Fiore’s guards of the longsword form a quite complete mechanical overview of the system of movement that Fiore’s art requires. If you can move fluidly through the guards, with every guard transition forming a blow, or one of the voltas (meza, tuta, stabile), then you are probably moving as Fiore would want us to.

Regarding the twelve guards, it’s worth remembering that there are really only the following nine:

• Iron door
• Woman
• Window
• Long
• Short
• Tail
• Tooth
• Two-horned
• Frontal

Every one of these can do a volta stabile (as we see distinguishing the two forms of dente di zenghiaro, and the forward and rear-weighted forms of donna), and a meza volta (as we see from the right and left side donna guards, or indeed what happens when you meza volta from tutta porta di ferro and end up in zenghiaro). In the Getty, Fiore shows us donna left and right, and zenghiaro tutta and meza. But the Getty is actually the outlier here: the ordering of guards and the exact forms they take is different in the other three mss, as you can see in this table taken from The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest:

I don’t think there’s enough data here to come up with a convincing theory as to why they’d be different- it could be Fiore changing his mind over time, or it could be that whoever ordered the copy made asked for some changes, or something else entirely. I don’t think it makes any practical difference to how we use the guards.

Pulsativa, Stabile, Instabile

Now for the throbbing unstable stability issue: pulsativa, stabile, instabile.

The first thing to note is that only the Getty ms has these terms. And even within that ms, they are never used outside of the guards section itself. Here is a table with them laid out:

The ‘unstable’ guards are fenestra, longa, frontale, and bicorno. These are perhaps not good to wait in; the last three are clearly the end point of blows (in frontale’s case, a parry). And in all of them you are holding up the weight of the sword, so perhaps shouldn’t stay there too long.

The pulsativa guards are tutta porta di ferro and both donnas. Sure enough, you can parry hard from all these positions, and in a way that closes the line mechanically, leading with the true edge. But you can also do that from the stable guard, coda longa. Plus, I went into some detail about the parry from the left here; clearly, you could ‘pulse’ out of zenghiaro, but it’s a ‘stable’ guard.

Likewise, tutta porta di ferro is ‘good to wait in’, which would surely imply stability.

And breve is a ‘stable guard that does not have stability’ (!), presumably because you ‘move around’ in it looking for an opening.

My friend and colleague Sean Hayes has expended a lot of ink on this distinction in his article here, which you may find interesting. But in the end, my feeling is that a) we don’t have enough data for a firm understanding of what Fiore may have meant by these distinctions, and b) as they are not used elsewhere, nor repeated in the other mss (which are probably later), they are probably not that important.

I have exhaustively analysed the connections between Fiore’s guards, Vadi’s guards, and Marozzo’s guards, with cross-reference to the Liechtenauer tradition guards, in the introduction to The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest (pages 37-51) so please refer to that for further academic discussion.

Using the Guards in training

Regarding how to train with the guards, I have some thoughts you might find useful. The first is to deeply experience how improving the internal structure of the guard you are in changes how you can strike from it. In essence, you should hold every position with the minimum possible muscular tension, because the tension you hold the position with must be relaxed before you strike, which creates a telegraphing moment that an alert opponent can exploit. One exercise I use for this is called ‘The Stability Drill’, which I include in my Fundamentals: Footwork course, and describe in detail in The Medieval Longsword, pages 141-2.

The second is I build literally every technical drill in my syllabus using the guards as starting, middle, and end points of every movement. At every moment in every drill, unless your partner has messed up your position, you should be in something that looks and feels like a guard, or the most efficient path between two guards. Take this still of a pommel strike to the face. Is that not simply fenestra, pointing the other way?

(This is captured from the ‘Counter Remedies’ class video from my Medieval Longsword Course).

Likewise, if you watch my Syllabus Form video, you’ll see it’s basically a great long string of guard transitions:

https://youtu.be/9x-zwVfTMOw

However, as I wrote in The Medieval Longsword, any position you find yourself in can be considered a guard if you understand its tactical and technical properties. Slavishly copying a position from the treatise is useless unless you have some idea of what the position is for, what openings it leaves and what strengths it possesses. So let’s take a look at the critical components of a position held with the sword. They are:

• Which foot is leading

• Which side the sword is held on

• Where the weight is (forwards or back)

• The position of the sword (forwards, back, left right, high, low etc.)

• How the sword is held

• All of the above, relative to your opponent.

Let’s start with the sword. The further away your sword is from the centre, the longer it takes to get there, but the harder it will strike or parry when it does finally make contact. This is because the further your sword travels, the more time it has to accelerate, so the faster it is moving when it arrives. Which part of your sword is supported by the grip—edge or flat? This will determine what you can hit with. (The point should always be supported.)

Whose sword is closer to the centre—yours or your opponent’s? If you can get to a position where her sword is too far away from the centre to parry in time, you can hit her easily.

Now the feet: the position of your front foot relative to your opponent determines how close to her you can get with a pass. The position of your back foot relative to your opponent determines how far away from her you can get with a pass back, and how long a pass forwards will take, because it determines how far the foot has to go from start to finish.

The placement of your weight: the main target is your head, which is directly above your centre of mass (or should be!). So the position of your weight relative to your feet determines both how far your weight has to travel when striking your opponent, and how far your opponent has to travel when striking you.

Every guard position is a specific set of compromises, such as:

• A fast pass forwards at the expense of starting with your head closer to your opponent

• A harder strike at the expense of starting with your sword held back and to the side

• Making your opponent travel farther to reach you, at the expense of a longer and therefore slower pass forwards for you

• Keeping your sword closer to the centre, to close the line quicker, at the expense of having less power available when you get there.

Let’s take a concrete example of two guards that are often blurred together by beginners: tutta porta di ferro and coda longa. They both are held left foot forwards, with the weight on the front foot. This allows for a fast and easy pass forwards with the right foot. The sword is held either behind and to the right (coda longa) or pointing directly to the right (tutta porta di ferro). A strike from either guard usually ends in posta longa. If we take a thrust from below from coda longa, we see that we pass almost exactly through tutta porta di ferro, so it must take longer to do.

Likewise, when parrying from either guard, we would often use frontale. Measuring the distance from one to the other, we see that again, coda longa strikes harder but takes longer. This means that we must start the movement earlier to get there at the right time (before the attack hits us).

The “correct” choice of guard then is very often a function of measure. The farther away you are from the opponent, the safer it is to keep the sword farther back or offline.

It is necessary to study all the guards that your opponent may use against you, so that you may understand their tactical significance. At an advanced level, you might convey the appearance of being too far from the centre to defend in time, or being too far back to strike quickly, and take advantage of your opponent’s misjudgment of your position. Developing this skill of analysing the tactical elements of a position is also crucial to your success when faced with an opponent who is either trained in a different system, or is using non-standard positions.

Looking back at this section, we have a summary of the kinds of footwork we’ll need, followed by six different ways to hold a sword. This leads us to the seven blows (eleven if you split the thrust into five types), which then create the twelve guards of the sword. Taken together, we actually have a complete overview of the mechanics of the system. It’s an act of organisational genius on the part of Fiore dei Liberi, which prepares us for the upcoming plays of the sword out of armour on foot, which I’ll get into next week…

In the meantime, you may find this spiffy pdf compilation of the posts regarding the sword in one hand section useful, so feel free to sign up to my list, and get your copy.

Welcome back!

The last page of guards looks like this:

And it includes coda longa, bicorno, frontale, and dente di zenghiaro la mezana.

