The Sword in Two Hands

2014

Class notes for a seminar given at the 2014 Schola Saint George Swordsmanship Symposium, Dallas, TX. Examines the hanging guard for the sword in one hand through the lens of Fiore dei Liberi's 1409 treatise, Fior di Battaglia, both as a practical training tool for teaching swordmanship and as an exercise in using Fiore's principles to analyze aspects not presented in the text. Second half of the presentation analyzes Fiore's use of the sword in one hand as preserved in the treatise.

2018

ABSTRACT The three publications offered for evaluation, Veni Vadi Vici, Mastering the Art of Arms vol 1: The Medieval Dagger, and The Duellist’s Companion, establish by example the relatively young discipline of the accurate recreation of historical martial skills. This discipline includes the following elements: • Textual analysis of historical sources (Veni Vadi Vici). • Image analysis for the purpose of establishing details of the execution of the illustrated action (all three works). • Mechanical or kinesthetic analysis of the actions described and depicted (The Medieval Dagger, The Duellist’s Companion). • Determination of the historical and combat context in which the system is intended to work. In these cases, a formal duel or tournament contest between knights (Veni Vadi Vici, The Medieval Dagger), or illegal but socially acceptable unarmoured duelling (The Duellist’s Companion). • Observation of the overall tactical and mechanical preferences of the martial system represented (The Medieval Dagger, The Duellist’s Companion). • Organisation of the material into a syllabus for study and practice (The Medieval Dagger, The Duellist’s Companion). The submitted works demonstrate the discipline as applied to the extant works of three historical masters: Philippo Vadi (ca 1440–1500), Fiore dei Liberi (ca 1350–1420), and Ridolfo Capoferro (ca 1557–1620). The unified body of work is the approach to the material as represented by these books. The submitted works: 1. Veni Vadi Vici (2013) is a transcription, translation and commentary on the late 15th-century Italian manuscript De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. It makes the content of the manuscript available to anglophone non-paleographers, in a transparent way. The translation itself has also been released as a free download, with the original images in colour reproduction. 2. Mastering the Art of Arms vol 1: The Medieval Dagger (2012) is a practical syllabus for understanding and executing the dagger combat skills represented in Fiore dei Liberi’s 1410 manuscript Il Fior di Battaglia. It includes detailed reference to the source, but also provides a template for martial skill development, such as ways to gradually increase the intensity and complexity of the drill until it approaches an actual combat environment. 3. The Duellist’s Companion (2006) is a training guide for the style of rapier combat represented in Ridolfo Capoferro’s 1610 work Gran Simulacro dell’Arte e dell’uso della scherma. Rapier mechanics and actions are refined and complex, so this book covers mechanics in some detail, and provides comprehensive instructions for making Capoferro’s techniques and theory accessible to the modern reader. Taken as a whole, these publications represent a new form of manuscript study: the recreation from textual sources of our hitherto lost martial heritage, and the development of a pedagogical method by which these arts can be safely taught and practised.

Acta Periodica Duellatorum, APD6/1, pp. 183-199, 2018

For many years, various associations in France have been working on a new way to practice their historical martial hobbies with swords. Free sparring and competition have been and always will be good tools, but from a technical and tactical standpoint they are maybe quite distant from the original sources and historical documents. Some techniques and other material from martial arts manuals and treatises are often neglected or considered to be too academic. In fact, if the idea of martial opposition is present, we cannot say that today's practices are a rebuilding of any historical practices, whether playful or serious. Based on this observation, my doctoral work, in collaboration with the REGHT association 1 , has led us to propose a new school of practices based on a new reading of martial arts manuals. The project is aimed at anybody who uses a bladed weapon as part of their studies of historical fencing, principally in the form of sparring and friendly competitions. Its name: the Convention of the Sword Players.

demonstrates that definition for "sword dance" has an ideological connotation, is based on poor analytical instruments and gives rise to ambiguous interpretations. Distinction is made between the blunt swords used by thespadonari, the symbolic swords of the lacché and mattaccini, or those evoked only by gestures, in ruggeri and in rota. The paper also reports upon a new function given to sword dance in Italy by the fascist ideology and the change of meanings and connections. Finally there is an attempt to clarify the semantic use of the word moresca, followed by linking dance practice and dance motives to establish what is a "sword dance," a "moresca" or a "fight dance."

A. Willemsen und H. Kik (Hrsg.), Dorestad and its networks. Communities, Contact and Conflict in Early Medieval Europe. Papers on Archaeology from the Leiden Museum of Antiquities 25, 2021

This article will seek to argue that Bolognese sword and buckler, in particular that of Achille Marozzo, which encompassed the styles of Northern Italy during the Renaissance period, was performed "in the manner of the Turk" evidenced by aspects such as individual forms and the hitting of the pommel and blade on the buckler. This occurred as a result of emulating Ottoman sword and shield dancing, which still survives today in the form of Bursa kilij-kalkan; the product of this can be seen in the fashion of a la Turca (or Alla turchesca) which sought to emulate aspects of the Ottoman Empire in relation to both its power projection and perceived exoticness, something which would be made fashionable in Western Europe from the Renaissance onwards.

Short catalogue to a small exhibition of historical books on fencing and dueling from the library of the Arms and Armor Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and swords and other objects relating to them in the department's collection.