Historical European Martial Arts, Arms & Armour

https://historicalfencingschools.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/historical-schools-of-fencing-in-europe-spanish-school-of-fencing/  Excerpt:

Much like the Italian Schools who were spread out over multiple republics and even some kingdoms, the term Spanish school is actually technically incorrect as the schools were much more regional. For a brief window during the late medieval/renaissance period the entire peninsula was even under one crown. The various masters came from Spain and Portugal and they were much in dialogue with each other, and in competition.

According to Mele, early records are “scant” and “focus entirely on mounted combat”. German and Italian sources featured mounted combat but much more rarely compared to combat on foot. One early source was Dom Duarte of Portugal written in 1423, the work was not a manual on fencing but instead on how a knight should train. Duarte’s second work was on horsemanship, jousting and some wrestling. This emphasis on mounted combat would continue with writers such as Ponc de Menaguerra of Valencia and Juan Quixada de Reayo.

When genuine fencing manuals arrived it was the 16th century and within Spain they seem to have had an immediate schism. As much as there was a shared tradition and language between Iberian fencers there was a volatile rivalry between the established La Verdadera Destreza (True Art/True Skill) started by Jerónimo Carranza and the common fencers (esgrima común) who are thought to be vulgar swordsmen who had acquired bad habits from foreigners and whose work was not scientifically sound. To a Destreza practitioner the accepted science appeared to be grounded in a classical education particularly Aristotle’s cause and effect.

Neon Knight wrote:




https://historicalfencingschools.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/historical-schools-of-fencing-in-europe-spanish-school-of-fencing/  Excerpt:

Much like the Italian Schools who were spread out over multiple republics and even some kingdoms, the term Spanish school is actually technically incorrect as the schools were much more regional. For a brief window during the late medieval/renaissance period the entire peninsula was even under one crown. The various masters came from Spain and Portugal and they were much in dialogue with each other, and in competition.

According to Mele, early records are “scant” and “focus entirely on mounted combat”. German and Italian sources featured mounted combat but much more rarely compared to combat on foot. One early source was Dom Duarte of Portugal written in 1423, the work was not a manual on fencing but instead on how a knight should train. Duarte’s second work was on horsemanship, jousting and some wrestling. This emphasis on mounted combat would continue with writers such as Ponc de Menaguerra of Valencia and Juan Quixada de Reayo.

When genuine fencing manuals arrived it was the 16th century and within Spain they seem to have had an immediate schism. As much as there was a shared tradition and language between Iberian fencers there was a volatile rivalry between the established La Verdadera Destreza (True Art/True Skill) started by Jerónimo Carranza and the common fencers (esgrima común) who are thought to be vulgar swordsmen who had acquired bad habits from foreigners and whose work was not scientifically sound. To a Destreza practitioner the accepted science appeared to be grounded in a classical education particularly Aristotle’s cause and effect.

Swordsmanship is serious business. lol I'm actually a little partial to esgrima comun, which seems less rigid and more adaptive. Thanks for posting. They were very interesting.

Fighting with medeival armor. You may have seen this already as it's been up for many years and it has garnered lots of views, but it is interesting none the less!

No, I hadn't seen that ^ - a nice bit of entertainment They should have an entire Olympic Games with all the competitors wearing medieval armour (maybe apart from the swimming events, where they can dress up as court jesters).

There was a question in the newspaper I read about who would win in a fight between Napoleonic riflemen and medieval archers. The first answerer said the archers would win at a long distance and the riflemen at a shorter one. Then he said if they were skirmishing in woodland, a rifleman would probably defeat an archer at close quarters with his bayonet attachment, but a later answer disputed this, saying that the archer would have the advantage wielding his more manoeuverable sword with its two-foot blade (which he would have carried as a back-up weapon).