Posta di coda longa

Questa sie posta di coda longa ch’e destesa in terra di dredo. Ella po metter punta, e denanzi po covrir e ferire. E se ello passa inanci e tra del fendente in lo zogo stretto entra senza fallimento. Che tal guardia e bona per aspettare. Che de quella in le altre tosto po intrare. Stabile

This is the guard of the long tail that lies on the ground behind, it can place thrusts and in front can cover and strike. And if she passes forwards and strikes a fendente, she enters into the close play without fail. This guard is good to wait in, as you can quickly enter into the others. Stable

Coda longa hides the sword behind you, concealing its length. With a bit of practice you can strike extremely quickly from here, and because it is chambered behind you, you can cut with great force. As Fiore says, it’s good to wait in, and you can get quickly out of it and into another guard- that movement would probably be a strike or a parry.

Posta di Bichorno

Questa e posta di bicorno che sta cossi serada che sempre sta cum la punta per mezo de la strada. E quello che po fare posta longa po fare questa. E similemente dico de posta di fenestra e di posta frontale. Instabile

This is the guard of two horns that stands so closed that it always stands with the point in the middle of the line. And that which long guard can do, this can do. And I say the same of window guard and crown guard. Unstable

In 2008 I made a breakthrough interpretation of this guard, which lead to my writing an article called “Finding Bicorno”. Looking through that article in preparation for writing this post, I found that it was in some need of updating, so I am going to expand at great length on this guard now, incorporating the entirety of the updated article. 

Here we go…

Bicorno, the two-horned guard, has proved the most elusive of Fiore’s poste to pin down. There have been several interpretations to receive general currency in the Fiorean community I haven’t found any of them completely satisfying. Let me take you through the story of the process by which I arrived at what I believe is the correct interpretation, which will also serve as a general illustration of the process of interpreting these sources.

Step one: the text. 

Questa e posta di bicorno che sta cossi serada che sempre sta cum la punta per mezo de la strada. E quello che po fare posta longa po fare questa. E similemente dico de posta di fenestra e di posta frontale.

This is the guard of two horns that stands so closed that it always stands with the point in the middle of the line. And that which long guard can do, this can do. And I say the same of window guard and crown guard. 

This has been variously translated by scholars, all of which have stumbled over “cossi serada che”, not least because serada (closed) is no longer in Italian usage (it remains in Spanish). I and many others also missed the construction “cossi…che”, which simply means “so…that”. 

Price in Fiore dei Liberi’s Sword in Two Hands (p.146), for instance, leaves “cossi serada” untranslated:

“This is posta di bicorno, which stands cossi serada, that is, it stands with the point in the middle of the line. And that which the posta longa can do, this can do. And similarly therefore as posta di fenestra and posta frontale”.

Leaving aside the grammatical oddness of the last sentence, the translator has clearly not understood the construction cossi… che, nor the term serada, and had to twist the rest of the sentence into some sort of sense. 

The Exiles translation, posted on their website in November 2007, reads “This is the Posta do Bicorno that “stays much public” that always stands with the point in the middle of the road. And that which Posta Longa can do this can do. And similarly I say this of Posta di Fenestra and of Posta Frontale.”

“That stays much public” makes no sense at all. They have since upgraded the translation.

My own effort read “This is the guard of two horns that stands closed like this, and always stands with the point in the middle of the line. And that which long position can do, this can do. And I say the same of window guard and crown guard.” I was not sure whether that meant that bicorno could do what longa, fenestra and frontale do, or that fenestra and frontale could also do what longa does. I sent the passage with a query to Tom Leoni (in February 2007), who while confirming my impression that it meant the latter, took the time to correct my “stands closed like this”, a head-slapping moment when I recalled what I had learned on about the fourth week of my basic Italian course back in school. My current translation now reads:

Questa e posta di bicorno che sta cossi serada che sempre sta cum la punta per mezo de la strada. E quello che po fare posta longa po fare questa. E similemente dico de posta di fenestra e di posta frontale.

This is the guard of two horns that stands so closed that it always stands with the point in the middle of the line. And that which long guard can do, this can do. And I say the same of window guard and crown guard. 

The text of the Novati version reads:

Posta de bicornio io me faco chiamar

Si io ho falsitate asay non men domiadar

I call myself the two horned guard

I have such deception that none can beat me. 

Interesting, but doesn’t really add anything.

As we know that bicorno can do what longa does, the text for longa is also required:

Posta longa sie questa piena di falsita. Ella va tastando le guardie se lo compagno po inganare. Se ella po ferir de punta la lo sa ben far. E gli colpi la schiva, e po fieri sela lo po fare. Piu che le altre guardie le falsita sa usare.

Posta longa, instabile.

This is posta longa, full of deception. It goes tasting the guards of the companion to deceive. If it can make a thrust, it knows well how to do it. And it avoids blows, and can can strike, that it can do. More than the other guards, it uses deception. 

Long Guard, unstable.

(See last week’s post for my notes on this guard).

The name bicorno is not necessarily any indication of its function. Of the twelve guards shown, longa and breve (long and short) are obviously descriptive, and Fiore states that dente di zengiaro is named after the wild boar because it uses the same way of striking. None of the other guards are so described, and it is more likely that the names are a culturally specific mnemonic. Kel Rekuta suggested (in an online discussion in 2008) that the guard is named after a small portable anvil used by armourers, but that is neither definitively established nor terribly useful in determining the guard’s function. As you may recall from this post, I think it’s part of the ‘naming the guards after the Pilgrim’s progress’, where the ‘two-horned’ devil waits on the long road to heaven to trick the Pilgrim down to hell.

Step two: the pictures:

There are four illustrations of this guard, all of which have odd-looking hand positions. The Getty version has the left hand above the right forearm, and possibly turned so that the thumb is towards the chest, the back of the hand to the viewer.

The Novati clearly shows the left hand with the thumb towards the blade, but the right hand oddly open, with the thumb on the handle in line with the false edge of the blade.

The Morgan is regrettably damaged, to the point that the face of the person depicted is lost, and it looks as though parts of the image, including the hands, have been redrawn. This needs to be verified by examining the original, which I have not yet been able to do. As it is, the right hand is practically invisible, and the left is so crudely drawn that no definitive statement can be made about its position.

In the Florius ms, we can see the rear hand is turned over, so the back of the hand is towards us.

It has been established beyond reasonable doubt (by Sean Hayes for one, though not in print) that in art of this period, blades are never shown edge-on, and there is a convention in medieval art of rotating objects in the horizontal plane into the vertical to make them visible (a chess board is the best known example). This has lead most researchers to hold this guard flat-up, and some to also rotate the left hand on the grip.

While this kind of license is academically supportable, it is something of an open door to reading whatever we like into the illustrations. I have found that the vast majority of illustrations in these manuscripts are reliable, accurate depictions of what the illustrated position should look like. There are artistic mistakes, of course, but they are few and far between. These ways of holding the sword are all very well, but do not accord with the pictures very closely, and make no particular sense of the text. Regarding the position of the left hand, the reversed position is unlikely because a) it is not clearly illustrated anywhere b) the usual position is clearly illustrated for this guard in the Novati and c) Fiore had previously illustrated five alternatives to the usual way of holding the sword on pages 24 recto and verso, yet not included there this strange reversal. 

That notwithstanding, I used both versions for some time, for want of something better. But I was never completely sold on any of them, mostly because I found I never used any of them in free fencing, and had to construct special drills for them to make sense in. 

Having puzzled over this for some years, and having finally worked out what the text actually meant, it just took one final piece of the puzzle to slot into place. Having met Thomas Stoeppler, a licensed physiotherapist whose main area of research is the Liechtenauer system, with a background in Chinese internal martial arts, at WMAW 2006 in Dallas, Texas, I was intrigued by some of what he was teaching, and so invited him to teach a seminar in Helsinki. He came in August 2007, and focused on his mechanical interpretation of Liechtenauer’s longsword material, in particular Paulus Kal (recently edited by Christian Tobler), and the so-called Döbringer manuscript.

