The Efficacy of Medieval Weapons Techniques

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 8:27 am

I decided to post this as an adjunct to other posts which have appeared here.

As a new but dedicated student of the techniques taught by Medieval masters in weapons use, I find that something interesting happens on this forum as well as many others. It is assumed that the Medieval techniques are not as good for SCA combat as the currently developed SCA techniques.

While this will always be true to some extent, I would like to say that it is apparent to me that with sufficient practice (and less that some have put into successful SCA techniques) one could become quite proficient and successful in SCA combat using Medieval techniques which are modified to meet SCA rules.

I was hoping this might open a discussion of what these techniques are and how they can be applied to SCA combat. If we are a Medieval recreation organization, and we have these techniques before us in black and white, I can see no reason not to adopt them immediately and abandon what we know is not Medieval.

If costume laurels suddenly discovered the difinitive evidence for how a bliaut was constructed, do you think they would continue to give highest points in competition to those who continued to make the garment in a way which is patently not Medieval?

Let the discussion begin :-)

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Conn MacNiell

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 9:38 am

Are there specific books you're using? It would be nice to be singing from the same hymnal, if we can.

Baron Logan · Post by **Baron Logan** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 9:55 am

I got a copy of Talhoffer a few weeks ago and have started to look at it for just that purpose. After Toys for Tots last weekend I came to at a couple of pointsâ€¦

1. I really want to be able to grab the blade during any kind of in fighting if the situation calls for it. I don't see any giant problems with modifying current SCA rules to reflect this. Plate 36 good example.
2. I almost want to make a SCA polearm that looks like a sword to try some of these techniques that involve the quillions and pommel.
3. I'm cutting down my 6' greatsword to better represent the lengths of the blades used in the manuals.
4. After the event I went home and decided again that the force represented in some of the techniques probably prohibits us from using them.
5. I've been trying buckler fighting for the last few months (inspired by I33) and have decided that it should be much more widespread. I've had more fun fighting with this weapons form because of both the difficulty in bringing the period manuals into my style and the fact that everyone I fight is still amazed that I'm bringing out this little shield to fight with. I did find that I tended to slip into period stances without knowing about them before hand. Plate 238 in Talhoffer is a good representation of what I see most buckler fighters use as an opening stance. What I would really like to start learning are the blade blocks (236) and how to fight with the "force" like the "One against two" guy in plates 240 and 241

. I also like the shield evolution from I33 to the ones that are designed to catch the blade in Talhoffer. They probably wouldn't work with 1 1/4 sticks.

Just for the record I'd like to say that I know SCA fighting has a few inaccuracies, but that I think its still the best and safest system developed to date. The nice thing is that it has shown it can evolve to fit the needs of the fighters (sometimes not fast enough for some people). The study of these manuals is a great place to start and I applaud anyone who tries it.

Logan of Seaforth

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 10:42 am

Excellent Gentlemen.

Yes, the new translation of Talhoffer 1467 by Mark Rector is wonderful. The Flos Duellatorum (Italian 1410) is a complete system. There dozens of other manuals, including Morozzo, DiGrassi and Silver who all cover unarmored combat (which for blow acknolwedgement purposes we are practicing in the SCA).

Some marshalates are more enlightened concerning the manual techniques. For instance, the Middle Kingdom allows 1/2 the blade length for ricasso, meaning you can grab half of yours and half of his - definitely a step in the right direction. They also allow pommel thrusters for touch convention face thrusting only.

I also find that many of the presa (presses), taglia (grabs to quillons, hilt and pommel), toro (disarms) and ligadura (manipulating the opponent's weapon so that it ties him in a pretzel - at which point you draw your dagger and finish him) work in SCA combat.

Most of all what works is the idea that there is no static blocking. You either displace his blade, slide his blade away, or counter cut into his cut. All of these methods mean danger for the opponent, rather than allowing them to reset into the next strike while you static block.

I am willing to travel and teach Fiore for anyone who is interested. It's far too exciting not to share :-)

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Conn MacNiell

Alcyoneus · Post by **Alcyoneus** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 11:45 am

Any idea why Talhoffer refers to grabbing the end of the sword and striking with the pommel as the "murder stroke?"

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 11:59 am

Ah,

Talhoffer's Mortschlag.

