Subarmalis in the literary sources

[Robert Vermaat]

But the whole point of the Anonymous raising the issue of the thoracomachus is that he is proposing it be used as a defence in its own right.

Ah, but is he? The whole raison d'être of the thoracomachus in DRB 15 is that it acts as a protection for the body against the pressure and abrasiveness of armour.

Is it? The whole reason for it being mentioned in DRB is that the author in some way thought that he was inventing something new, or at least a new use for a known object. IF the thoracomachus was indeed nothing more than a subarmalis, something that was around for centuries, and used in that very same way as the anonymous described it, how could he see it as an invention?