As a physiotherapist he is better qualified than most to analyse the structural aspects of movement and positions, which his other martial training has also emphasised. While he was demonstrating and explaining the langort position as illustrated in Kal, he pointed out that the contact between the wrists created a closed kinematic chain, which was self-supporting and hence very stable. A light went off above my head and I dashed across the salle to my copy of the Getty. As I did so, a senior student looked at me and said “bicorno?”. And there it was. Simple, absolutely supported by both text and pictures, and making abundant sense.

Bicorno found…

This interpretation of bicorno is held with the back of the left hand in contact with the inside of the right wrist, and the sword turned slightly in the right hand so that the thumb is on top, trued edge down.

The easiest way to get into the position is to start in posta di donna, and allow the sword point to drop forward, with the sword rotating around its centre of gravity. This is the single most efficient possible way to get the point in line from donna (and inspired by Stoeppler’s explanation of arriving in langort from Vom Tag).

You can see me doing it in the very beginning of this video (though I'm starting from donna la sinestra):

https://youtu.be/0iLSZyK8Yo4

If we now examine the stability of this guard by testing its groundpaths and contrast them to that of posta longa, we see the following:

(Stable here means that the body can mechanically support pressure against that part of the sword. Do not confuse this with Fiore’s “pulsativa/stabile/instabile” thing, which I’ll discuss next week.)

This reversal of the stability properties of the positions comes from the alignment of the blade relative to the forearm: in longa, the edges are in line with the bones of the forearm; because of the turn of the sword, in bicorno the flats, especially the inside flat, are supported by the forearm.

This reversal is so extreme that if we apply enough force to bend the sword by ninety degrees, the swordsman’s structure is unaffected. As you can see here, Ken Quek is in bicorno, and I'm pushing his point aside- but the sword is bending, his structure is unaffected.

This means, of course, that due to the closing up of the space between the hands, the thrust becomes much harder to parry: you have to literally bend the sword out of the line. This makes bicorno not only devastatingly fast to thrust with, but very hard to parry; literally, “the point stays in the middle of the line.”

The instability of the edges also means that they are very mobile; any attempt to break the thrust naturally creates a yielding action in the blade, and makes this position very good to feint with: as longa avoids blows (avoiding a blow is clearly the same thing as avoiding a parry), so does bicorno; start in donna, flick the point out to bicorno, as your opponent parries, dip your point around his blade, and walk your thrust in.

We do this in our Woman in the Window drill as we saw in part #11 of this series.

Likewise, if we find ourselves crossed at the sword, either at the punta di spada or the meza spada, for example after parrying a fendente attack with frontale, the mechanically fastest possible riposte is to drop your point in their face, which is a) very fast b) hard to see and c) mechanically stable in the plane of the flat and so very hard to parry.

We have shown then the mechanical and tactical advantages of this position, and how the interpretation follows the picture exactly, and makes sense of the text. The last test of the likelihood of this interpretation being accurate was teaching it. Most fundamental techniques are simple and therefore easily taught. In seminars held in the USA, Sweden and Finland over the last ten years, mixed-level classes were able to effectively enter and use this position with about 5-10 minutes of instruction. 

In summary then it is easy to do, fits the system perfectly, follows the picture and text precisely, and in every case against someone standing on guard prepared for an attack, I have landed the first strike with it, and struck again with the feint. So it thrusts well, and deceives well.

What more can anyone ask for?

The only pieces of evidence I’ve found against  this interpretation are:

• The images in the Florius (which I think can be discounted as unreliable- see here), and the rather vague drawing of the hands in the Morgan. In the Getty, the drawing of the left hand is a squiggle- it’s as if the illustrator was deliberately obscuring the placement of the back hand. 
• The reversed back hand grip can be documented in other manuscripts of this period (or somewhat later).
• The reversed back hand grip is also found in other martial arts (e.g. some Japanese swordsmanship styles).

Nothing terribly convincing, and certainly not sufficient for me to doubt that my way of doing it a) follows the text b) follows the images (in the Pisani-Dossi, the hands are clearly drawn, and support my theory)  c) makes mechanical sense d) actually works in practice and so might be right.

I go on about bicorno at further length in The Medieval Longsword, pages 122-126.

Now let’s move on to the Crown. 

Posta frontale ditta corona 

Questa sie posta frontale chiamada d’alchun magistri posta di corona, che per incrosar ella e bona, e per le punte ell’e anchora bona. Che se la punta gle ven tratta erta ella la incrosa passando fuora di strada. E se la punta e tratta bassa, anchora passa fuor di strada rebattendo la punta a terra. Anchora po far altramente che in lo trar de la punta torni cum lo pe indredo e vegna da fendente per la testa e per gli brazzi, e vada in dente di cengiaro e subito butti una punta o doe cum acresser di pe e torni di fendente in quella appia guardia.

This is the frontal guard, called by some masters the crown guard, that is good for crossing and for thrusts it is also good, so if the thrust comes high it crosses it, passing out of the way. And if the thrust comes low, it also passes out of the way, beating the thrust to the ground. Also she can alternatively, in the striking of the thrust, return with the foot backwards, and come with a fendente to the head and to the arms, and go into the boar's tooth guard, and immediately throw a thrust or two, with an advance of the foot, and return with a fendente into whichever appropriate guard.

Lots to unpack here. I’ll break it down into chunks.

1. This is the frontal guard; which other masters call the crown. Why refer to other masters, and why call this guard by a different name? The obvious correlate from ‘other masters’ with surviving treatise legacies are the Kron guard from the Liechtenauer system, and Frontal and Corona from De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. 

Frontal in De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi  is quite different:

And while we’re with Vadi, here’s his Crown guard:

I go into the differences in some detail in The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest, pages 37-75.

2. This guard is good for crossing, and also for thrusts. This may imply that “crossing” (incrosar) is done against cuts, but frontale is also good against thrusts, or frontale is good at crossing against cuts and thrusts, and is also good for thrusting from. 

But, in the very same paragraph, he describes defending against a high thrust and uses the verb incrosare; so it’s pretty clear that incrosare, to cross, can be used whether you’re defending against a cut or a thrust. 

Just for fun let’s have a look at the terminology used in the specific defences done against a thrust, the break and the exchange: in the exchange, the verb he uses to describe what you do with the sword is ‘traversando’, ‘crossing’. In the break, you ‘catch the fendente… and strike across the thrust’, (pigla lo fendente… e tra per traverso la punta).

3. If the thrust comes low… that can mean two things. Either you are in frontale as illustrated, and the thrust comes in below your sword, or, you are in some other guard such as tutta porta di ferro, and you are attacked with a thrust, and move into frontale to defend against it. The text could indicate either. One would imagine that a ‘crown’ guard would be at head height (just as the tail is held right about where you would expect a tail to sprout from)

As I use it, frontale is the end point of a parry done on the high inside: I use frontale as the position that I move through at the moment of blade contact whenever defending from my right against anything coming in at me at chest height or above. It’s also the starting point of a thrust to the face or chest, and the starting point for a fendente, usually a roverso, as we will see in the plays of the sword in two hands in zogho largo. You can see from this image of the first two plays that the crossing is being made in frontale, and the continuation from there is explicitly a cut or a thrust.

Posta di dente zenchiaro mezana (middle boar's tooth guard)

Questo sie dente di cengiaro lo mezano e perzoe che sono doy denti di zengiaro l’uno tutto, l’altro sie mezo, pero e ditto mezo, per zo chello sta in mezo de la persona, e zo che po fare lo tutto dente, po fare lo mezo dente. E per modo che fiera lo zengiaro a la traversa per tal modo se fa cum la spada che sempre fieri cum la spada ala traversa de la spada del compagno. E sempre butta punte e discrova lu compagno. E sempre guastagli le mane e tal volta la testa egli brazzi.