The heavier end of the weapon is being swung at them, and all the force will be concentrated on the end of the quillon in the top or side of your head.

Sounds pretty murderous :-)

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Conn MacNiell

Gethin · Post by **Gethin** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 1:44 pm

If it were me, the first thing that I would work towards is having the more "odd" traditions of Kingdom changed. For example, in the West, unless there is no defined edge at the forte of your long sword, you will lose the hand that grasps it. Anviling is another pet peeve of mine. Anviling in the West is defined as:
III. The Use of Weapons and Shields
C. Blows repeatedly blocked by a weapon in contact with a fighter's HELM, BODY, or SHIELD at the moment of impact may, at the discretion of the Crown or Marshallate, be considered to have broken the blocking weapon. This will force a fighter to forfeit the fight, unless a secondary weapon is carried or the opponent chooses to allow the fighter to rearm with another weapon." (From the Western combat conventions http://www.tssinc.net/~daniel/scaconv.htm#SCAConWeapons
Caps added by me for emphasis)
By this definition, the blocks (such as plate 236 from Talhoffer) in the manuals would be interpreted as Anviling.
The immediate remedy for this is to ask your opponnenet,the crown and head marshall to allow you to use this period technique and to have the herald announce it at the beginning of the bout. This would eleviate any question of breaking conventions.
The question is how hard is it to change tradition? In the West, We can be very conservative. I can also see an arguement from the more experienced fighter in regards to retraining. After spending so many years learning and refining SCA fighting techniques, they are faced with learning new techniques that can run contrary to what they know. Not a pleasing prospect.
Please understand that I do not want to be pessimistic, but raise the point of what is faced in this endeavor. I would dearly like to see these techniques incorporated into SCA fighting.
All the best,
Rhys

Jean Paul de Sens · Post by **Jean Paul de Sens** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 1:54 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Bob Charron:
Excellent Gentlemen.

Yes, the new translation of Talhoffer 1467 by Mark Rector is wonderful. The Flos Duellatorum (Italian 1410) is a complete system. There dozens of other manuals, including Morozzo, DiGrassi and Silver who all cover unarmored combat (which for blow acknolwedgement purposes we are practicing in the SCA).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I really like both Silver and DiGrassi. Silver's repudiation of the rapier in favor of the cut and thrust sword in amusing in my opinion. It also seems that many of his arguments are bore out know that more people are moving to the heavier blades (Del Tins' Schlagers) in rapier combat.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
Some marshalates are more enlightened concerning the manual techniques. For instance, the Middle Kingdom allows 1/2 the blade length for ricasso, meaning you can grab half of yours and half of his - \
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Ansteorra changed its rules so that great swords were allowed to be 7 foot or less, have ricassos, and have quillions of any size as long as they were documentable. Basically, make any great sword you want, and as long as it is mostly period, you good. GS is now a whole lot more fun and useful in single combat and in melees.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
-- snip --
I am willing to travel and teach Fiore for anyone who is interested. It's far too exciting not to share :-)

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Long trip from me to you, so although I'd love to come up and learn, I'll have to settle for asking you a bit more about Fiore. I am assuming this is a person, but if now who/what is Fiore?

TIA

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Jean Paul de Sens (JP)

And Shepherds we shall be
for thee my lord for thee
power hath descended forth from thy hand
so that my feet may swiftly carry out thy command
And we shall flow a river forth unto thee
And teeming with souls shall it ever be
In nomini patriath, fili, espritus sancti.

-The Boondock Saints

[This message has been edited by Jean Paul de Sens (edited 12-22-2000).]

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 1:55 pm

Your Grace,

Will you be present at Estrella war????

If so lets make arrangments for some lessons. I know of a few here in the Outlands who would be interested in seeing period technique brought to our fields...

Samuel

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 2:06 pm

Jean Paul,

Yes, I was speaking of Fiore dei Liberi, author of the Flos Duellatorum. Sorry about to much assuming.

Samuel,

I regret I will not be at Estrella. However, my wife and I were considering a vacation to Carlsbad Caverns, Grand Canyon and other sites in the Southwest. Perhaps we can make arrangements for a full day of teaching?

I very much appreciate that rules will have to be changed in SCA combat. However, I think that there are a few that can happen quickly if we provide over dozens of manuscript illuminations from manuals at arms showing people grabbing blades, for instance.

