The sport should be the ideal of swordfighting and we shouldn’t count blows that might have incapacitated someone in real life combat, we should recognize great technique that would have devastated an opponent in real life.
Thrusts should land and show the potential for penetration, cuts should be controlled hits that demonstrate accuracy and targeting.
Harder more important targets should be scored higher and a skilled fighter should choose to attack these targets to demonstrate his skill.
We made it back from the Great Pennsic War at last. 2 weeks of camping can make a man long for the luxuries of home. Darkwood Armory did well. I had a chance to meet with a number of friends throughout the week, and to talk about many of the things that interest me the most, namely, martial arts, armor, and reenactment.
Overall the war was its typical self full of the best and the worst of the SCA. Actually that is not really fair, much of the worst cannot be blamed on the SCA anymore. Since the Pennsic War is open to anyone who pays their money, lots of people with no Idea what the SCA does are coming.
We have always had the Tuchux (folks who try to recreate Norman’s Gor series), and we have Markland (an east coast group that does medieval reenacment type stuff) and Acre (an SCA splinter group), But now we have pirates, Folks who don’t even have a clue what the SCA is or does. We even have an S&M group that sets up camp for a local Meet and Beat. I find it really a shame.
The SCA itself seems to be on a downturn as well. My friends from all over the US say that the SCA is only appealing to an older crowd, and participation is dwindling. Many longtime players are finding other things to do with their time. I am certainly finding things that interest me far outside the purviews of the SCA.
A friend of mine used a turn of phrase that I have stolen, he told me he was looking for a better medieval experience. He was looking towards some WMA groups and wasn’t getting any help. He is a longtime player and a peer but isn’t enjoying the local group. He, like myself, wants to do more and keeps getting resistance. So here I come with an Idea. At home I can no longer start a sentence with the phase “I ‘ve been thinking” as it causes people to run, but …….
What if there was an event, a narrow focus event, covering only 100 years? What if, in order to participate, you had to wear period correct clothes and shoes? What if horses were a part of the event like they were a part of medieval life? What if, we did our fighting with steel or tourney clubs, on horseback and foot?
Would you come? if so how many people would you tell and expect to come with you? Those I asked typically said they would, and said that they knew people who would also come. So now I am on a quest to see if it can really be done. I am starting to build a new website just for it and maybe, just maybe, we can replace a war with sticks and pirates with a Passage at Arms that will rekindle the spirit of the middle ages.
A few pics of stuff I want to outfit my company with.
An early 15th century hurlbat. Solid iron with steel edges it was for throwing at an opponent. It always stuck and even had a belt hook (shown broken off in the picture)
Rondel and ballock daggers as well as some late basilards.
Flails are cool! Be neat to make as well. Very authoritative weapon.
These Knights have a couple of different style of fauld that our new guys should look to make. The company is providing the breastplates, but our new guys will need to purchase or construct their own fauld.
Probably not a bad thing to have in any fight. A hammer like this:
I really consider this weapon to be the ultimate self defense tool. Armed with this hammer I would be willing to face any form of unarmed, knife or stick wielding opponent. I suspect that I would be confident to face most anything outside of a gun. I am fast and have a plan. I can hurt you through armor, If I could carry it around that way, I’d have a spike on top but As it stands, I can use it as a cane and can carry it about anywhere I go out side of maybe an airport. As my friend Tim suggested, a solid fiber reinforced plastic version of this would make a cane you could literally carry anywhere. What a fine, always available weapon.
A steel buttcap with a sharp pyramidal point can shatter teeth with a thrust when the hammer is used like a spear from the spear section of Fiore’s Armizare, or posta vera croce. The hammer is swung in a fast snapping Fendedente either mandritta or reversi (from the right or the left). The reversi fendente is only possible because of the short length of the hammer. if it was a longer length weapon, I wouldn’t want to make a reversi (from the left) fendent. The back of the stick bind up if you go to the ground as fiore suggests will happen if you strike these fast fendendte’s.