This is the middle boar's tooth because there are two boar's teeth, one is whole and the other is middle, it is called middle because it is in the middle of the body, and that which the whole tooth does, so does the middle tooth. And in the way that the boar strikes across, in that way one strikes with the sword, that always strikes with the sword across the sword of the companion. And it always throws thrusts and uncovers the companion and always destroys the hands and sometimes the head and the arms.

The text here straight up tells us that this version of cenghiaro works the same as the previous version. It is probably added here to make up the cardinal number of twelve guards. It does not appear in the Pisani-Dossi, which repeats fenestra (but on the left, which in the Getty is only mentioned on page 31, and shown with the pollax on page 36r). Here though it is mentioned that the rising blow from this guard can be aimed at the sword, as a cover, where in the previous version, the only targets mentioned are the head, arms and hands. So, you may parry from here (much as from the middle iron door). Given that the measure must be quite long for you to be safely in this guard, it is not surprising that the hands are the principle target (“always destroys the hands, sometimes the head and the arms”).

So there we have them- the last four guards. Next week I’ll look at the twelve guards as a whole, and then we’ll crack on with the plays of the sword in two hands, in zogho largo. 

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[oops! I accidentally scheduled part 2 for this week, and part 1 for next. Sorry! don't worry though, part 1 is in the queue to post then. Part 3 is growing and growing- I thought it was about done but just added another 1000 words to it… and I'm still only part way through. But it will be ready and up for the week after.]

The next set of four guards are on folio 24r, and are: longa, porta di ferro mezana, breve, and dente di cenghiaro (long, middle iron door, short, boar’s tooth).

Let's take them one at a time.

Posta longa

Posta longa sie questa piena di falsita. Ella va tastando le guardie se lo compagno po inganare. Se ella po ferir de punta la lo sa ben far. E gli colpi la schiva, e po fieri sela lo po fare. Piu che le altre guardie le falsita sa usare.

Posta longa, instabile.

This is posta longa, full of deception. It goes tasting the guards of the companion to deceive. If it can make a thrust, it knows well how to do it. And it avoids blows, and can can strike, that it can do. More than the other guards, it uses deception. 

Long Guard, unstable.

Let’s unpack that a bit. What is ‘tasting the guards’? As I see it, if you enter into measure with your sword out in posta longa (as opposed to coming in with a committed blow), your opponent must react or your sword gets inside her no reaction zone, I.e. Too close for her to react in time if you strike. But because your sword is effectively still, you can move it out of the way, or parry, very easily. So you can sound out her responses, and force her out of her guard. The former is ‘tasting the guard’ the latter is ‘breaking the guard’.

If, while you are coming forward to ’taste the guard’, there’s an opportunity to strike, you would thrust. If she tries to beat your sword aside, you can ‘avoid the blow’, after which you would strike.

Recall also that guards tend to be the beginning, middle, or end of a blow. We saw on f23r that longa is specifically described as a place that sottani blows can end in. Longa is also the position that all fendenti blows, and all false-edge sottani blows will pass through or end in. 

Mezana porta di ferro

Questa e mezana porta di ferro per che sta in mezo [one or two letters illegible, probably “et”] e una forte guardia, ma ella vole longa spada. Ella butta forte punte e rebatte per forza le spade in erto, e torna cum lo fendente per la testa o per gli brazzi, e pur torna in sua guardia. Po ven chiamada porta per che la e forte, E de forte guardia che male se po rompere senza periculo e venire ale strette.

Porta di ferro mezana, stabile.

This is the middle iron door, because it is in the middle, and it is a strong guard, but it wants a long sword. It strikes strong thrusts and with strength beats swords up and away, and returns with the fendente to the head or to the arms, and then returns to its guard. It came to be called “gate” because it is strong, and a strong guard is hard to break without danger or coming to the close plays.

The middle iron door, stable.

It’s quite clear that you would lie in wait in this guard, and when your opponent attacks, you parry and strike. It’s a nice example of the sottani returning by the same path as the fendenti, as we read on f23r, and will see again on this page regarding dente di zenghiaro.

It’s interesting to note that Fiore specifies you need a long sword for this (note, not a ‘longsword’, a ‘sword that is perhaps longer than usual’). He has referred to the length of the sword before, in the text on 22r:

E zaschuna altra guardia in l’arte una simile de l’altra sie contrario, salvo le guardie che stano in punta, zoe, posta lunga e breve e meza porta di ferro che punta per punta la piu lunga fa offesa inanci.

And [with] every other guard in the art one like the other is the counter, except for the guards that stand with the point [in the centre], thus, long guard and short, and middle iron door, that thrust against thrust the longer will strike first.

He also brings up the subject of weapon length in the discussion of the mezana porta di ferro with the spear, on f39r:

In meza porta di ferro io me o posto cum la lanza, lo rebatter e lo ferire e sempre mia usanza. E vegna chi vole cum meza lanza o stanga, che rebatter cum passo lo ferir non me mancha. Che tutte le guardie che stano fora de strada cum curta lanza e curta spada sono sufficienti aspettare ogni arma manuale longa. E quelle de la parte dritta covrano e cum coverta passa e metteno punta. E le guardie de parte sinistra covrano e rebatteno e di colpo fierano, e non po metter chossi ben punta.

I have placed myself in the middle iron door with the lance. Beating and striking is always my custom. And come who will with half-lance or staff, [I will] beat it aside with a pass, and I will not fail to strike. All the guards that are [held] out of the way [I.e. With the point offline] are sufficient to wait with the short lance or short sword against all long hand-held weapons. And those on the right side cover and with the cover pass and place the thrust. And the guards on the left side cover and beat aside, and strike with a blow, and cannot place the thrust so well.

I think we need to discuss this left-side/right-side business, especially as regards the spear. If you compare the guards on either side, you’ll see that the spear is used ambidextrously. Dente di Zenghiaro with the spear is the exact mirror image of tutta porta di ferro. So why would it behave differently?

Notice that all the spear attacks shown are being done from the player’s right hand side. If you’re also on the right, then your weapons are coming from either side, and will meet in the middle (more or less). So displacing the attack and immediately thrusting is quite easy. If you are on your left, and they attack from their right, then you are coming into the centre from the same side, and so you have to beat their weapon away much more vigorously.

You can see the basic remedy from all six spear guards in this video: 

https://youtu.be/3WmEYeFZU24

While we’re on the spear material, take a look at the counter-remedies:

https://youtu.be/rR6aNHTwfnA

What do you see?

This (in addition to much practical experience) is why at the basic level I say that you can only exchange the thrust (with the sword or any longer weapon) if you are both coming from your forehand side (it doesn’t matter if the opponent is left or right handed; it’s your forehand side). You can break the thrust from either side, regardless. If you have a look at my breaking the thrust and exchanging the thrust basic videos, you’ll see the difference:

https://youtu.be/gGD4KAz3JJQ

https://youtu.be/JEsKnhBm_PU

Taking this back to the mezana porta di ferro: this guard is in the middle. This means it cannot parry easily from the forehand or backhand side, but instead parries upwards. It is mechanically much more similar to dente di zenghiaro than it is to tutta porta di ferro.

Posta Breve

Questa sie posta breve che vole longa spada. S’e maliciosa guarda che non a stabilita. Anche sempre si move e vede se po entrar cum punta e cum passo contra lo compagno. E pui e appiada tal guardia in arme che senzarme.

This is the short guard that wants a long sword. It is a malicious guard that does not have stability. It always moves and sees if it can enter with a thrust and with a pass against the companion. And this guard is more appropriate in armour than without armour.