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Conn MacNiell

Patrick · Post by **Patrick** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 2:56 pm

Ya know, Conn... I bought the German-language reprinting of Talhoffer when V-S Books brought it out. Biggest improvement was my single-sword technique. When I started with a longsword (not as big as most SCA greatswords, a little bigger than most SCA bastard swords), I learned primarily out of Talhoffer. Nobody else around here was doing anything but sword and shield or sword and madu.

I agree with you whole-heartedly that medieval techniques do work well. I had one cheeseweasel with a madu and plastic armor inform me that I was not allowed to use my londsword the way I had been using it (one hand on the pommel) because it was a "shovel grip" and not defined in the combat standards. Seems to me the most resistance I saw was from it being something different from the "right" way to fight.

I would love to take you up on your offer to travel and teach. But I was the only fighter in Winter's Gate who seems to care about such things. And I am a retired fighter, now. (knee injury last Summer has put me permanently out of SCA combat. My wife would not be happy if I limped back in and started resuming the sport that gave me a handicapped parking pass.) Still, I hope others can take advantage of your willingness to teach these skills. This sort of thing is what I expected the SCA to be about when I joined.

-Patrick

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 3:19 pm

Your Grace,

We would love to have you teach at our event the weekend of April 20-22, 2001 near Greeneville TN. Details are in this thread: http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000026.html

Please contact me via email with any concerns, your class would be a wonderful and completely appropriate addition to our plans.

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 3:40 pm

Thorgrim,

Judging by the response to your post, there should be several archive members there - excellent.

I am waiting until the second week in January to find out which date in the Spring I am to teach in the San Francisco area. If the dates don't conflict, I'd be glad to see what I could do to come.

It's quite a drive from Madison, Wisconsin. Perhaps an airport close by?

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Conn MacNiell

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 5:09 pm

TriCities airport (Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City, TN) is less than an hour away.

Alaric · Post by **Alaric** » Fri Dec 22, 2000 5:41 pm

Being a fairly new fighter, and all of which has been done in an SCA context with period manuals as a source (besides my inintial S&Sh, my first authorization was poleaxe used as in Le Jeu de la Hache

) and with the incredible sucsess I've been having, I have to agree with his Grace that period manual style, modified slightly to fit our rules system, is immensely effective.

Le Jeu de la Hache, Talhoffer (if you haven't downloaded the version from the Museum of Copenhagen, since it isn't the same as the 1467 one being published, I can mail it to you) Flos Duellatorum (once again, I have a full scan of the 1410 version Greg Mele sent me, if anyone wishes for it.) and a collection of others HACA and AEMMA put online, are my bibles.

BTW, if you haven't fought baby great vs. matches between two people who have studied this stuff, you've never really fought. (IMO, there is just something about the adrenaline these superfast bouts have in them...)

Richard Blackmoore · Post by **Richard Blackmoore** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 12:53 am

Alaric & Conn. Its nice to see people offering to teach and help!

By the way, is the Flos Duellatorum available in a decent English translation yet? I've only seen bits an pieces in English and I don't read or speak the original lingo.

I do agree medieval techniques are worthy of study and I find them fascinating. I think that many do not translate well into SCA combat due to our cumbersome weaponry, gauntlets and odd rules of the list, but it never hurts to try. Some moves that don't work well with mitten gauntlets and a rattan greatsword work fine with finger gauntlets or leather gloves with an authentically gripped and balanced weapon.

I have particularly enjoyed playing with some of the greatsword and pole axe techniques from period manuals and found some techniques, particularly parries that help you get into position for an aggressive counterpunching attack to be particularly useful.

Fearghus Macildubh · Post by **Fearghus Macildubh** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 7:00 am

Three things i would change about SCA combat to make it more like what's in the various manuals. Allow blades to be gripped along most of thier length, allow strikes with the butt end of two handed weapons, not just butt spikes, and allow shield bashing.
Slainte,
Fearghus

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"How long should you fight? You fight until hell freezes
over. Then you fight on the ice."

Russ Mitchell · Post by **Russ Mitchell** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 11:55 am

Your Grace, (Bob? I'm still not used to using pseudonames... have to come up with something...)

