV., 12. One company had … the tasses, the lamboys, the backpece, the tapull and the border of the curace all gylte.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1676), 212. Their legs were armed with Greaves, and their thighs with Tases.
1581. Styward, Mart. Discipl., II. 165. To haue good curates for their bodies, taces for their thighes.
1596. Warner, Alb. Eng., XII. lxix. (1612), 291. The Taishes, Cushies, and the Graues, staffe, Pensell, baises.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, Gloss. 253. Taisses, a French word, and is the arming of the thighes, annexed vnto the forepart of the Corslet.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xix. (Roxb.), 166/1. Armour for the thighes, of the French called Cuissets, and Taces or Tasses, because they are tached or tacked on with straps of leather to the corslett.
1869. Boutell, Arms & Arm., x. (1874), 203. Below the waist, and there connected with the bottom of the breastplate, the body was protected by a series of narrow overlapping plates … denominated taces.
1888. F. Cowper, Capt. of Wight (1889), 337. The taces of his armour had saved his thigh.