In the bad old days of yesteryear, would-be Fioristas used to circle round each other out of measure, wandering through the guards (for no particular purpose, other than perhaps to show that they knew them, at least their external form), and then they would devolve into breve, and start poking at each other. It's natural, when you're under a bit of pressure, to hold your sword back where it can't be bound, and in the middle where you can jolly well see it.

It seems from Fiore’s description that things were much the same six hundred years ago. But, and it’s a big but, things are very different in armour, so that kind of ‘circle-circle-stab!’ fencing might make more sense when you are properly encased in steel.

It’s also interesting to note that the three guards Fiore mentions as ‘standing with the point in line’ are grouped together on this page:

Dente di zenghiaro

Questo sie dente di zengiaro per che dello zengiaro prende lo modo di ferire. Ello tra grande punte per sotto man in fin al volto e non si move di passo. E torna com lo fendente zo per gli brazzi. E alchuna volta tra la punta al volto e va cuz la punta erta, e in quello zitar di punta ello acresse lo pe ch’e dinanzi subito, e torna cum lo fendente per la testa e per li brazzi e torna in sua guardia, e subito zitta un altra punta cum acresser di pe e ben se defende delo zogho stretto.

This is the boar’s tooth because it takes its way of striking from the wild boar. He makes great underarm thrusts that end in the face, and does not move the stance. And returns with the fendente, for example to the arms. And sometimes he strikes a thrust to the face and goes with the point high, and in that throwing of the thrust it immediately steps the foot that is in front forwards, and returns with the fendente to the head, and to the arms, and returns in its guard, and immediately throws another thrust with the step forwards of the foot, and it defends well against the close plays.

It’s interesting to note that Fiore explains where the name comes from; my feeling is that this is one of the few guards (like longa and breve) where the naming actually has something to do with the guard’s function.

It’s also interesting to note that he doesn’t mention defence from this guard here, though if you recall this post, he does describe how to do it on f31r. 

You could easily come up with a striking drill from these instructions, that will turn you into a stabby slashy machine (and what more could one aspire to?):

1. Stand in dente di zenghiaro
2. Stab to the face without stepping
3. Strike immediately down to the arms
4. Thrust high to the face with an accrescere
5. Strike immediately down to the head, and arms, and return to guard
6. Immediately thrust again, with the step.

I’m just guessing, but I think Fiore would approve of us returning again to the guard and doing it all over again…

Now, how does dente di zenghiaro “defend against the close plays”? Good question, for which I don’t have a definitive answer, but I would say that

1. if you are in this guard, neither your blade nor your arms can be bound- both features of close plays.
2. if your opponent tries to enter in, you can probably stab them from here
3. so they have to try to bind your sword, but it is more difficult to do so because you are coming from your left. 

You can see our “stretto form of second drill” here, which goes through what could happen if when you parry from zenghiaro, your opponent binds and enters.

https://youtu.be/TEYTl6tsMHI

Food for thought, I think!

Next week we'll conclude this section, and gear up in preparation for the plays of the zogho largo. Stay tuned!

This project is being published in stages. You can get part one, The Sword in One Hand, as a free PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below, or buy it in ebook format from Amazon or Gumroad. You can get Part two, Longsword Mechanics, from Amazon or Gumroad too!

This section is very interesting as it describes the seven blows of the sword, and divides one of them (the thrust) into five, which makes eleven in total (like the eleven plays of the sword in one hand). It is also admirably specific in terms of the lines of the blows, and in some cases, even the guards that you would finish in.

The first image is of the Colpi fendenti, the fendenti blows. (Fendente, singular; fendenti, plural. Fendente means a cleaving blow, and it’s always a descending action.) The text opens with a witty wordplay:

Noy semo fendenti e in l’arte fazemo questione de fender gli denti e rivar alo zinochio cum rasone. E ogni guardia che si fa terrena, d’una guardia in l’altra andamo senza pena. E rompemo le guardie cum inzegno. E cum colpi fazemo de sangue segno. Noi fendenti dello feriri non avemo tardo, e tornaremo in guardia di vargo in vargo.

We are fendenti and in the art we make a quarrel, to smash the teeth and arrive at the knee, with reason. And all guards that are low, from one guard to the other we go without difficulty. And we break the guards with cunning. And with blows we make a sign of blood. We fendenti are not late to strike, and we will return in guard from pace to pace.

Fender gli denti: fendenti, geddit? No? Well it only works in Italian, sorry. But it’s a great way to remember that these blows smash the teeth and arrive at the knee. If we look at the image, the swords pass the jaw and the knee. This is true for the target, and for the striker: generally speaking, striking from a high guard, the blow passes your jaw and arrives near your knee on the other side. You see this most clearly in the strike from posta di donna (forward weighted) to dente di zenghiaro. Be careful though: the ‘sign of blood’ should be on the opponent…. You’re not supposed to cut your face or jam your crossguard into your thigh as you strike. These things have been known to happen, though not by me, I hasten to add.

Fendenti can be used to transition between low guards: this is well worth taking note of, because it’s easy to forget that you can strike down from a low guard. 

Breaking the guards: when your opponent is standing in guard, you are not in control of their sword. You can use a fendente to force them to move their sword; this action, done at your command, is controlling their sword up to a point; and it gives you the opportunity to control it mechanically too, as they will usually either parry, or counterattack. In both cases, you can exploit their movement to control their weapon. This is what breaking the guard is all about.

The last statement gives you some idea of the flow of the movement: as you make a fendente, it will probably be with a pass, and as you walk, each step will have at least one sword movement. Vargo is not passo, take note. I think it comes from varco, a gap, in this case the space between your feet. Fiore uses it again on f32r, the famous ‘segno page’, in the text regarding the elephant:

Ellefante son e un castello porto per chargo

E non mi inzinochio ne perdo vargo.

I am an elephant, and I carry a castle as my burden,

And I do not kneel down, nor lose my pace.

It’s a tricky word to define, in a sword context; I have it as “pace”. Leoni uses “stride” (on f32r) and “step” (on f23r).  Please note, non-translators, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self Reliance: “ foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” In other words, straining the bounds of intelligibility to render every Italian word into the same English word everywhere it appears can lead one into ghastly and unnecessary contortions. Repeat after me: My clothes didn't match while striking a match at a football match…

The sense here is clear, I think: co-ordinate your blows with your steps, and having made a fendente, be damn sure to return to guard (not necessarily the one you started in).

The next image is of the sottani blows. ‘Sotto' is ‘under’ or ‘low’ , ‘sottani’ is ‘the low ones’. If I were to translate sottani, I’d call them ‘rising blows’. [edit: Sótano is also Spanish for basement]

Gli colpi sottani semo noi, e cominzamo alo zinochio, e andamo per meza la fronte per lo camino che fano gli fendenti. E per tal modo che noi montamo per quello camino noy retornamo. Overo che noi remanemo in posta longa.

We are the sottani blows, and we begin at the knee, and go to the middle of the forehead by the [same] path that the fendenti go. And in the way that we rise, by this path we return. Or we remain in posta longa.

This is simple enough: sottani blows begin at the knee, and end in the forehead, travelling along the same path that the fendenti take. And they return (as fendenti) back down the same path, or remain in posta longa.

What’s posta longa? I’m glad you asked…

From f24r:

Posta longa sie questa piena di falsita. Ella va tastando le guardie se lo compagno po inganare. Se ella po ferir de punta la lo sa ben far. E gli colpi la schiva, e po fieri sela lo po fare. Piu che le altre guardie le falsita sa usare.

Posta longa, instabile.

