Talhoffers Sword and Buckler

jester · Post by **jester** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:24 am

Hugh Knight (SKA Count Sir Rhys ap Harlech) just revamped his interpretation of this material and posed a question. I attempted to answer it (I was wrong, but that's okay), pulled out my old flowchart, accidentally moved one of the images and stumbled on to this.

Visually the interpretation works (look at the haircuts and the footwork), but the text doesn't fully support this arrangement.

This is the entire sword and buckler system. Two guards and four plays (two of which are very similar) and that's all. Distilled sword and buckler. Useless for the SCA, of course, since three of the four plays involve actions forbidden by the sca.

The images are from AEMMA. The translation of the text was done by Michael Rasmusson of AEMMA.

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/j ... art_V2.jpg

Okay, here's what I think happens.

In Image 1 both participants stand in the only two wards needed. The man on the left in plow, the man on the right in fiddlebow. The man on the right strikes to the man on the left producing Image 2. At this point there are three possible outcomes.

Defender Option 1: Shown in the sequence 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 5. The defender advances his lead foot (the left) forward and to the left while wrenching (Image 4) and elbow pushing. He can do this because he is using the strong of his blade against a weaker portion of the defender's blade (Image2) and because he is not stop blocking, but re-directing the attacker's force, allowing the blade to continue past to his right. In short oppose weakness with strength.

Attacker Option 1: Shown in sequence 1 -> 2 -> 3. To prevent the wrench, the attacker places the strong of his blade against the weak of the defender's blade. He does this by sliding his blade down the defender's blade so that, relatively speaking, he has a stronger portion of his blade against a weaker portion of the defender's blade. The prevents the wrench. The attacker continues by passing forward with his left foot and grappling the defenders sword arm (Image 3). He then tries to throw in a cut to the defender's head.

Defender Option 2: Shown in the sequence 6 -> 7. Attacker option 1 sets up this option for the defender. As the Attacker makes himself strong by sliding his blade down the defender's blade to adjust the relative strengths, the defender opposes strength with weakness. He allows the attacker's motion to free his sword and lunges forward and left with his lead (left) foot. This enables him to grapple the sword arm of the attacker and to bring his sword down for a thrust.

In both Attacker Option 1 and Defender Option 2 the key action is the arm grapple. The cut and the thrust are nice extras, but they are not essential. If the sword arm is grappled then it can be broken with a quick tutta volta and the fight is over. I believe that whoever does the arm grapple can execute either the cut or the thrust (Image 3 and Image 7, respectively) based on their personal estimate of which is more suited for the situation.

The last sequence is 8 -> 9 which illustrates a defense against the thrust from what is essentially the fiddlebow position.

Magmaforge · Post by **Magmaforge** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:42 pm

very nice work, Jester. The parry with sword & buckler together in image 2 has often reminded me of True Guardant... one imagines that it could be replaced with the turned-around sword shown by Talhoffer elsewhere...
so, what was the question put to you?

-Mag

jester · Post by **jester** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:05 pm

The question wasn't put to me. Hugh is much more experienced and has better education on this. He doesn't need to ask my advice.

The question he posed related to the ubergreiffen. He was wondering why the cut was shown with one iteration of the technique and the thrust with another. My explanation is that the scenes are part of the organization of the manual. The technique is repeated because the author is showing us a logical attack progression in one case, and a counter in the other. In fact, you could execute either attack because they are secondary to the primary aim (which is the arm grapple). Although I do think each is marginally more suited to the situation they are shown in.

Hugh has been discussing this with me. I'm adding the messer (single sword) work to the chart because I think (as I think Hugh does, from what I understand of his interpretation) that the single sword techniques are a subset of the sword and buckler techniques. This is almost certainly the case in this specific instance since the messer work in the 1467 edition (the black and white images) are almost exact duplicates of the same techniques shown in the buckler section of the 1459 edition (color images). Look back a little later for some cool stuff.

jester · Post by **jester** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:53 am

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/j ... art_V3.jpg

Okay....

This chart is a draft and I am already working on producing a better version. So this illustration is incomplete; missing translations and not cleaned up for visual comprehension. The whole thing is working from a basic idea.

All fighting is fighting. The basic principles of hand to hand combat do not change. By applying the basic principles to a specific set of circumstances you create solutions/techniques. When the circumstances are closely related (as sword and buckler and single sword are) then you tend to arrive at closely related solutions/techniques. Stated in another way, everything you do in single sword can be done in sword and buckler. The opposite is not, necessarily, true. Single sword can be viewed as a subset of the total body of sword and buckler combat.

In the particular case of Talhoffers sword and buckler material there is evidence to support this. One of the 1459 versions of Talhoffer's work (Alte Armatur und Ringkunst) has additional sword and buckler material that does not appear in the 1467 version (black and white and the version I am working with). EVERYTHING that was cut from the S&B material between the two versions appears in the single sword section of the 1467 manuscript.

So, I combined the two bodies (single sword and s&b) from the 1467 manuscript into a single chart.

Magmaforge · Post by **Magmaforge** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:57 am

jester wrote: Stated in another way, everything you do in single sword can be done in sword and buckler. The opposite is not, necessarily, true. Single sword can be viewed as a subset of the total body of sword and buckler combat.

an excellent job! I think the majority of people out there that have looked at Talhoffer's work decided that it was far below the caliber of some other fechtbuchen because it has seemingly random sequences of techniques. I applaud you on these flowcharts, they are helping me to see his works in a totally new way. In a recent workshop with Bob Charron, he mentioned that every technique in Fiore can be a wrestling play, simply substitute arms for weapons. Likewise, the poleaxe and single sword sections are so short because there is no need to repeat everything already shown; one should attempt to use a new weapon in the manner of all of the techniques shown in the previous sections.

Another thing that would be really fascinating is comparing the similar techniques (arm wraps etc) in I.33 to Talhoffer Sword & Buckler.
-Mag

jester · Post by **jester** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 11:09 am

And for my next quickie project, Fiore Sword and Buckler. :shock:

I did a quick compare of the single sword techniques in the Novati version of the document and the similarities are amazing. I'm going to put together a quick interpretation this weekend with just the single sword and then look at adding some of the wrestling. I feel like I just found a secret door leading to a vast unexplored (by me) wing of a mansion.

This stuff is fun.