Acta Periodica Duellatorum
type: channel
description: Acta Periodica Duellatorum (APD) is an international academic journal for researchers working in the field of martial arts studies with a focus on European martial arts.
publisher: Bern Open Publishing
language: en
publication name: Acta Periodica Duellatorum
issn: 2064-0404
items: The Rapier: Examining Problems in Etymology and Typology
items: Identifying evolution in a fencing lineage through successive written works
items: Compiling a fencing legacy rooted in the teachings of Salvator Fabris
items: Rapier hilts archetypes
items: 'Tres ictus' - A Fencing Poem From Before 1412
items: Krumphau, Fireworks, and Gap Crossings: Medieval Fechtbücher as Warfare Manuals
items: The use of scholastic concepts in describing fighting technique in European fight books (1400-1600) as cultural and intellectual markers
items: Fight Books in Context: Martial and University Cultures at the Edge of Modernity
items: Medicine, Logic, or Metaphysics?
items: The arts of fighting and of scholastic dispute: two types of duels at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance
items: The Cutting Edge in Print
items: Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
items: The state of HEMA in 2021: The German & Austrian HEMA census
items: Cut and paste
items: Unsafe Practice and Dangerous Play
items: Actors, Roles, and Behaviours
items: The Bolognese Tradition: Ancient Tradition or Modern Myth?
items: Analysis of footwork diagrams from Libro de las grandezas de la espada
items: The Fencing Books’ collection of the Festetics family
items: Abbesses and Their Fighting Men
items: Book Review: Christoph Haack, Die Krieger der Karolinger
items: Sword and Buckler in Masorah Figurata
items: The Siete Partidas: A Repository of Mediaeval Military and Tactical Instruction
items: Book review: Das Tower Fechtbuch
items: A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561)
items: Book review: Interrelated New Publications Illuminate Freydal
items: “En garde – un, deux!”: Military Sabre Fencing in Nineteenth-century Switzerland
items: Book review: The Invention of Martial Arts
items: Historical European Martial Art a crossroad between academic research, martial heritage re-creation and martial sport practices
items: The Roots of Fencing from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries in the French Language Area

The Rapier: Examining Problems in Etymology and Typology
type: item
description: Modern rapier typologies have defined the current scholarly definition of the rapier and related weapons. Much of this understanding is derived from three authors: A.V.B. Norman, Claude Blair and Ewart Oakeshott. However, these typologies face challenges when examined in detail, in particular when examined with the etymology of the word rapier. This article examines Norman, Blair and Oakeshott’s interpretations and reconsiders the emergence of the term rapier, arguing that the history of the term and the modern understanding of development of the weapon do not necessarily correlate.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: rapier
  topic: keywords
subject: typology
  topic: keywords
subject: rapière
  topic: keywords
subject: sidesword
  topic: keywords
subject: sword
  topic: keywords
creator: Rob Runacres
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Rob Runacres https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-11
publication date: 2026-05-11
starting page: 1
ending page: 18
doi: 10.36950/apd-2026-002

Identifying evolution in a fencing lineage through successive written works
type: item
description: Even a superficial study of fencing treatises published at different times will readily show that the art of fencing constantly changes with time. However, while large differences between separate treatises are easily identified, pinpointing how these changes develop is much more difficult. One requirement for tracking how a single fencing lineage evolves, is that such a lineage can be identified, and contains sufficient different (written) works that can be studied. Unfortunately, historical European fencing masters rarely documented who they received their instruction from, making it difficult, if not impossible, to identify fencing lineages. One exception to this is the fencing lineage of Paduan fencing master Salvator Fabris, whose fencing lineage can be documented with some certainty, and contains a relatively significant number of treatises by different authors. In this contribution, we will analyse the fencing lineage of Salvator Fabris, and in particular his Caminiren (“proceeding with resolution”) to identify how the teachings within a martial lineage may evolve gradually with time, considering that teachings may develop both as the ideas of individual masters evolve as they gain experience (and age), and as subsequent masters (or fencers) adapt these teachings to their own preferences.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Fencing
  topic: keywords
subject: Rapier
  topic: keywords
subject: German
  topic: keywords
subject: Italian
  topic: keywords
subject: HEMA
  topic: keywords
subject: Lineage
  topic: keywords
subject: Fencing treatises
  topic: keywords
subject: Fabris
  topic: keywords
subject: Martial Evolution
  topic: keywords
creator: Reinier van Noort
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Reinier van Noort https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-03-03
publication date: 2026-03-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2025-001