This is posta longa, full of deception. It goes tasting the guards of the companion to deceive. If it can make a thrust, it knows well how to do it. And it avoids blows, and can can strike, that it can do. More than the other guards, it uses deception. 

Long Guard, unstable.

I’ll comment more fully on posta longa in her own section in a few weeks. In the meantime, you can see that it would be natural to strike up with the false edge into this guard. (And on the subject of which edge to cut with, Sean Manning has some thoughts here.)

Now the middle blows:

Colpi mezani semo chiamadi per che noy andamo per mezi gli colpi soprani e sottani. E andamo cum lo dritto taglo de la parte dritta. E de la parte riversa andamo cum lo falso taglio. E lo nostro camino sie dello zinochio ala testa.

We are the middle blows because we go between the high blows and the low ones. And we go with the true edge from the forehand side, and from the backhand side we go with the false edge. And our way is from the knee to the head.

There is a lovely example of a mezano blow being struck from below, to the neck, using the false edge from the backhand side, in the second of the breaking of the thrust plays, bottom right on f26v. 

Lo scolaro che me denanzi a rebatuda la spada del zugador a terra, et io complisto lo suo zogho per questo modo. Che rebattuda la sua spada a terra, io gli metto cum forza lo mio pe dritto sopra la sua spada. Overo che io la rompo o la piglo per modo che piu non la pora curare. E questo no me basta. Che subito quando glo posto lo pe sopra la spada, io lo fiero cum lo falso de la mia spada sotto la barba in lo collo. E subito torno cum lo fendente de la mia spada per gli brazzi o per le man com’e depento.

The scholar that is before me has beaten the player’s sword to the ground, and I complete his play in this way. Having beaten his sword to the ground I put my right foot forcefully on his sword. Either I break it or I grab it in such a way that he can no longer fix it [I.e. Recover from it]. And this is not enough for me. Immediately that I have put my foot on the sword, I strike with the false [edge] of my sword under the beard in the throat. And immediately return with the fendente with my sword to the arms or hands as is shown.

Finally, we have The Thrusts:

Noy semo le punte crudele e mortale. E lo nostro camino sie per mezo lo corpo cominzando a lo petenechio in fin a la fronte. E semo punte de V rasone, zoe doy soprane una d’una parte l’altra de l’altra. E doy de sotta simile mente una d’una parte e l’altra de l’altra. E una di mezo che esse di meza porta di ferro overo di posta lunga e breve.

We are the thrusts, cruel and mortal. And our way is from the middle of the body, starting at the groin, and ending in the forehead. And we thrusts are of five types, thus: two from above, one from one side and the other from the other. And two from below, similarly one from one side and one from the other. And one in the middle, being from the middle iron door, or from posta longa or breve.

This is quite simple, and only needs expansion on those guards, both on f24r:

Posta Breve:

Questa sie posta breve che vole longa spada, et e maliciosa guarda che non a stabilita. Anche sempre si move e vede se po entrar cum punta e cum passo contra lo compagno. E piu e appropriada tal guardia in arme che senz’arme.

Posta breve stabile.

This is posta breve (the short guard) that wants a long sword, and it is a malicious guard that is not stable. Almost always it moves and looks to see if it can enter with a thrust and with a pass against the companion. And this guard is more appropriate in armour than out of armour.

Short guard, stable.

I’ll discuss stable/unstable (and why breve is a stable guard that is not stable) in the guards section; it’s enough at this stage to note that it is held in the middle of the body, and is only really used for moving around looking for openings to thrust into.

Mezana porta di ferro:

Questa e mezana porta di ferro per che sta in mezo [one or two letters illegible, probably “et”] e una forte guardia, ma ella vole longa spada. Ella butta forte punte e rebatte per forza le spade in erto, e torna cum lo fendente per la testa o per gli brazzi, e pur torna in sua guardia. Po ven chiamada porta per che la e forte, E de forte guardia che male se po rompere senza periculo e venire ale strette.

Porta di ferro mezana, stabile.

This is the middle iron door, because it is in the middle, and it is a strong guard, but it wants a long sword. It strikes strong thrusts and with strength beats swords up and away, and returns with the fendente to the head or to the arms, and then returns to its guard. It got called “gate” because it is strong, and a strong guard is hard to break without danger or coming to the close plays.

The middle iron door, stable.

Notice here the returning with a fendente to the head or the arms. It’s something of a theme, wouldn’t you say? And notice again the image of the fendenti blows, how the swords pass through the jaw, and the arms, and seem to miss the thighs. And look again at the sottani image, where the swords strike the hands (not the arms), and the face. The middle blows only seem to pass through the neck. I’m not putting too much weight on this, but it seems to me that fendenti blows should be used to the head or the arms, sottani to the hands or the face, and mezani usually to the neck. This accords very well with what works in my experience. We will find exceptions, of course (the punta falsa on 27v has a mezano done to the head as a feint, for example, and we have seen in the breaking of the thrust play above a fendente done to the arms or the hands), but note that the only blow to the legs in this book is an error on the part of the companion, punished on f26r.

If you have trouble remembering all these instructions, this might help:

The Seven Eleven:

Seven great Blows: six cuts and a thrust, 

We leave a bloody scene:

Forehand or backhand, above or below, 

Or even across from between!

 

False edge and true edge, in steel we trust, 

From guard to guard we go:

Say the thrusts to cuts: “You never shall slice 

As much as we shall sew!”

 

Dritto Fendente, a good downright blow, 

From Lady or Window I flee:

Through Long Guard I pass, to Boar’s Tooth at last, 

My path from your teeth to your knee

 

Roverso Sottano, backhand from below, 

From the Boar or one-handed I strike

A parry, a thrust, or some other blow 

Use me however you like.

 

Backhand from Donna, why should I abate? 

You know I never shall fail?

From the sinister Lady and down to the Gate 

Or coming to rest at the Tail.

 

And soaring up strong, into Crown or Long, 

Mandritto Sottano I fly,

To find blade or face, to win the race, 

Feinting I never lie.

 

Mezani we riddle who come from the middle, 

Slicing under the beard:

Crosswise we go, parry or blow, 

None of us are more feared.

 

From my knee to your neck, your throat we will wreck, 

Slicing your larynx we pass

True from the right and false from the left, 

A bloody touch of class.

 

The Thrusts are we, five points to know, 

One of us strikes up the centre

Forehand or backhand, above or below, 

Or groin to face we enter.

 

From middle Gate, guards long and short, 

Up the centre we zip,

Or down from the Window, down from the Lady 

And rising up from the hip.

 

So Seven’s Eleven, this you should love: 

Six are the blows false and true:

Backhand and forehand, below and above, 

And even across: what a coup!

Five of the trickery snickery thrust, 

The one up the middle’s the king,

Remembering’s easy, now we can trust, 

Our well-deserved praises you’ll sing!

 

From the Armizare Vade Mecum, a book of mnemonic verses I wrote to help me internalise the key principles of Fiore’s Art. You can find it here.

And for a convenient drill that includes all the blows in one or more variants, my Cutting Drill is here. This is the old video from the Syllabus Wiki; I have a newer, cleaner version on the Longsword Course, but haven't gotten round to editing it down for this blog series yet.

https://youtu.be/c6pNOiTjGzE

 

This project is being published in stages. You can get part one, The Sword in One Hand, as a free PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below, or buy it in ebook format from Amazon or Gumroad. You can get Part two, Longsword Mechanics, from Amazon or Gumroad too!

So how do you hold a longsword then?

Simple really: any damn way you like. Fiore shows us six distinct grips, and there’s no suggestion that these are the only possible grips- not least as, whichever interpretation you follow, the guard bicorno is generally agreed to be yet another way of holding the sword (I’ll examine bicorno in detail when we get on to the guards).

