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One of our readers sent the email below today asking if we could help identify the object in the photo’s. Given we have thousands of visitors interested in armour I thought I’d open this request up to everyone.

Please read the email and leave a comment if you know what it is, thanks.

Email:

As a young boy, I was helping with the restoration of a chapel spire. Whilst clearing up centuries of ‘junk’ I found an interesting piece of leather work, and was so intrigued by it, I was allowed to keep it as a souvenir.

In brief, this piece of leather work is a very thick reinforced dome (approx 4 inches in diameter). It has fastenings protruding from it, one with a buckle, one just a thick leather lace. The upper face of the dome has obvious wear marks, and has clearly been used as a form of protection.

I recently saw a documentary that mentioned that in medieval times, armour was often stored in church spires. This lead me to think that my object may be a piece of under-armour, and from the shape of it, the only place I can think it would fit would be on the shoulder.

I was hoping that you may be able to offer a more knowledgeable opinion, and I note that your article states that no known examples of spaulders survive – if my description raises your interest, I would be glad to send you detailed photographs to help identification.

Please leave a comment below if you know what it might be.