Compiling a fencing legacy rooted in the teachings of Salvator Fabris
type: item
description: While numerous fencing masters and other enthusiasts wrote down their ideas on how to fence, and how to teach fencing, most of these works now exist without strong martial context, as the authors rarely inform us who taught them how to fence. With Historical European Martial Arts, the legacy of the 16th to 17th century fencing master Salvator Fabris may be one rare exception to this. After Fabris published his major work, Lo Schermo, in Copenhagen in 1606, and then returned to Padua (where he died in 1618), numerous works on fencing where written and published by authors who either claimed to have been students of Salvator Fabris himself, or of one of his students in turn; or to have some other connection to Signor Salvatore. As subsequent works by other authors may be linked to those works and authors in turn, we are able to sketch out instructional and textual lineages that are rooted in the well-known teachings of Fabris. In this paper, we aim to identify potential students of Salvator Fabris, as well as their students in turn. Doing so, we will focus specifically on those students who became fencing masters themselves and those who wrote their own treatises on fencing (both fencing masters and other enthusiasts) – i.e., on those who left behind a documentable legacy through which the subsequent evolution of Fabris’s style of fencing in the 17th and 18th centuries can be studied.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: German
  topic: keywords
subject: Italian
  topic: keywords
subject: HEMA
  topic: keywords
subject: legacy
  topic: keywords
subject: Lineage
  topic: keywords
subject: Fencing treatises
  topic: keywords
subject: Fabris
  topic: keywords
subject: Rapier
  topic: keywords
subject: Fencing
  topic: keywords
creator: Reinier van Noort
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Reinier van Noort https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-03-03
publication date: 2026-03-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2025-002

Rapier hilts archetypes
type: item
description: A.V.B. Norman’s typology of hilts currently serves as the standard for the classification of rapiers. However, its flat structure and minutious granularity make it inconvenient for memorization and discussion. This work proposes a restructuration of Norman’s extensive typology into fewer archetypes that renders it less cumbersome to use and follows the functional developments of complex hilts.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: rapier
  topic: keywords
subject: hilts
  topic: keywords
subject: typology
  topic: keywords
creator: Vincent Le Chevalier
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Vincent Le Chevalier https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-03-31
publication date: 2026-03-31
doi: 10.36950/apd-2026-001

'Tres ictus' - A Fencing Poem From Before 1412
type: item
description: The article presents a transcription, translation and analysis of the (re)discovered text of a late medieval Latin swordsmanship mnemonic poem containing several vernacular terms, which was probably composed before 1412 in Prague. The history and contents of the volume, as well as its earliest owners, are summarized. The poem itself is accompanied in this article by a possible interpretation of the individual verses, and the text is set in the context of Prague's duel culture as we know it.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Late Middle Ages
  topic: keywords
subject: Bohemia
  topic: keywords
subject: Czechia
  topic: keywords
subject: Duelling
  topic: keywords
subject: Fencing
  topic: keywords
subject: Mnemonic poem
  topic: keywords
creator: Ondřej Vodička
creator: Karel Dobiáš
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Ondřej Vodička, Karel Dobiáš https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-11
publication date: 2026-05-11
starting page: 59
ending page: 77
doi: 10.36950/apd-2024-002

Krumphau, Fireworks, and Gap Crossings: Medieval Fechtbücher as Warfare Manuals
type: item
description: A number of late medieval Fechtbücher – commonly referred to as “fight books” – either contain or are bound with additional material, such as gunpowder formulations or engineering solutions in the broadest sense. This article focuses on one of these engineering solutions: gap crossings. Gaps – rivers, ditches, trenches, moats, etc. – have always been a challenge for the military commander. We shall compare the solutions found in the extended Fechtbücher to contemporary tactical tracts and narrative sources to assess whether the solutions offered there are realistic. The fact that they are is further evidence that the early Fechtbücher can be understood as elements of general warfare manuals.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Medieval Warfare
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Tactics
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Military Organisation
  topic: keywords
subject: Vegetius
  topic: keywords
subject: Bellifortis
  topic: keywords
subject: Pulcher Tractatus
  topic: keywords
subject: Christine de Pizan
  topic: keywords
subject: Bridges
  topic: keywords
creator: Jürg Gassmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-11
publication date: 2026-05-11
starting page: 27
ending page: 58
doi: 10.36950/

