front of the wearer’s person. In a suit of armour, however, since this important piece was generally worn in connexion with a corresponding defence for the back, the term cuirass commonly is understood to imply the complete body-armour, including both the breast and the back plates. Thus this complete body-armour appears in the middle ages frequently to have been described as a “pair of plates.” The corslet (Fr. corselet, diminutive of the O. Fr. cors, body), a comparatively light cuirass, is more strictly a breast-plate only. As parts of the military equipment of classic antiquity, cuirasses and corslets of bronze, and at later periods also of iron or some other rigid substance, were habitually in use; but while some special kind of secondary protection for the breast had been worn in earlier times by the men-at-arms in addition to their mail hauberks and their “cotes” armed with splints and studs, it was not till the 14th century that a regular body-defence of plate can be said to have become an established component of medieval armour. As this century continued to advance, the cuirass is found gradually to have come into general use, in connexion with plate defences for the limbs, until, at the close of the century, the long familiar interlinked chain-mail is no longer visible in knightly figures, except in the camail of the bassinet and at the edge of the hauberk. The prevailing, and indeed almost the universal, usage throughout this century was that the cuirass was worn covered. Thus, the globose form of the breast-armour of the Black Prince, in his effigy in Canterbury cathedral, 1376, intimates that a cuirass as well as a hauberk is to be considered to have been covered by the royalty-emblazoned jupon of the prince. The cuirass, thus worn in the 14th century, was always made of sufficient length to rest on the hips; otherwise, if not thus supported, it must have been suspended from the shoulders, in which case it would have effectually interfered with the free and vigorous action of the wearer. Early in the 15th century, the entire panoply of plate, including the cuirass, began to be worn without any surcoat; but in the concluding quarter of the century the short surcoat, with full short sleeves, known as the tabard, was in general use over the armour. At the same time that the disuse of the surcoat became general, small plates of various forms and sizes (and not always made in pairs, the plate for the right or sword-arm often being smaller and lighter than its companion), were attached to the armour in front of the shoulders, to defend the otherwise vulnerable points where the plate defences of the upper-arms and the cuirass left a gap on each side. About the middle of the century, instead of being formed of a single plate, the breast-plate of the cuirass was made in two parts, the lower adjusted to overlap the upper, and contrived by means of a strap or sliding rivet to give flexibility to this defence. In the second half of the 15th century the cuirass occasionally was superseded by the “brigandine jacket,” a defence formed of some textile fabric, generally of rich material, lined throughout with overlapping scales (resembling the earlier “imbricated” form) of metal, which were attached to the jacket by rivets, having their heads, like studs, visible on the outside. In the 16th century, when occasionally, and by personages of exalted rank, splendid surcoats were worn over the armour, the cuirass—its breast-piece during the first half of the century, globular in form—was constantly reinforced by strong additional plates attached to it by rivets or screws. About 1550 the breast-piece of the cuirass was characterized by a vertical central ridge, called the “tapul” having near its centre a projecting point; this projection, somewhat later, was brought lower down, and eventually the profile of the plate, the projection having been carried to its base, assumed the singular form which led to this fashion of the cuirass being distinguished as the “peascod cuirass.”
Corslets provided with both breast and back pieces were worn by foot-soldiers in the 17th century, while their mounted comrades were equipped in heavier and stronger cuirasses; and these defences continued in use after the other pieces of armour, one by one, had gradually been laid aside. Their use, however, never altogether ceased, and in modern armies mounted cuirassiers, armed as in earlier days with breast and back plates, have in some degree emulated the martial splendour of the body-armour of the era of medieval chivalry. Some years after Waterloo certain historical cuirasses were taken from their repose in the Tower of London, and adapted for service by the Life Guards and the Horse Guards. For parade purposes, the Prussian Gardes du Corps and other corps wear cuirasses of richly decorated leather.
CUIRASSIERS, a kind of heavy cavalry, originally developed
out of the men-at-arms or gendarmerie forming the heavy
cavalry of feudal armies. Their special characteristic was the
wearing of full armour, which they retained long after other
troops had abandoned it. Hence they became distinguished
as cuirassiers. The first Austrian corps of kyrissers was formed
in 1484 by the emperor Maximilian and was 100 strong. In
1705 Austria possessed twenty regiments of cuirassiers. After
the war of 1866, however, the existing regiments were converted
into dragoons. Russia has likewise in modern times abolished
all but a few guard regiments of cuirassiers. The Prussian
cuirassiers were first so called under Frederick William I., and in the wars of his successor Frederick the Great they bore a conspicuous part. After the Seven Years’ War they ceased to wear the cuirass on service, but after 1814 these were reintroduced, the spoils taken from the French cuirassiers being used to equip the troops. The cuirass is now worn only on ceremonial parades. In France the cuirassiers date from 1666, when a regiment, subsequently numbered 8th of the line, was formed. During the first Empire many regiments were created, until in 1812 there were fourteen. The number was reduced after the fall of Napoleon, but in modern times it has been again increased. The French regiments alone in Europe wear the cuirass on all parades and at manœuvres.
CUJAS (or Cujacius), JACQUES (or as he called himself, Jacques de Cujas) (1520–1590), French jurisconsult, was born at Toulouse, where his father, whose name was Cujaus, was a fuller. Having taught himself Latin and Greek, he studied law
under Arnoul Ferrier, then professor at Toulouse, and rapidly gained a great reputation as a lecturer on Justinian. In 1554 he was appointed professor of law at Cahors, and about a year after L’Hôpital called him to Bourges. Duaren, however, who also held a professorship at Bourges, stirred up the students against the new professor, and such was the disorder produced
in consequence that Cujas was glad to yield to the storm, and accept an invitation he had received to the university of Valence. Recalled to Bourges at the death of Duaren in 1559, he remained there till 1567, when he returned to Valence. There he gained a European reputation, and collected students from all parts
of the continent, among whom were Joseph Scaliger and de
Thou. In 1573 Charles IX. appointed Cujas counsellor to the parlement of Grenoble, and in the following year a pension was bestowed on him by Henry III. Margaret of Savoy induced him to remove to Turin; but after a few months (1575) he once more took his old place at Bourges. But the religious wars drove him thence. He was called by the king to Paris, and permission was granted him by the parlement to lecture on civil law in the university of the capital. A year after, however, he finally took up his residence at Bourges, where he remained till his death in 1590, in spite of a handsome offer made him by Gregory XIII. in 1584 to attract him to Bologna.
The life of Cujas was altogether that of a scholar and teacher. In the religious wars which filled all the thoughts of his contemporaries he steadily refused to take any part. Nihil hoc ad edictum praetoris, “this has nothing to do with the edict of the praetor,” was his usual answer to those who spoke to him on the subject. His surpassing merit as a jurisconsult consisted in the fact that he turned from the ignorant commentators on Roman law to the Roman law itself. He consulted a very large number of manuscripts, of which he had collected more than 500 in his own library; but, unfortunately, he left orders in his will that his library should be divided among a number of purchasers, and his collection was thus scattered, and in great part lost. His emendations, of which a large number were published under the title of Animadversiones et observationes, were not confined to lawbooks, but extended to many of the Latin and Greek classical