Fiore offers no remedys for he poleax section other than the master of the posta/gaurdia. Fiore suggests that the scholars are the scholars of the plays that arrise form the posta. so the remedy/s is/are to move from posta to posta and see where these techniques can arrise form the positions that you and your opponents weapons fall at any one time. I believe Fiore is silent on this remedy for one of the following reasons:
Post Breve and Posta di Vera Croce have the hands in the other position right hand in the back and left hand by the head they oppose each other and one can moved one to the other by performing a metza volta . One position is ideal for thrusts, one has a strong que to perform parrying actions and to use the remedy of the sword in armor.
The next pair are the conventional grip, strong hand in front by the weight. Hard mandritta fendentes, quick thrusts and attack from underneath from Fiores guardia Porta di Ferro mezzana, He says we know this game by now and the winner is the one who is smarter and quicker and more deceitful. He offers some advise on how to use a sword against an axe in the knock ’em out of the park position of attack. Move off-line and attack the face with the thrust. Good advise.
The next two paired masters are the coda longa and the left posta di finestra. NOTE: this is not the left posta di Donna!! even though it looks like it should be– it is not because he doesn’t want you to throw a left (sinestra) fendente! This technique will get you hung up. Try it! You will find that you get yourself in a bind with the end of the axe. So instead Fiore teaches you to pass backward and move to either posta porta di ferro mezzana or posta di donna then delivering a blow from there. This is done while moving away from your opponent to keep you safe, and it can offer an enticing point for your opponent to attack. This can be met with a big hit if you time you movement and their attempt to strike you, in your favor. It makes a good counter to coda longs which can deliver hard fendente, and face it, it is like chopping wood and can hit hard enough to push any other attack to the ground which is the first scholar of these masters.
I am very interested in getting a response to this question. The helmets are German, from around 1430, and consistant with drawing of helmets from other books, but to my knowledge there are none of these in any museum I know of.
I can see an armet, there is one with a similar hight neck and a rounded pierced visor. The roundel could even protect a hinge to allow the faceplate to be removed like a bascinet. The other thing they might be is a closed helmet with bevor or wrapper pivoting on the same hinge as the visor. This is what my wife sees.
Could it be
A great Bascinet? This one is from about 1440. it has a good foot combat visor on it. It even has a catch.
An early Armet.
There is only one of these. It is German from about the same time period as the paintings. I think it is the most likely possibility
for these helmets, but where are the rondels?
Something we have no extant versions of.
Here are your rondels. What is it, it is an artists rendering of something dawn or carved. There are more. Has something in common with the pics.
Very good question wouldn’t you say?
Folks,
I hate this guy. Every time I get an idea about something to write, Will has done it better, it better researched, and more complete than I can hope to achieve. One particular example of stuff of his that is cool, the deeds of arms, I particlarly like the 15th century ones.
Check his stuff out. It will take you a year to get caught up, and by that time I might have written something worth writing.
Gregor Medvesek, has released an English translation of Andres Lignitzer’s wresting treatise. Gregor is an instructor of the Schola Pugnatoria along with Igor Sancin, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Dijon in 2011. Gregor says that there is really no information on Lignitzer’s life or death but that he is mentions in many treatises and was mentioned a a master by Paulus Kal
The text on wrestling according to Lignitzer is preserved only in three fighting manuals: in the before mentioned Codex Danzig (Cod.44.A.8; Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Rim), in Glasgow Fechtbuch (MS_E. 1939.65.341, Glasgow museums, Glasgow) and in so called Goliath (MS Germ. Quart 2020; Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Krakov). Since the text from Danzig is the most thorough, this translation is based on it. However, I took into consideration the other two versions as well and explained the most significant differences in the footnotes.
The entire article can be found here: http://scholapugnatoria.si/?page_id=967
One of the techniques I found interesting was the following:
The third technique
When you clinch up at the arms as before, make sure that your left hand is on the inside of his right arm and that your right hand is on the outside of his left arm. Strike his left hand from underneath with your right hand so that you have it on your right shoulder. Spring with your right leg in front of his left leg and wrap your right arm from the outside around his left arm. Help your right arm with your left hand and turn yourself away from him to your left side.
This is a method of moving to Fiore’s remedy, and following it up with the first technique. it turns into a shoulder crank and with the proper action a dislocation.
Now for the fun part.