The use of scholastic concepts in describing fighting technique in European fight books (1400-1600) as cultural and intellectual markers
type: item
description: At the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern period, some authors of the fight books, or those involved in copying or rewriting existing content about fighting techniques used scholastic concepts either explicitly or implicitly. Scholastic concepts are tools, methods or references taken from the European reception of Aristotelian writings during the Middle Ages and its inclusion in academic education. This article attempts a survey of such concepts found in the fight book corpus (1400-1600). It yields information about the representation of the art of fighting as a discipline in the broad organisation of knowledge as cultural and intellectual markers. It also provides information about the social and educational context of both the authorship and the intended audience of the heterogeneous corpus of fight books.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Fight Book
  topic: keywords
subject: European Universities
  topic: keywords
subject: Scholasticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Education
  topic: keywords
subject: Intellectual history
  topic: keywords
subject: Aristotle
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniel Jaquet
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Daniel Jaquet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 5
ending page: 19
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-002

Fight Books in Context: Martial and University Cultures at the Edge of Modernity
type: item
description: What is the cultural background of the masters of arms? What is the meaning of the scientific and philosophical references scattered in the fight books corpus? To what extent does the university culture permeate the whole society and more specifically martial culture? These are the leading questions of the present issue.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Scholasticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Fight book
  topic: keywords
subject: University
  topic: keywords
creator: Hélène Leblanc
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Hélène Leblanc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 1
ending page: 3
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-001

Medicine, Logic, or Metaphysics?
type: item
description: We tend to study fight books in isolation, which explains why it is so difficult to understand the precise place they occupy in the sociocultural and historical fabric of their time. By doing so, we may miss the many clues they contain about their owner, local society, and intended purpose. In order to unlock this information, we need to study them in their broader sociocultural and historical context. This requires background and research skills that are not always easily accessible to everyone. To illustrate the point, in this article we show in some detail what is required to make sense of the claim that Aristotelian philosophy and science influenced the medieval fight books in relevant ways, and that understanding this influence helps us to better understand the fight books per se. we give an outline of the general historical framework, and apply it to a test case: Talhoffer’s Thott 290 2° Ms., with some interesting results. Our hope is that this framework may be of some use to other researchers in HEMA Studies who want to dig deeper into sources of interest to them.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Fight book
  topic: keywords
subject: Hausbuch
  topic: keywords
subject: Galenic Medicine
  topic: keywords
subject: Aritotelian Natural Philosophy
  topic: keywords
subject: Social History
  topic: keywords
subject: Cultural History
  topic: keywords
creator: Karin Verelst
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Karin Verelst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 91
ending page: 127
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-006

The arts of fighting and of scholastic dispute: two types of duels at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance
type: item
description: Fencing and the art of combat in general can bring you to think of an argument, a serious conversation between two individuals or two groups. Conversely, intellectual disputes and discursive exchanges can be compared to actual duels with the difference that questions, answers, and reasoning replace gestures, defences, and attacks. This rather simplistic vision deserves to be questioned in regard to the medieval and Renaissance periods, in particular from the written productions resulting from the theorisation and the inscription of these two forms of interaction: the scholastic dispute and the art of fencing. This article aims to make the link between the mechanism of the scholastic dispute, which has existed since the Middle Ages and which persists in the Renaissance, and the world of the art of medieval and early modern combat, which is materialised through the treatises of fencing and wrestling written by educated masters-at-arms as well as the practice of public fencing competitions.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: fencing
  topic: keywords
subject: fight book
  topic: keywords
subject: scholastic dispute
  topic: keywords
subject: disputatio
  topic: keywords
creator: Pierre-Henry Bas
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Pierre-Henry Bas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 21
ending page: 38
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-003

