The Armour Archive

hey all, i couldn't find a topic on this but one similar,

do any of you recomend any books, websites that lay out traditional medieval fighting styles, sword and shield or single sword. i'm looking for something that has moves and/or drills hopefully with pics ( ) . basically i'm trying to learn some new moves and don't have any one to learn from (tear) so will have to try and learn on my own. any help would be appreciated.
thanks!

You should browse these websites:

thehaca.com

aemma.org

chivalrybookshelf.com


If you're SCA, you can also check this out for videos:

http://houseasgard.com/files.html (bottom half of page)



Hope that helps

If you are by chance a woman, I would recomend "The Armoured Rose" by Duchess Elina of Beckenham (mka-Tobi Beck)

I thought I knew a thing or two about training women to fight, but this book blew my doors off.

The Armoured Rose is excellent SCA material. My wife loves it, as do I for I make her armour!

But, as you mentioned "historical" and "traditional", mayhaps SCA books are not what you want. I think (correct me if I am wrong, somebody) the ARMA might have resources that you are looking for.

It all depends on what application you are looking for.

As someone pointed out you're going to have to define your needs a little more closely.

The AEMMA and ARMA sites have a tremendous amount of material available online. Look at the links they have to find sites with still more information.

For Medieval sword and shield we have very little.
I.33 - German sword and buckler
Talhoffer - German duelling shield (with or without club or sword)

There's more sword and shield info from the Renaissance (Manciolino, Silver, etc...).

As far as learning medieval fighting goes.... That's tricky. The manuscripts are not really designed as instructional manuals and even those that are assume a certain basic level of knowledge, besides being written in Latin, Medieval German, or Medieval Italian. None of them really have drills. They teach techniques based on principles and it's up to you to learn the material.

For single-handed sword I highly recommend the messer (great big knife/short sword) material in Talhoffer.

John Clements has a beginers one that has great basics for single sword, sword and shield ( round and heater types), longsword and others. I have it and have recomended it to many.

Unfortunatley the early period in which sword and shield was being used extensivley is really thin on actual period material. So these books are good fillers.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 88-2155257

He heads up the ARMA organization so he knows what he is talking about. The ARMA site is LOADED with good research.

www.thearma.org

There is some good sword and buckler info out there, which is a highly underrated weapon combo. Once you figure it out, its very fast and very brutal. Great fun!

http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm

Read and study everything you can about Liechtenauer- he's the Godfather of most subsequent masters-

http://www.thearma.org/essays/LeignitzerSandB.htm

A really good set of drills to go through are here- if you can incorporate these techniques into your fighting, you will be amazed how well they work:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/Leignitze ... tplays.htm

And of course the I.33 manual:
http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/i33/i33.htm

If you need help with I.33 there are 2 really good books out there to help:
http://www.revival.us/index.asp?PageAct ... &ProdID=98

http://www.revival.us/index.asp?PageAct ... ProdID=112


If you just want sword and shield only there is not much real period material in existance. If you want to incororate longsword - then there is TONS of material to glean through. Hope this helps.

thanks to everyone, all the info has been really helpful... yes i am female and am trying to get to some basic drills that i can do on a regular basis to build up my shoulder and arm muscles, cuz i am fighting mostly guys and they happen to have that natural advantage. the drills have been really helpful with that, again thank you!

www.bellatrix.org also has a flighting manual that has drills in it. It also has a section for female fighters and MPGs have been added to parts of the manual as well. Go to the fighting school on the website.

You do have one MAJOR advantage going for you though...you are from South Carolina- by far the best state know to mankind! Go Cocks!