It begins with these two on f22r, right underneath the footwork exposition we had last week:

Noy semo sey guardie e una non e simile de l’altra. E io son la primera che digo mia rasone. De lanzar mia spada questa e mia condicione. Le altre guardie che d’mi sono dredo dirano le lor virtude come io credo.

We are six guards and one is not like the other. And I am the first, and state my reason. For throwing my sword, this is my way of being. The other guards that are after me will tell of their virtues, I believe.

That’s a good start: there are six guards, not like each other. This is the first, and it’s for throwing the sword. And the other guards will explain themselves too.

The guard itself is pretty straightforward: you hold the sword by the part of the blade near the hilt, and by the middle of the blade, ready to chuck it like a javelin. This works very well, BTW. I could tell you stories…

Next we have our old friend, the master of the sword in one hand. 

Io son bona guardia in arme e senza, e contra l’aza e spada zitada fora di mano. Che io le so rebattere e schivarle. Per o me tegno certo che non me pon far male.

I am a good guard, in armour and without, and against the axe and the sword thrown out of the hand. I beat them [away] and avoid them. I am certain that they cannot do me harm.

You can see here for the eleven plays of the sword in one hand, which don’t include actual illustrations of defending against thrown swords or axes, but you’ll get the drift.

Turning the page to f22v, we see the remaining four guards, starting with these two:

E son guardia de trar una longa punta tanto che lo mio mantener di spada de longeza monta. E son bona d’andare contra uno che sia luy e mi armato. Per che io habia curta punta denanzi io non faro inganato.

And I am a guard for striking a long thrust, because of my grip on the sword extends [it] a lot. And I am good to go against one who is, them and me, in armour. Because I have a short point in front I will not be deceived.

Clear enough: hold the sword like this (with the right hand on the pommel) and you can make extra-long thrusts. This is quite a common trick; I first came across it about twenty years ago in DiGrassi. My friend Martin Page thought it would be a good idea, but I said it was unlikely to work and would leave you out of control of your sword. A short while later, when we were fencing, he hit me with it. And twenty years on he hasn't let me forget it. That's mates for you.

So, it works. But I maintain that it is a trick shot; if it works, great. If it doesn’t, there’s a horrible moment when your opponent’s parry is disproportionately effective.

Io son bona guardia contra spada, azza, e daga siando armado. Per che io tegno la spada cum la man mancha al mezo. Ello fazo per fare contra la daga che me po fare de le altre arme pezo.

I am a good guard against the sword, axe, and dagger, being in armour. Because I hold the sword with my left hand at the middle. I do that to act against the dagger, which can do worse to me than the other weapons.

This is a confirmation of the ‘when in armour, use half-sword’ lesson of the 11^th play of the sword in one hand. It’s interesting to note that the dagger is more to be feared than the axe or sword when in armour- which makes sense, when you think about it. It’s hard to see, hard to stop, and optimised for getting through the visor, voiders (maille gussets covering the armpits), and other areas of weakness. I think you’d use the sword much like the sixth master of the dagger uses his dagger (on f16r):

Sesto magistro che son digo che questa coverta e fina in arme e senzarme. E cum tal coverta posso covrire in ogni parte, E intrare in tutte ligadure e far prese e ferire segondo che gli scolari miei vignirano a ferire finire. E questa coverta fazza zaschuno mio scolaro, E poy faza li zoghi dredo che si po fare.

I am the sixth master [and] I say that this cover is good in armour and without. And with this cover I can cover on every side, and enter in all the locks, and make grips and strike, in the way that my scholars come to strike finish. And all of my scholars make this cover, and can do the plays that follow, that they can do.

 

It’s nice to have confirmation that the sixth master works in armour; we can leave his scholars to another day, and press on with the sword material (press-presa-grip, geddit?).

Guardia e posta di donna son chiamata per che cum queste altre prese de spada e son divisada che una non e tal presa che l’altra, ben che questa che me contra mi pare la mia guardia. Se non fosse forma d’azza che la spada si intrada.

Guard and guard of the woman I am called by these other grips of the sword, and I am distinct, in that one grip is not like the other, especially that which is against me that looks like my guard, if it weren’t for the sword having changed into the shape of an axe.

As I use ‘guard’ for ‘posta’ (because there is no better word for it), the way Fiore uses these terms both interchangeably, and separately, we end up with ‘guard and guard…’.  If this was a commercially published translation, I’d probably want to fix that. It's worth checking out posta and guardia in Tommaseo if you're interested in their connotations.

I think of this version of posta di donna as the normal grip on the sword. Interesting that this way of holding the sword, by far the most common in the treatise (and every other sword treatise), is languishing in fifth place… I wonder why?

Questa spada sie spada e azza. E gli grandi pesi gli licieri forte impaza. Questa anchora posta de donna la soprana, che cum le soi malicie le altre guardie spesso ingana, per che tu crederai che traga de colpo io traro di punta. Io non ho altro a fare che levar gli brazzi sopra la testa. E posso buttar una punta che io lo presta.

This sword is a sword and an axe. And great weights hinder light strengths. This also [is] the high guard of the woman, that with it’s malice often tricks the other guards, because you think [I’ll] strike a blow [but] I strike a thrust. I only have to lift my arms over my head, and I can throw a thrust, at which I’m quick.

This is fascinating. It’s clear from the additional crossguard near the point that this is a boar sword (read here for more about boar swords). It gives the impression that you will strike what the Germans would call a murder-stroke.

But Fiore is more subtle- from here you can thrust instead. I don’t have a video of this, but it’s quite straightforward. Cross-referencing with the guards of the sword in armour will show you how it’s done. Yes, I plan to expand on them too…

These six grips are, in order: 

Throw, one hand, long thrust, armour, normal, axe. I use them as the basis of a sword handling drill you might enjoy:

https://youtu.be/p5UV8jW6xg4

Next week, we’ll go through the blows of the sword. All seven of them. Or is that eleven??

The video is extracted from my Medieval Longsword Complete Course, which you can get here at a healthy discount.

See you there!

This project is being published in stages. You can get part one, The Sword in One Hand, as a free PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below, or buy it in ebook format from Amazon or Gumroad. You can get Part two, Longsword Mechanics, from Amazon or Gumroad too!

O lordy. Here we go. This page alone blows every other longsword treatise out of the water. We have footwork, people. Clearly-defined terms. Nothing vague, mysterious or difficult. This section begins with these words above the picture:

Noy semo doi guardie, una si fatta che l’altra, e una e contraria de l’altra. E zaschuna altra guardia in l’arte una simile de l’altra sie contrario, salvo le guardie che stano in punta, zoe, posta lunga e breve e meza porta di ferro che punta per punta la piu lunga fa offesa inanci. E zoe che po far una po far l’altra. E zaschuna guardia po fare volta stabile e meza volta. Volta stabile sie che stando fermo po zugar denanci e di dredo de una parte. Meza volta si e quando uno fa un passo o inanzi o indredo, e chossi po zugare de l’altra parte de inanzi e di dredo. Tutta volta sie quando uno va intorno uno pe cum l’altro pe, l’uno staga fermo e l’altro lo circundi. E perzo digo che la spada si ha tre movimenti, zoe volta stabile, meza volta, e tutta volta. E queste guardie sono chiamate l’una e l’altra posta di donna. Anchora sono iv cose in l’arte, zoe passare, tornare, acressere, e discressere.