The Cutting Edge in Print
type: item
description: This article explores how Scholastic notions of the body, mind and cognition inform the didactic principles structuring the Opera nova (1536) by Achille Marozzo (1484-1553). A Bolognese fencing master, Marozzo belonged to a tradition of institutionalized martial training which had historically emphasized its connections to academic discourses of learning. In spite of this, Marozzo’s own work has been interpreted as following a straightforward tradition of copying forms and patterns, without much of an underlying theoretical argument. This article argues that Marozzo does present several conceptual references to Scholastic ideas about the workings of the brain, however, in particular to the mind’s dependence on mental images provided by the senses. Delving into these references not only helps to understand the didactic principles at work in the Opera nova as a whole, but also the specific role Marozzo seems to have attributed to the many woodcuts included in his book. In presenting this argument, this article then argues for the fruitful insights that can be gained from connecting fight books to both medieval and early modern Scholasticism, and the history of early modern art and science.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Achille Marozzo
  topic: keywords
subject: Scholasticism
  topic: keywords
subject: Natural Philosophy
  topic: keywords
subject: Aristotelianism
  topic: keywords
subject: Epistemic Images
  topic: keywords
subject: Ingegno
  topic: keywords
subject: Cognition and the Senses
  topic: keywords
creator: Miente Pietersma
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Miente Pietersma https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 65
ending page: 89
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-005

Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
type: item
description: Intellectual historians have rarely attended to the genre of fighting manuals, but these provide a new window on long-debated questions such as the relationship between Scholasticism and Humanism. This article offers a close comparison of the first known fencing manual, the 14-th century Liber de Arte Dimicatoria (Leeds, Royal Armouries FECHT 1, previously and better known as MS I.33), and the corpus of fighting manuals which underwent a remarkable expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries. While the former clearly shows its origins in a scholastic background, the latter is mainly viewed as reflecting its humanist context. To this historiographical division corresponds a linguistic one: MS I.33 is a Latin text, while the rest of the corpus is mainly written in German and Italian. However, exceptions arise, amongst which, Heinrich von Gunterrodt’s Sciomachia et Hoplomachia: sive de Veris Principiis Artis Dimicatoriae (1579), the first text which explicitly refers to I.33. This article will compare these two texts, in order to interrogate their common relation to Scholasticism, namely the traditional frame of the knowledge within the medieval and early modern universities. The intent is to show that (at least some) Renaissance fight books include references to Scholasticism and to provide a better qualification of the nature of such references. The general hypothesis is that a large part of the texts―and products of culture―of the Renaissance that have been read, until recently, exclusively in relation to a humanist intellectual background can valuably be interpreted in the context of a Scholasticism that is still vivid during the period in question.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Heinrich von Gunterrodt
  topic: keywords
subject: Liber de Arte Dimicatoria
  topic: keywords
subject: MS I.33
  topic: keywords
subject: Humanism
  topic: keywords
subject: Scholasticism
  topic: keywords
creator: Hélène Leblanc
creator: Franck Cinato
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Hélène Leblanc, Franck Cinato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 39
ending page: 63
doi: 10.36950/apd-2023-004

The state of HEMA in 2021: The German & Austrian HEMA census
type: item
description: To understand the Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) community, its weapon disciplines, organisational structure and gender, a HEMA census was conducted in 2021 for Germany and Austria and in 2019 for Germany. The 2021 census captures 3186 HEMA practitioners training in 124 locations in Germany and 801 practitioners training in 34 locations in Austria. It is the most comprehensive and detailed dataset of its kind to date. It shows that most HEMA groups are organised as an independent Verein or as part of an umbrella Verein.1 The pandemic had an average effect on the number of practitioners and primarily impacted commercial schools with a 20% reduction in membership. 20% (Germany) and 27.5% (Austria) of all practitioners are identified as female, while 0.75% (Germany) and 3.9% (Austria) of practitioners are identified as nonbinary. Longsword is the most popular weapon discipline, being trained at over 88% of locations in both countries. Runner-up disciplines trained at 40% to 44% of locations include Long Knife, Dagger, Sword & Buckler, Historical Wrestling (Germany), and Dagger, Sword & Buckler and Polearms (Austria). Two-handed swords saw the biggest increase in training locations during the pandemic. HEMA hotspots are in South Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg), where nearly 39% of all German practitioners train, and in Eastern Austria (Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland), where over 55% of all Austrian practitioners train.
subject: Research Notes
  topic: section
subject: HEMA census
  topic: keywords
subject: HEMA zensus
  topic: keywords
subject: sports statistics
  topic: keywords
subject: Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)
  topic: keywords
creator: Alexander Fürgut
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Alexander Fürgut https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 105
ending page: 133
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-007

