Talk:tuille

Francis Michael Kelly, Shakespearian Costume (1970), opines that this is ahistorical: " […] As for "tuiles" and "tuilettes", armour till Meyrick never knew of such a term. One had hoped it by now once and for all decently interred, thanks mainly to Mr C. R. Beard. […] " The MED has two Middle English attestations but it is not entirely obvious whether the MED's interpretation of the meaning is right, given the variety of other homographic words which could be meant. - -sche (discuss) 00:51, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

The old OED has:

• Tuille, tuile (twīl). Forms: 5-7 toile, 7 toyle, 9 tuille, tuile. [a. F. tuile, OF, tieule, in 15th c. teuille, L. tegula TILE, plaque.] In mediaeval armor, One of two or more plates of steel hanging below, or forming the lowest part of, the tasses, and covering the front of the thighs.

  c 1400 Destr. Troy 6420: Ector..come..þere the corse lay, Wold haue Robbit the Renke of his riche wede With the ton hond in the toile tyrnyt it offe.

  a 1470 Tiptoft, in Segar, Hon. Mil. & Civ. III. li. (1602) 189: Who so hitteth the Toyle three times, shall haue no prize.

  1688 R. Holme, Armoury III. xix. (Roxb.) 180/2.

modern quotes

• 1834 Planche, Brit. Costume 195: Tuiles, plates depending from the taces or skirt of the armour in front, over an apron of chain-mail, are first visible at this period [of Henry VI].

  1869 Boutell, Arms & Arm. viii (1874) 147: Over the flanks, on each side of the figure, to the faudes or races was appended a plate, or small shield, or gardefaude (in England called a tuille), which would cover the front of the thigh. [...]

• Tuillette, tuilete [...] A small tuille.

  1869 Boutell, Arms & Arm. x. (1874) 205: [In the effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick] besides two large tuilles, there are two smaller ones or tuillettes.

  1882 Athenaeum 26 Aug. 278/3: Tuilettes are..generally later than 1406.

The Middle English Dictionary defines toile, toille, tele as a piece of armor "consisting of one or more steel plates hanging down from the lower edge of the breastplate to protect the thighs", citing the same Destr. Troy quote and

• 1467 Doc[ument] in Bentley Excerpta Hist. 181: We shall assemble on hors armyd ych at his pleasure..And we shall ren withoute any toille [vr. tele; F toille] with groundyn Spere hedis oon course.

(Both French toile and Middle English toile could also mean cloth, Middle English toile could also mean conflict or battle (toil?), and Middle English tol, toil could also mean tool, or "handheld weapon, such as a sword, an ax, a mace, etc.; also, a platform used as an instrument or apparatus of war".)

MW says the French word (in this meaning) seems to occur only in "an account of a tournament held in 1467 between Lord Scales and the Bastard of Burgundy [...] The English version of the same account provides one of the two citations" in the MED (the text from Bentley's Excerpta Historica). MW says the meaning is not found in dictionaries of medieval (Middle) French ("Tobler-Lommatzsch, Godefroy, Dictionnaire du moyen français, Anglo-Norman Dictionary").

- -sche (discuss) 02:36, 6 January 2022 (UTC)