I have a guest room in my flat in Dallas that's there specifically for folks coming through town. It's an air mattress, but we have a sheepskin or two, and would be very happy to host you for a day if you pass through Dallas. Would be a nice excuse for me to get off my butt midweek and get out to meet some of the local guys (they have a Wed. night practice) if they want to learn from you. I certainly would, and would be happy to swap what I've picked up from Durer's messer work, which is quite a big different from what I've seen people doing.

-Russ
(i'm in Budapest now, so my internet access will be spotty until January)

Alaric · Post by **Alaric** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 12:29 pm

Well, for anyone looking for sources:

Talhoffer's 1459 Fechtbuch

Zip of 1410 Flos Duellatorum

Enjoy.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Dec 23, 2000 1:15 pm

Could anyone give me dimensions on the sword used in Talhoffer's manual? Say, for instance, at the moment I have extra rattan, and would like to build an appropriate long/great sword. Any info on dimensions, length, quillion size, ricasso placement, etc would be extremely helpful.

If it is relavent to sword size I'm 5'9.

If there is no particular size, or sword style recommended in Talhoffer's work then dimensions of a historically accurate/time period appropriate, sword will be fine.

That way, I can at least build the sword.

Thanks.

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Matthew Broadway
Founder of The Armour Archive

Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst into laughter.

Asbjorn Johansen · Post by **Asbjorn Johansen** » Sun Dec 24, 2000 6:45 pm

Bob,

Where can you order the new translation of Talhoffer from?

Anyone have good sources for hard copies of the standards (ie Talhoffer, I33, etc.)

thanks in advance,

Asbjorn

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 8:41 am

Many of the manuals are available on-line at these sites or through their links:
www.thehaca.com www.aemma.com

You can obtain a fully translated copy of the Novati version of Flos Duellatorum (the line-drawing one) from the Tower of London. There is another, much better (in my opinion) copy of Flos Duellatorum which is in the Getty library. Gold leaf in the illuminations, full paragraphs of text explanation for each technique, etc. This is what I'm using as the basis for the class I'm teaching for Ian at Cal-Tech on January 14. Make it if you can.

If transportation and time can be arranged, I am always happy to teach.

Now to make sure this thread continues on the techniques :-)

Good comments here. Patrick used Talhoffer with success. Other has used the Jeu de la Hache, and I have met several people who know this well enough to teach it very well indeed.

There are major differences I see between SCA technique and Medieval. It is clear to me that they use a command of distance and footwork to guard the legs so they do not have to consider their defense with the weapon. In the Medieval (as opposed to Rennaisance) manuals there are few or no static blocks. The opponent's weapon is either put aside actively or a counter cut is made at the opponent's cut.

I would like to hear other observations of differences that have been observed.

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Conn MacNiell

Bob Charron · Post by **Bob Charron** » Wed Dec 27, 2000 11:55 am

Correction:

The Cal-Tech symposium is on Saturday, January 20th, not the 14th.

Thanks!

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Conn MacNiell

[This message has been edited by Bob Charron (edited 12-27-2000).]

Dobraine · Post by **Dobraine** » Fri Dec 29, 2000 11:43 pm

I would love to learn to fight. But I doubt anyone in my area(South East Idaho) is teaching.

What are these books you're talking about? Are they available to buy/borrow?

Thank You
Dobraine

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"Colavaere Saighan," he announced in a formal voice that carried to every corner of the Grand Hall, "by my immortal soul under the light, I Dobraine High Seat of House Taborwin do arraign and censure you of treason the penalty for which is death."

Hob · Post by **Hob** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 12:07 pm

Small correction, it's www.aemma.org

Vinnie · Post by **Vinnie** » Sat Dec 30, 2000 9:08 pm

Gethin said:

> In the West, We can be very conservative.

Well, build a safe example of the weapon you like, bring it to events and show it to all.
Don't expect others to change what they do, and you will be pleased with may happen.

15 or 20 years ago I made my first one handed war hammer, millitary pick pole arm (7 foot),
all-rattan head trident (other than the thrusting tips, the last butt-maced weapon in
the West), a wide range of pole-axes and other pole arms, and others best forgotten :-)

I have my great sword with thrusting pummel and quillions. If someone does not like the
extra toys when I show them before the fight, I don't use them. It's all for fun.

> All the best,Rhys

The same,
Vinnie