Cut and paste
type: item
description: London, British Library Additional MS 39564 is an anonymous collection of English lessons for the two-hand sword, tentatively dated to the first quarter of the sixteenth century. This manuscript is peculiar in several ways, aside from it being one of only three such texts known to scholars. This paper discusses two aspects of this manuscript that speak to its origins and its survival in its present form. The lessons appear to be out of order and while there is no challenge in rearranging them in a logical fashion, this paper explains why that disorder tells us that Add. MS 39564 is a copy made from loose bi-folds from a now lost exemplar. This also explains the placement of the ‘Amen Quod J Ledall’ formula between lessons, rather than at the end of the text (where such an attribution is traditionally placed). Finally, this paper explains the significance of that attribution, suggesting it does not identify an original composer or user of the text, only the name of the scribe who produced the unbound sheets that acted as the exemplar for our surviving text. Both of these points remind us that these texts were part of a complicated community of composers, scribes, and readers and that the path of survival is often indirect and meandering.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Additional MS 39564, fight-books, manuscript studies, codicology, paleography, J. Ledall, English fight-texts
  topic: keywords
creator: Mark Geldof
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Mark Geldof https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 97
ending page: 105
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-006

Unsafe Practice and Dangerous Play
type: item
description: The records of English legal history are recognised as a major source of study for the materiality of everyday life. Public inquiries into the circumstances of accidental deaths, recorded in the reports of coroners’ juries and collected by the central court of King’s Bench, are particularly valuable for scholars of armed violence, martial training, and sport. This article presents and discusses several case studies from the extant coroners’ rolls, collected as part of a larger project on Tudor period accidents. The selections here concern the use or misuse of various personal arms resulting in death in sixteenth-century England.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: accidents
  topic: keywords
subject: primary sources
  topic: keywords
subject: england
  topic: keywords
subject: law
  topic: keywords
subject: arms
  topic: keywords
creator: Mark Geldof
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Mark Geldof https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-05-11
publication date: 2026-05-11
starting page: 19
ending page: 27
doi: 10.36950/

Actors, Roles, and Behaviours
type: item
description: This paper attempts to look at Fightbooks as literary sources and apply this reasoning to ADVISE reconstruction methodology. First the concepts of Real and Imaginary Worlds is introduced, followed by the distinction between Actors and Roles. Based on descriptions each Actor and Role can be assigned a set of Actions, Decisions, Intentions and Goals that constitute their Behaviours. Depending on Perspective, such Behaviours can be divided into Expected and Unexpected. Reconstruction is then looked at as an effort to gain deeper insight into described Roles and Actors through enacting of their Behaviours. Applying these concepts to ADVISE methodology allows for more nuanced and stricter process by focusing on Actions in Phase 1 and Decisions in Phase 2. Phase 5 introduces formal set theory notation that allows for a consistent high-level reasoning about the content of recorded message. Discussion addresses potential criticisms and further applications of this approach, demonstrating how it can bring more clarity to the whole process, especially when it comes to properly defining future experiments.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: ADVISE
  topic: keywords
subject: Embodied Research
  topic: keywords
subject: Fightbooks
  topic: keywords
subject: Historical European Martial Arts
  topic: keywords
creator: Bartlomiej Walczak
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Bartlomiej Walczak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 19
ending page: 41
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-003

