Harness
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia · John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
The defensive armor of a soldier or knight. All warlike instruments.
Hovend. 725.
In modern poetical sense a suit of armor. The term is sometimes used to denote the trappings of a war-horse. Harness was the early name for body armor of all kinds. Modern writers have tried to discriminate between harness as the armor of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and armor as confined to the plate suits of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but armor is the modern English word for defensive garments of all sorts, and harness in this sense, is a poetical archaism. Cent. Diet. The tackle or furniture of a ship.