Wikipedia:

The British 1796 Heavy Cavalry Trooper's Sword was a direct copy of the Austrian pallasch sword pattern of 1769 for heavy cavalry (it later received an iron scabbard (1775), in which form it was adopted by the British). John Le Marchant, a cavalry officer who designed the curved 1796 pattern light cavalry sabre, undoubtedly saw the Austrian weapon in use during the Low Countries Campaign of 1793-95, when he also made many drawings of Austrian cavalry equipment. His initial intention was that his own sword design should be adopted by all the cavalry; however, this was denied by the decision of the board of general officers to arm the heavy cavalry with a straight sword. It is probable, once a straight sword had been decided upon, that he then suggested the Austrian sword as a model . . .

The trooper's sword, and the officer's undress sword, was a dedicated cutting weapon with a broad heavy blade and was renowned as being completely unfit for delicate swordsmanship. This was also the foundation for respect it gained from those who appreciated it; most cavalry troopers used the blades like bludgeons and the guards as knuckle dusters (as Le Marchant observed) and the 1796 was significantly more suited for this than most other swords.

Two interesting videos about the use of weapons in home defence:

Relating to those two ^ videos, here's a recent news story about an ordinary woman using a sword in home defence. But in this case one of the three intruders did a rather stupid thing!


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9064995/Woman-armed-samurai-sword-confront-masked-burglars-trying-steal-42k-Audi.html  Quoting:

She and her husband had bought the samurai sword as an ornament, but Miriam Carrington told yesterday how she ended up using it as a razor-sharp weapon when masked burglars raided her home. The 56-year-old, who knew how to hold the 3ft sword only from watching the film Kill Bill, wielded it to such effect that one of the burglars almost bled to death after he grabbed the blade, which sliced into his hands. A judge backed her actions, saying it was self-defence.

Mrs Carrington and her husband Martin, 52, bought the weapon for £80 on the internet ten years ago because they are interested in Japanese culture. Mr Carrington took it from the bedroom wall to scare three intruders who demanded the keys to their £40,000 Audi S3 in a 5.30am raid on their home in Shipley, Bradford, in October. He told his wife to hide in the bathroom and call 999 but instead she pulled the weapon from its sheath and chased the intruders outside as they fled in a bid to delay their escape. One of the gang, Rehan Malik, 23, suffered a severe wound as he tried to snatch the sword.

‘I was really scared, but had no idea the blade was so sharp and I didn’t think the idiot would grab the blade,’ Mrs Carrington said after Malik was jailed at Bradford Crown Court. ‘I certainly had never held it as a weapon before. I suppose I just went into crazy mode. I held the blade towards him to stop him moving and then the silly idiot, who was wearing gloves, grabbed the blade with both hands. I then pulled it back towards me and that is when it has sliced through his hands.’

The gang escaped in their own car but instead of going to the local hospital they drove 30 miles to Barnsley, where a nurse told Malik he would have died from blood loss without medical attention.

Mrs Carrington was absolved of any blame for the burglar’s life-changing injuries by the judge who jailed Malik for three years and eight months. Judge Jonathan Rose told him: ‘You have no one at all to blame for the injuries to your hands other than yourself.’ The court heard how police caught him after making inquiries at hospitals in the area. Malik, of Bradford, admitted burglary as well as driving offences relating to an incident in April when he was pursued by police at up to 90mph. Shufqat Khan, defending, said Malik, who spent five days in hospital, suffered severed nerves in his hands. ‘For now he has lost feeling in both of those hands and there is a possibility that may be for ever,’ he said.



Mrs Carrington, who works with her husband for a school broadband provider, said: ‘I was never under any suspicion of using too much force and the police who arrived said immediately that I had acted in self-defence. ‘But I do have a conscience and I don’t think I could have coped if he’d died.’ Mr Carrington said of the sword, which is some 3ft long, 2ft of it blade: ‘We’d never really had it out of the sheath and had never used it to cut anything. We had no idea how sharp it was.’

These photos from medieval outfit catalogues show a nice way of carrying axes - through a ring on a belt. I don't know how historically authentic that is. The smaller axe looks comfortable enough in that position but I would need convincing that the larger one could be so carried without being a significant drag weight or without the haft banging against the leg.