The Bolognese Tradition: Ancient Tradition or Modern Myth?
type: item
description: This article discusses the modern interpretation that Bologna produced a distinctive regional martial tradition, based on the existence of similar treatises. It examines the assumption that a series of fencing masters formed a distinct lineage and that their martial practices formed a tradition separate to martial forms outside of Bologna. As a case study, it also considers the 'Viridario' of Giovanni Filoteo Achillini, a poem that contains instructions on the use of sword an buckler, written in 1504 and asks why this apparently unknown treatise was not used by its author to promote a Bolognese tradition.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Bolognese
  topic: keywords
subject: Dardi
  topic: keywords
subject: Tradition
  topic: keywords
subject: Marozzo
  topic: keywords
subject: Manciolino
  topic: keywords
creator: Rob Runacres
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Rob Runacres https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 1
ending page: 17
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-002

Analysis of footwork diagrams from Libro de las grandezas de la espada
type: item
description: The goal of this analysis is to search for a plausible explanation of the rules followed by Pacheco in Libro de las grandezas de la espada to construct the footwork theory explained in it. For this purpose, we are going to geometrically analyse the diagrams presented in the treatise, we are studying it in the order the concepts are explained in the treatise: a presentation of a rigid explanation of the footwork and an apparently low-consistent application of it through the footwork diagrams. Thus, we will compile the data presenting some hypotheses that appear along the way until we can rearrange it to see the pattern that gives us a plausible construction rule for the footwork diagrams. In order to obtain a rule consistent with later Verdadera Destreza treatises and theory, and therefore more plausible as all of them claimed to follow Pacheco’s teachings, we will present a brief analysis of several treatises Common Circle descriptions to see how the conclusions reached match with them. Finally, we are proposing a rule set that Pacheco may have used and an application of it to reconstruct some diagrams of the treatise.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Verdadera Destreza
  topic: keywords
subject: HEMA
  topic: keywords
subject: Footwork
  topic: keywords
subject: Pacheco
  topic: keywords
subject: Geometry
  topic: keywords
subject: Rapier
  topic: keywords
creator: Darío Sánchez García
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Darío Sánchez García https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-005

The Fencing Books’ collection of the Festetics family
type: item
description: The reproductions of the Fencing Books in the library of the Helikon Palace are made available for research purposes by the owner (the Festetics family), according to a research agreement with the Acta Periodica Duellatorum Association (2022). The desiderata for further research includes codicological description, description of its content and filiation, as well as research on the fighting traditions documented in the corpus (9 books).
subject: Research Notes
  topic: section
subject: Fight books
  topic: keywords
subject: 19th century
  topic: keywords
subject: 18th century
  topic: keywords
subject: Festetics
  topic: keywords
subject: Hungary
  topic: keywords
creator: Mátyás Miskolczy
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Mátyás Miskolczy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2022-05-27
publication date: 2022-05-27
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-001

Abbesses and Their Fighting Men
type: item
description: The position of male ecclesiastical princes – bishops and abbots – as integral elements of Carolingian military organisation is well established. Less investigated is the corresponding role of female ecclesiastical princes, the abbesses. This article demonstrates that the function of abbesses was not materially different to that of their male colleagues-in-office, tracks the legal and political development into the High Middle Ages and considers some ramifications of our findings. In particular, we conclude that convents were politically powerful and integrated into the secular military organisation, but within the context of the secular polity played a power-neutralising and stabilising role.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Abbey
  topic: keywords
subject: Abbess
  topic: keywords
subject: Ecclesiastical Prince
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Military
  topic: keywords
subject: Carolingian
  topic: keywords
subject: Ottonian
  topic: keywords
subject: Libri Feudorum
  topic: keywords
subject: Military
  topic: keywords
subject: miles
  topic: keywords
subject: Zurich
  topic: keywords
creator: Jürg Gassmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 43
ending page: 73
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-004

Book Review: Christoph Haack, Die Krieger der Karolinger
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
subject: Carolingians
  topic: keywords
subject: Early Middle Ages
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Military History
  topic: keywords
creator: Jürg Gassmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-05-15
publication date: 2023-05-15
starting page: 135
ending page: 137
doi: 10.36950/apd-2022-008

