The Armour Archive

What books are recommended as an introduction to and survey of the European martial arts in period? Not the manuals themselves, but books comparing the different schools and their significance. I see people using terms like I.33, Fiore, Lichtenauer, etc., and would like to know what they mean and their context.

One book I've seen mentioned is Sydney Anglo's "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe." Would this be valuable? It's the period of my interest, it's recent, and it's reasonably priced. From the descriptions and reviews on Amazon, it sounds like just the sort of thing I'm looking for. I don't need a how-to but rather a what, when, where, and why.

Sydney Anglo's "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe." is a great place to start. Its an awesome introduction into all that is swordfighting. It also helps that it is a very fun book to read, and the illustrations are great too.

100 stars out of 10. I'm reading it for the third time, off and on over the winter.

I'm not aware of a better general introduction and survey than Mr. Anglo's book. Comparisons of the various manuscripts are difficult because everyone is still in the process of learning about individual manuscripts. We simply don't know enough to make concrete comparisons.

I have always like John Clements books. While there are not German or Italian specific, they do cover sword and shield as well as 2 hand.
John is a great fighter with a lot of knowledge in various martial arts and I hope that I might be able to spar with him someday (and get a severe beating).

Mike

jester wrote:I'm not aware of a better general introduction and survey than Mr. Anglo's book.

Agreed.

Jon

Krotchpunt

The Clements book will not give you what you want, most of it is unattributed to specific masters/schools (which is what you are looking for, it seems), and the sword and shield stuf is just plain made up.

Anglo's book is good, the first 100 pages or so are on the medieval masters -- great overview.

Christian Tobler has two books out on the German school. One is a translation of a specific manual, the other is a good guide to the German School in general, with excercises and everything.

Agreed... both Clements books give the reader the impression that he pulled all the info out of his ass.

Dante della Luna wrote:Agreed... both Clements books give the reader the impression that he pulled all the info out of his ass.

Nah, in defense of John, he looked at lots of material, and then combined it with his experience. Its very much what was state of the art in 1990 or thereabouts. I would say that Stephen Hand's stuff is much more the state of things today on sword and shield. You'd have to look at Spada I and II to read about it, and its not entirely useful for SCA.

There is primary material out there on S&S, but its ca 1490-1540, Italian or Spanish, and not translated.

Steve

I strongly disagree that medieval dueling shield is a sound basis for standard sword and shield work as Stephen interprets it. The dueling shield is a specialized weapon with it's own specialized tactics and considerations.

As for John making up his sword and shield content, I would contend that most any early medieval sword and shield style you will see put forth by anyone in modern day requires quite a bit of supposition as the translated source-texts on that subject simply don't exist as far as I know.

mike mercier wrote:I have always like John Clements books. While there are not German or Italian specific, they do cover sword and shield as well as 2 hand.
John is a great fighter with a lot of knowledge in various martial arts and I hope that I might be able to spar with him someday (and get a severe beating).

Mike

John's book "Medieval Swordsmanship" is quite a good primer indeed, but it doesn't compare and contrast styles in the manner the original poster is looking for. I still believe that book to be the best beginners book on longsword in spite of being mildly dated in some respects and while other fine books are out there, most seem aimed at the intermediate student to my eye.

I have sparred with John with everything from spear, to longsword, to rapier and he is a very talented Swordsman to be sure. If you should cross swords with him, you'll not likely be disapointed.

Flittie,

I have hard copies of the I.33, the three manuals of Fiore, and Ringeck and Doebringer's commentaries on Lichtenauer, and a few other fechtbuchs and will have them at Ragnarok if you can wait that long, and we can go over them. I'm afriad I don't have much by way of your period of interest, though If you're still into the later renaissance thing.

I do not suggest John Clement's book Medieval Swordsmanship. I don't know about his Renaissance Swordsmanship book, but his book on Medieval Swordsmanship, in my opinion, is not very good. I lost it a few weeks ago and don't even care. I will probably buy it again, just so my library is more complete, but I will likely try to find it used because I don't want to spend another $30 or whatever I spent on it.

It will not serve your purpose well.

I have not red Mr. Angelo's book so I can't comment on it.

I suggest you ask for more suggestions on swordforum's Historical European Swordsmanship forum. It seems to have a much greater concentration of WMA practitioners than here, they may have some other suggestions.

http://forums.swordforum.com/forumdisplay.php?s=2b2c71fb9954da847e3dd07cd356b040&forumid=15

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll probably get just the Sydney Anglo book for the time being. I'm not myself likely to take up WMA anytime soon, but I'd like to have an idea of the historical context. I'd like to know what kinds of martial arts someone in 16th-century Scotland or England would have known.

Doug, thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want you to bring any books to Ragnarok just on my account. I do want to see your WMA demonstration, however.

Flittie,
I'll be bringing all my books anyway I'll be with my study group, many of whom are very new and will be studying on their off time, and also I may be working with some of the folks from the Dag message board. I don't think I'll be giving a demonstration, per se, but I'd be happy to show you what I know if you're interested.

Doug

Flittie wrote:I'd like to know what kinds of martial arts someone in 16th-century Scotland or England would have known.

The manuscripts might not tell you that. Can you read Duke Paul's manual and get a clear picture of what most fighting in the SCA looks like? Certainly what some of the higher level fighting looks like, but does it represent the general state of knowledge in the SCA?

We can't assume that the manuscripts represent a general level of knowledge. While they become more accessible as time goes on (from obscure merkverse to reader-friendly instruction that includes the basics) it is still likely that they represent only a fraction of the actual larger picture in regards to martial knowledge.

Indeed, Grzegorz Zabinski's research has shown that, in military terms, trained longswodsmen/greatswordsmen from the fencing schools were rare-air in the 16th c., and primarily used as escorts/bodyguards for higher pay after their credentials were checked. A very far cry from the guy pushing the pike.

I meant I'd like to know what types of weapons they were familiar with, depending on social status, such as crossbow, longbow, quarterstaff, sword and shield or buckler, early firearms, pike, lance, etc. The description I found on Amazon of the Sydney Anglo book suggested that his book covers more than just swordfighting.

I would really want to know the historical context before trying to tackle a manuscript.

Flittie wrote:I meant I'd like to know what types of weapons they were familiar with, depending on social status, such as crossbow, longbow, quarterstaff, sword and shield or buckler, early firearms, pike, lance, etc. The description I found on Amazon of the Sydney Anglo book suggested that his book covers more than just swordfighting.

I would really want to know the historical context before trying to tackle a manuscript.

Actually, I found it to be light on medieval combat and heavy on Renaissance jousting and equestrian games as well as rapier treatises. Fiore dei Liberi got, IIRC, three paragraphs in one chapter. Still the best overview of period treatises available today.

Not a bad investment for what you get.