hoguine

English

German costume armor backplate and hoguine c. 1525.

Etymology

From French hoguine (or a Middle or Old French predecessor), which by the mid-1600s denoted a culet. In earlier French texts the term denoted armor for the arms, thighs and/or lower legs; compare the Scots borrowing hogingis (1541), which the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue defines as "pieces of armour covering the arms, thighs and legs".

Of uncertain origin; compare Old French hoguette (“small barrel”), hoguinele, and French hoguiner (“annoy, torment, molest; thwart”); the FEW connects hoguine, hoguiner and houguette to Old Norse haugr (“hill”), but this is unconvincing from a semantic point of view.

Noun

hoguine (plural hoguines)

1. (historical) An item of armor worn in the 16th century, consisting of overlapping lames to protect the buttocks.

   Synonyms: culet, garde de rein

   • 1888, François Rabelais, The Sequel to Pantagruel: Being Books 3-5 Gargantua and the Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel [translated by T. Urquhart]:

     Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others made ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls, firebrands,

   • 1912, The Archaeological Journal, page 79:

     The lower part of the body is protected in front by the taces and behind by the hoguine (fig. 3). […] Those broad lames [of the taces[ have on the sinister side half-hinges corresponding to half-hinges on the sinister sides of the hoguine.

   • 1925, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Annual Report of the Trustees, page 22:

     Gifts include, from the Curator, state halberds and a back-plate, engraved and gilded, probably from the atelier of Seusenhofer; this belonged to one of the Princes Radzivil and remained in the possession of the family until recently. It is the sixth specimen retaining the hoguine.

   • 1987, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), The Renaissance in the North, Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 114:

     80 Backplate, Hoguine, and Sleeves German, ca. 1525 Steel, etched and partly gilt; 27 x 18 in. (68.6 x 45.7 cm.) (Backplate and hoguine) Gift of Bashford Dean. 1924 (24.179); (sleeves) Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness Fund, 1926 (26.188.12) […]

Further reading

• 1982 January 1, Helmut Nickel, Stuart W. Pyhrr, Leonid Tarassuk, The Art of Chivalry: European Arms and Armor from the Metropolitan Museum of Art : an Exhibition, New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 34:

  ... the thighs and backs of the knees were completely encased in articulated lames against hamstringing cuts, and the crotch was protected by either a flaring kneelength skirt or by tightly molded plates known as a hoguine.

• 2004, Kevin Grace, Tom White, Cincinnati Cemeteries: The Queen City Underground, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 295:

  The HOGUINE. A protection for the buttocks made of narrow plates articulated together.

French

Pronunciation

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /ɔ.ɡin/

Noun

hoguine f (plural hoguines)

1. hoguine
   • 1542, Œuvres de [François] Rabelais: Édition conforme aux derniers textes ... (Pierre Jannet). page 217:

     […] bruyt estoit que le bæuf salé faisoit trouver le vin sans chandelle, et feust il caiché au fond d’un sac de charbonnier, houzé et bardé avecques le chanfrain et hoguines requises à bien fricasser rusterie, c’est teste de mouton.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1544, Les loix, statutz et ordonnances royaulx faictes par les feuz roys de France, puis le règne de monseigneur sainct Loys, jusques au règne du roy Françoys, premier du nom, a present regnant. Les ordonnances, statutz & edictz, faictz par le roy Françoys, iusques en l'an mil cinq cents xliiii [...]:

     İtem veult & ordone le dict seigneur, que touts ceuls qui hauront doubles paies, haient hallecrets a grands tassettes, auec hoguines & sallades crestées. Pareilement ordone hicellui seigneur, que touts les harquebusiers haient chasqun grands gorgeris de mailes, & la secrete: Et tout le demourant des aultres gents de pied, hallecrets, hoguines & cerueillieres.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1652, Nathanaël Duez, Nova nomenclatura quatuor linguarum, Gallico, Germanico, Italico, et Latino idiomate conscripta ... postrema editio, emendatissima, page 215:

     Les hoguines ou culottes,  […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1621, César Oudin, Tesoro de los dos lenguas francese y espan̂ola...:

     Les hoguines d’un homme armé, […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1911, Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France Depuis Les Origines Jusqu'à la Révolution, page 86:

     L'armure défensive se composait du hallecret, de la hoguine […]

Further reading

• 1873, Pierre Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel [du XIXe Siecle] Francais: A-Z 1805-76, page 330:

  HOGUINE s. f. (o-ghi-ne; h asp.). Ancien art milit. Piéce de l’armure destinée à protéger différentes parties du corps et qui se rattachait à la cuirasse: La HOGUINE était formée de plusieurs lames mobiles, réunies par des charnières, et prenait place entre le plastron de la cuirasse et les cuissards , cette pièce d’armure élait surtout employée par les chevaliers combattant à pied [...]

  (please add an English translation of this quotation)