Sword and Buckler in Masorah Figurata
type: item
description: Two manuscripts produced in early fourteenth-century German lands reflect similar iconography of the fighting with Sword and Buckler; one is the well-known fencing manual, Leeds, Royal Armouries, MS I. 33, produced ca. 1320, and the other is a Hebrew manuscript of the Bible, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France héb. 9, made in 1304, that will be the focus of this article. This preliminary research intends to demonstrate how Hebrew illuminated manuscripts can shed more light on the study of fight books iconography.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Fight Books
  topic: keywords
subject: Sword and Buckler
  topic: keywords
subject: Illuminated Manuscript
  topic: keywords
subject: Jewish Manuscripts
  topic: keywords
subject: Iconography
  topic: keywords
subject: Sword and buckler
  topic: keywords
subject: Jewisch-Christian Polemic
  topic: keywords
subject: Masorah Figurata
  topic: keywords
subject: Micrography
  topic: keywords
creator: Sara Offenberg
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Sara Offenberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-001

The Siete Partidas: A Repository of Mediaeval Military and Tactical Instruction
type: item
description: The Siete Partidas, compiled in the mid-13th century for the Castilian king Alfonso X el Sabio, constituted the code of law for Castile and later Spain. Despite the practicality of their instructions and principles on warfare, they are not well studied. This article will review the military provisions, paying special attention to commanders, the battlefield formations for infantry and cavalry, and the rules on booty and ransom, in the context of the time. While it is difficult to pinpoint unequivocal influences, the passages are demonstrably practical within the contemporary military doctrine and the ideals of chivalry. As such, they offer a unique insight into the mechanics of leadership, the battlefield formations of the High Middle Ages, as well as the crucial function of spoils as a source of status-compatible income for the knightly estate and lower nobility, so adding depth and texture to this little-studied yet essential aspect of mediaeval military, economic, and political organisation.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Siete Partidas
  topic: keywords
subject: Middle Ages
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Military
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Tactics
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Warfare
  topic: keywords
subject: Chivalry
  topic: keywords
subject: Medieval Law
  topic: keywords
creator: Jürg Gassmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-002

Book review: Das Tower Fechtbuch
type: item
description: no abstract by book reviews
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
subject: Das Tower Fechtbuch
  topic: keywords
subject: I.33
  topic: keywords
creator: Cornelius Berthold
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Cornelius Berthold https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-006

A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561)
type: item
description: The manuscript of Joachim Meyer dated 1561 kept in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, was ignored by specialised bibliographical works on fencing and absent of the secondary literature about fight books. This re-discovery sheds a new light on the story of the composition of the treatise printed in 1570 by this same author. This Research Note briefly presents the manuscript and the perspectives it opens up pending a larger scientific investigation. It contains a description of the manuscript and its content, as well as new findings regarding biographical information on the author. The manuscript images are available as downloadable dataset attached to the article for research purposes, with the kind permission of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (licensed material). We thank the French Federation for Historical European Martial Arts (FFAMHE) for the financial support.
subject: Research Notes
  topic: section
subject: Joachim Meyer
  topic: keywords
subject: manuscript
  topic: keywords
subject: Kunst des Fechtens
  topic: keywords
subject: art of combat
  topic: keywords
subject: fight book
  topic: keywords
subject: rediscovery
  topic: keywords
creator: Olivier Dupuis
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Olivier Dupuis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-004

Book review: Interrelated New Publications Illuminate Freydal
type: item
description: No abstract for book reviews
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
subject: Medieval Games
  topic: keywords
subject: Freydal
  topic: keywords
subject: Maximilian 1
  topic: keywords
creator: Chassica Kirchhoff
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Chassica Kirchhoff https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-005

“En garde – un, deux!”: Military Sabre Fencing in Nineteenth-century Switzerland
type: item
description: This article presents recent research into military fencing in Switzerland, with a focus on manuals and regulation written to help instructors teach sabre fencing in Swiss officers’ schools. The publications discussed here, essentially sabre fencing manuals, can be grouped into a unique corpus based on the only official regulation for sabre fencing. They are interesting elements that can help scholars to understand not only the teaching and practice of fencing inside the infantry officers’ schools, but also the more technical aspects of an individual system: all publications in the corpus are part of the same system, although with minor variations. The system, called Contre-pointe (or Stichsäbel in some of the publications), is similar to others in France and elsewhere in Europe. Another central part of the system was its sportive aspect and use in military and civil competitions. Surprisingly, this meant that infantry officers were taught a type of fencing designed not solely for fighting on the battlefield and arguably more suited for the fencing room.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Switzerland
  topic: keywords
subject: 19th Century
  topic: keywords
subject: Sabre
  topic: keywords
subject: Saber
  topic: keywords
subject: Military History
  topic: keywords
subject: HEMA
  topic: keywords
subject: Military
  topic: keywords
creator: Mathijs Roelofsen
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Mathijs Roelofsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-003