The counter
When someone does this to you and pushes your left arm on his neck, slip your left arm over his head and in front of his chest. Grab his left arm with your left hand and reach behind his right knee from the outside with your right hand. Lift his knee joint up and push him down to your left side with your left arm. This is how you throw him on his back.
I have typically explained a counter to the remedy as a single arm throw, (See the 6th wrestling) rather than the knee lift and dump, but this works as well (perhaps better as the natural turning of the opponents body is not counter to the action as the single arm throw is)
But as Fiore would have it, he provides a counter to the counter by way of his third play. As the opponent slips his left arm over your head and reaches for your left arm, you shoot your right arms across his neck and use your left arm to lift his knee. The pics even show the opponents left hand grabbing your left arm.
The problem we have as historical martial artists is that Fiore didn’t say why your opponent might seek to remove his arm from your neck, other than he didn’t want it broken. I try to give a reason for the person to do so, especially a reason that ends in that person winning. In wrestling opponents are seeking advantages, and you must provide one if you want the technique to have any real meaning.
It would be hard to determine if the stick or the rock was man’s first weapon, but it is apparent that the stick is still used as a weapon today. Similarly it was used in medieval Italy. Fiore shows a few plates where he explains the use of a stick for self defense. Fiore describes two different stick weapons he uses, a bastioncello and the club. The bastioncello is a little stick. The club, is a… well, a club. The Getty manuscript has a play where the master has a club in each hand, following the use of the staff and dagger. Finally there is the spear and the axe. These are staff weapons but they can show us how Fiore would employ weapons of similar size and striking ability.
Fiore gives us four plays in which he shows the uses of the short stick, which are two particularly advantageous grapples at the stick, and two ways to use a stick, hat , rope or other instrument of that length to defend using different masters of the dagger. Other than this, there is no other reference to the bastioncello.
So how do you use a bastioncello i.e. a small stick?
Fiore illustrates another play in which the master is beset by someone with a staff and he is holding two clubs, one in each hand. The left club is held low and across the body in a Coda Longa position, and the other is held in Posta di Donna. The master tells us to throw the right club at the opponents face while using the left club to sweep the attack by. He shows a picture of the master stabbing the assailant in the chest with the dagger (which I assume he has drawn from his side) while passing or blocking the staff with the left hand.
Interesting note: while delving into other aspects of my research I discovered that near the area of Italy that Fiore was from, came a group of naked warriors of (Germanic or Celtic in nature depending on the time period), that used a club and shield and were used to counter armored soldiers. They relied on the weight of their clubs and the protection given by the shield and mobility of being unencumbered to counter armored troops who were well protected against sharp weapons. These men were know to throw their clubs and then draw a secondary short sword (that was worn on the right) after delivering the club throw.
Could this technique be a throwback (pun intended) to that time?
The stick has not lost its effectiveness over time for dissuading an assailant, and the clubs that Fiore is packing look like they would do some serious damage, especially with the knots. The ragged staff has long been a heraldic charge and thus was well known. Perhaps the club was still a favored weapon of the region, but it was certainly in use by those who needed to defend themselves and couldn’t afford or obtain more effective weapons.
Self defense is about psychology, as much as training. Once you know what the attacker wants, you have time, and time is your friend. With time comes the possibility of taking initiative. With initiative come the possibility of success.
Thursday I received a new hammer from Tinman Technologies I haven’t gotten it all working as well as I’d like, Kent says I will need to shim it a bit, but it is amazing the power that it possesses. I can’t wait to try some of my idea with it. It has enough power to raise 12 gauge cold. I am planning on trying to make some of the elbow and gauntlet parts by raising rather than cut and weld. We will see if that can save me some time.
I will be rebuilding my armorers-supply.com website as soon as Pennsic is over with, in an attempt to offer the armoring world a place to buys tools and cut parts, patterns and such, This is for guys getting into armoring as well as experienced armorers who need to get parts cut and shaped. By using both the Pullmax and the Air hammers, I will be able to supply basically shaped parts for people to finish on their own. With the new battle of Nations thing going on, I expect it will increase the interest in real armor throughout the US.
Hope so, the hammer was expensive.