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.
Identifying evolution in a fencing lineage through successive written works
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.
Copyright (c) 2025 Reinier van Noort https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Compiling a fencing legacy rooted in the teachings of Salvator Fabris
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.
The use of scholastic concepts in describing fighting technique in European fight books (1400-1600) as cultural and intellectual markers
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Daniel Jaquet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Fight Books in Context: Martial and University Cultures at the Edge of Modernity
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Hélène Leblanc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Karin Verelst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The arts of fighting and of scholastic dispute: two types of duels at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Pierre-Henry Bas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Miente Pietersma https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
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.
Copyright (c) 2023 Hélène Leblanc, Franck Cinato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The state of HEMA in 2021: The German & Austrian HEMA census
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.
Copyright (c) 2022 Alexander Fürgut https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
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.
Additional MS 39564, fight-books, manuscript studies, codicology, paleography, J. Ledall, English fight-texts
Copyright (c) 2023 Mark Geldof https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
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.
Copyright (c) 2022 Bartlomiej Walczak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Bolognese Tradition: Ancient Tradition or Modern Myth?
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.
Copyright (c) 2022 Rob Runacres https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Analysis of footwork diagrams from Libro de las grandezas de la espada
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.
Copyright (c) 2022 Darío Sánchez García https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Fencing Books’ collection of the Festetics family
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).
Copyright (c) 2022 Mátyás Miskolczy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
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.
Copyright (c) 2022 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book Review: Christoph Haack, Die Krieger der Karolinger
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.
Copyright (c) 2021 Sara Offenberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
“En garde – un, deux!”: Military Sabre Fencing in Nineteenth-century Switzerland
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.
Copyright (c) 2021 Mathijs Roelofsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book review: Interrelated New Publications Illuminate Freydal
Copyright (c) 2021 Chassica Kirchhoff https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561)
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.
Copyright (c) 2021 Olivier Dupuis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2021 Cornelius Berthold https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Siete Partidas: A Repository of Mediaeval Military and Tactical Instruction
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.
Copyright (c) 2021 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book review: The Invention of Martial Arts
Copyright (c) 2021 Daniel Jaquet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Historical European Martial Art a crossroad between academic research, martial heritage re-creation and martial sport practices
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.
Copyright (c) 2015 Daniel Jaquet, Claus Frederik Sørensen, Fabrice Cognot https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A comparative analysis of literary depictions of social violence in two important 16th Century autobiographies, from the perspective of the fencing manuals of the Renaissance
In the late 16th century two interesting individuals made substantial contributions to the relatively new genre of the autobiography. In 1595 Bartholomäus Sastrow (1520–1603), a north German burgher, notary, diplomat, and eventually burgomeister of the Hanseatic City of Stralsund, penned his life story. Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), goldsmith, soldier, musician and famous Renaissance artist from Florence, wrote his memoir between 1558 and 1563. Though they were born twenty years apart, both men had similar backgrounds. Both were from the lower-middle strata of society but rose to high status, both were widely traveled and directly acquainted with the most powerful individuals of their time (as well as some of the most lowly) and both experienced firsthand some of the most dramatic and important political and military events of the mid-16th century. Amidst a backdrop of war and severe religious conflict, Sastrow, a German and a Lutheran, traveled to Italy, and Cellini, an Italian Catholic, travelled through Germany to France. This allows us to see each region from both a native and an outsider’s perspective. Both men participated in or were witness to numerous incidents of social violence and warfare during their lifetimes, as described in detail in their memoirs. These accounts give us an opportunity to examine the depiction of incidents of social violence by people who witnessed or participated in them first-hand, allowing us to contrast these episodes with the principles of self-defense as portrayed in the fightbooks. We can also compare these personal anecdotes with documented written and unwritten rules governing dueling, fighting, and the carrying of arms. This will help grant us further insight into the reality of personal armed conflict in the era of the fightbooks, and improve our understanding of their context and meaning.
Copyright (c) 2015 Jean Chandler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Roots of Fencing from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries in the French Language Area
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.
Copyright (c) 2015 Olivier Dupuis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2015 Charles Blair https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Honour and Fighting Social Advancement in the Early Modern Age
The article considers the importance of military service in social advancement, here understood as filling the role of “prince” in feudal law and thus participating in the government of an estate, in the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance or Early Modern Age. In the context of a city burgher or a petty noble or knight advancing into a government role, did honour require that the individual have experience in fighting – in war, military organisation and leadership? How did mercenaries figure? What role, if any, did Fechtmeister, Fechtbücher, Fechtschulen or Kriegsbücher play?
Copyright (c) 2015 Jürg Gassmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Fighting in the Fightschools late XVth, early XVIth century
This article discusses the role played by Fightmaster (master-at-arms, Schirm- or Fechtmeister ) in the Fightschools (Fechtschulen ) taking place in the swiss cities at the end of the middle ages. The strong link between these lessstudied events and the practice of martial arts according to the technical literature (Fechtbücher) will be examined, as well as the figure of the Fightmaster. By collecting references out of normative documents regarding those events, it is possible to sketch both the fighting praxis inside the fightschools and the expertise of the Fightmaster in relation with the town’s authorities. Doing so, the questions of the professional performances, the reputation and the representation of the Fightmaster will be addressed. This approach will be illustrated by the case study of a master at arms, Peter Switzer
Copyright (c) 2015 Daniel Jaquet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Translation memory and computer assisted translation tool for medieval texts
Translation memories (TMs), as part of Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools, support translators reusing portions of formerly translated text. Fencing books are good candidates for using TMs due to the high number of repeated terms. Medieval texts suffer a number of drawbacks that make hard even “simple” rewording to the modern version of the same language. The analyzed difficulties are: lack of systematic spelling, unusual word orders and typos in the original. A hypothesis is made and verified that even simple modernization increases legibility and it is feasible, also it is worthwhile to apply translation memories due to the numerous and even extremely long repeated terms. Therefore, methods and algorithms are presented 1. for automated transcription of medieval texts (when a limited training set is available), and 2. collection of repeated patterns. The efficiency of the algorithms is analyzed for recall and precision.
Copyright (c) 2015 Attila Törcsvári https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0