Book review: The Invention of Martial Arts
type: item
description: No abstract for book reviews
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
subject: Invention of Martial Arts
  topic: keywords
subject: Paul Bowman
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniel Jaquet
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Daniel Jaquet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2021-06-03
publication date: 2021-06-03
doi: 10.36950/apd-2021-007

Historical European Martial Art a crossroad between academic research, martial heritage re-creation and martial sport practices
type: item
description: Historical European martial arts (HEMA) have to be considered an important part of our common European cultural heritage. Studies within this field of research have the potential to enlighten the puzzle posed by past societies, for example in the field of history, history of science and technology, or fields related to material culture. The military aspects of history are still to be considered among the most popular themes of modern times, generating huge public interest. In the last few decades, serious HEMA study groups have started appearing all over the world – focusing on re-creating a lost martial art. The terminology “Historical European Martial Arts” therefore also refers to modem-day practices of ancient martial arts. Many of these groups focus on a “hands-on” approach, thus bringing practical experience and observation to enlighten their interpretation of the source material. However, most of the time, they do not establish inquiries based on scientific research, nor do they follow methodologies that allow for a critical analysis of the findings or observations. This paper will therefore propose and discuss, ideas on how to bridge the gap between enthusiasts and scholars; since their embodied knowledge, acquired by practice, is of tremendous value for scientific inquiries and scientific experimentation. It will also address HEMA practices in the context of modern day acceptance of experimental (or experiential) processes and their value for research purposes and restoration of an historical praxis. The goal is therefore to sketch relevant methodological and theoretical elements, suitable for a multidisciplinary approach, to HEMA, where the “H” for “historical” matters.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)
  topic: keywords
subject: Martial sport
  topic: keywords
subject: Martial arts
  topic: keywords
subject: History
  topic: keywords
subject: Archaeology
  topic: keywords
subject: Middle Ages
  topic: keywords
subject: Renaissance
  topic: keywords
subject: Early Modern Period
  topic: keywords
subject: Material culture
  topic: keywords
subject: Embodied knowledge
  topic: keywords
creator: Daniel Jaquet
creator: Claus Frederik Sørensen
creator: Fabrice Cognot
rights: Copyright (c) 2015 Daniel Jaquet, Claus Frederik Sørensen, Fabrice Cognot https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2015-09-19
publication date: 2015-09-19
starting page: 5
ending page: 35
doi: 10.36950/apd-2015-001

The Roots of Fencing from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries in the French Language Area
type: item
description: This article offers a partial overview on fencing, as recognized through archive records, as well as French epics and romances from the twelfth to the early fourteenth century. In the twelfth century, fencing was only attested through knightly vocabulary as a way to describe actions performed during single combats involving a combination of shield and another weapon, most commonly a sword. Fencing was progressively dissociated from the knightly arts and there were even few mentions of its use by common people. There are archive records from the thirteenth century of individuals bearing the nickname “fencer”, although there is rarely enough context to be certain that they were really practicing the art. At the end of the thirteenth century, archives and narrative fiction show an established fashion for a certain form of fencing with a short round shield, the buckler. This is clearly established in London where surviving manuscripts include many regulations on fencing, however the fashion was also spread in the continent, even though it seems to be less documented.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: fencing
  topic: keywords
subject: France
  topic: keywords
subject: twelfth century
  topic: keywords
subject: thirteenth century
  topic: keywords
creator: Olivier Dupuis
rights: Copyright (c) 2015 Olivier Dupuis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2015-09-19
publication date: 2015-09-19
starting page: 37
ending page: 62
doi: 10.36950/apd-2015-002