We are two guards, one made like the other, and one is counter to the other. And [with] every other guard in the art one like the other is the counter, except for the guards that stand with the point [in the centre], thus, long guard and short, and middle iron door, that thrust against thrust the longer will strike first. And thus what one can do the other can do. And every guard can do the stable turn and the half turn. The stable turn is when, standing still, you can play in front and behind on one side. The half turn is when one makes a pass forwards or backwards, and thus can play on the other side, in front and behind. The whole turn is when one goes around one foot with the other foot, the one staying still and the other going around. And so I say that the sword also has three movements, thus stable turn, half turn, and full turn. And these guards are called, one and the other, the woman’s guard. Also there are four things in the art, thus: pass, return, advance, and retreat.

Let’s unpack this. 

1. The two guards shown are both posta di donna. One is shown forward weighted, the other back weighted. I interpret the difference between them to be a volta stabile (more on that later). 

2. Any two guards that are alike can counter each other. 

3. Except for guards that have the point in the centre line (longa, breve, and mezana porta di ferro; more on those in the next section). This is because the longer sword will strike first. Here I’m translating punta as point (stano in punta, stand with the point), and thrust (punta per punta, thrust against thrust). The meaning is obvious whichever way you translate it though: don’t stand with your point in line against someone else who has their point in line unless you have the longer sword.

4. Any similar guards can do what the guards they are like can do.

5. Every guard can do the volta stabile and the meza volta. (I use the Italian terms for technical actions, guards, etc. where possible. Refer to the glossary if you need it.

6. The volta stabile: I interpret stando fermo, standing still, to mean without stepping, or moving a foot. As I do the volta stabile, the balls of my feet stay on the same spot on the ground. It makes no sense for a turning action to involve no movement at all, so standing still cannot mean literally ‘not moving’.

7. The meza volta: this is a passing action, forwards or backwards. I interpret that to include a turn of the hips and body, so you go from one side to the other. 

8. The tutta volta: here again we have a ‘fixed’ foot, that, unless your legs are made of swivel-joints (top tip: they’re not), must at least turn around itself for the action to occur. This supports my reading of ’stando fermo’ above. Simply, this is whenever you pivot on one foot by turning the other one round it. There is a video of me doing these three movements further down this post.

9. The sword also has three movements: stable turn, half turn, and full turn. Unfortunately there is no further discussion of this, and these terms simply aren’t used in the rest of the book. Fiore will tell us to ‘turn the sword’ for instance in the play of the punta falsa, on f27v, but never with the qualifiers stable half or full. So I simply do not use these terms to apply to sword actions. Other instructors and interpreters do, but you should be aware that there is no evidence supporting any one interpretation of these turns over another.

10. In case you missed it the first time: both these guards are posta di donna. Both of them. Got that?

11. There are four things in the Art: pass, return, advance and retreat. (See the video further down this post.)

Let me further unpack those four things:

Passare and Tornare

Passare is to pass; an unexceptional and totally uncontroversial word meaning to step with one foot going past the other. As we see from the meza volta definition, it can be done forwards and backwards. Tornare is also a pass, but backwards. It literally means to return (please note: it in no way implies a turning action). It is not often used in the treatise, though you can find it used on f19r, in the play of the dagger defending against a sword thrust:

Qui cominza Spada e daga a zugare. La vantazo e grande a chi lo sa fare. Lo magistro spetta in questa guardia. E la guardia se chiama denti di zenghiaro. Vegna tagli e punte che di quello mi so guardare. Lo pe dritto cum rebatter in dredo lu faro tornare. Lo zogo stretto so a mente e non lu posso fallare. A uno a uno vegna chi contra me vol fare. Che se ello non me fuzi io lo guastaro in un voltare.

Here begin the sword and the dagger to play. The advantage is great to the one that knows how to do it. The master waits in this guard. And the guard is called the boar’s tooth. Come cut or thrust, I am watching for them. I make a return with the right foot with the parry. I have the close play in mind and I cannot fail. Come one by one, whoever wants to act against me. They cannot escape me, I’ll smash them in one turn.

Note: I’ve translated ‘rebatter’ here as parry, because you’re doing it with the dagger against the sword, so it doesn’t feel like a ‘beat’, the way I would translate it sword against sword.

The play is shown in the next illustration:

Lo mio magistro contra la punta fa tal coverta e subito fieri in lo volto overo in lo petto. E cum daga contra spada sempre vole zogo stretto. Qui son stretto e ti posso ben ferire, o vogli o no tu lo conven sofrire.

My master makes this cover against the thrust, and immediately strikes in the face or in the chest. And with the dagger against the sword one always wants close play. Here I am close and can strike you well. Whether you want to or not, you will suffer.

I need to shoot a video of this action- in the meantime, you can find it on pages 140-142 of The Medieval Dagger  as you can see in these page caps:

Notice that the tornare here isn’t really a full pass back: the feet come together. But I do end up with the other foot forwards, so they must pass each other.

You can also find tornare used in the text regarding posta frontale, on f24v, the pollax guard finestra, on f36r, and in the spear guard dente di zenghiaro, on f40r. Note, I’ve not done an exhaustive search for it, as it is an uncontroversial word.

Acressere and Discressere

We know from the internal evidence that accressere (literally ‘increase’, which I translate as ‘advance’) is a movement of the front foot forwards and/or to the side, without passing, such as in the plays of the sword in one hand. Discressere (literally ‘decrease’) is used much more rarely (I’ve had a quick look, but can’t find a single instance. There’s bound to be one somewhere, feel free to point it out), but is obviously a step back without passing. 

This video is extracted from the 23 minute longsword footwork class module from the Fundamentals: Footwork course. If Fiore's footwork fascinates you, you can buy just that one section for only $20 (plus sales tax in the EU, sorry), here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/longsword-footwork-mini-course

The mini-course also includes a $100 discount voucher for the whole course.

In conclusion then, we have three turns (stable, half, and full), and four steps (pass forwards, pass back, step forwards, step back), making seven things. I wonder how many blows of the sword there are? That’s coming in a couple of weeks. Next up will be the six ways of holding the sword, starting with the rest of this page. See you then.

I've completed work on all the longsword out of armour and on foot plays, and it has been published as From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice. 

F21v continues with the tenth play of the sword in one hand, like so:

Questo mi trassi per la testa e io rebater la sua spada. Io so vegnudo aquesto partido. Anchora ti faro volare voltare per non aver fallito. E la spada te mettero al collo, tanto son io ardito.

[The underlined “volare” is in the text; it should be crossed out, but I’ve reproduced it as-is, and translated it too!]

This one attacked my head, and I beat his sword. I have come to this technique. Again I want to make you fly turn, to not fail. And I’ll put my sword to your neck, so bold am I.

It’s nice to see one of the four virtues (in this case ardimento) mentioned in the text. Here’s a blog post on developing that virtue, should you need it.

The play is quite simple: as the blow comes in, you beat it away and down, and enter in, pushing the elbow, and turning them to cut their throat. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/Ln06ddUloEw

“Peasant’s blow?” I hear you cry? Why yes, it reminds me strongly of that. Because the only way that player’s sword is going to end up on the ground is if they fall asleep mid-attack (which is unlikely), or they are striking overly hard. Like a peasant. 

This is the fifth and sixth play of the master of the zogho largo crossed at the middle of the swords, on f26r.

Questo zogho sie chiamado colpo di villano, e sta in tal modo, zoe, che si de aspettare lo villano che lo traga cum sua spada, e quello che lo colpo aspetta de stare in picolo passo cum lo pe stancho denanzi. E subito che lo villano ti tra per ferire acresse lo pe stancho fora de strada inverso la parte dritta. E cum lo dritto passa ala traversa fora di strada piglando lo suo colpo a meza la tua spada. E lassa discorrer la sua spada a terra e subito responde gli cum lo fendente per la testa o vero per gli brazi, overo cum la punta in lo petto come depento. Anchora e questo zogho bon cum la spada contra la azza, e ntra un bastone grave o liziero.

This play is called the peasant’s blow, and it’s like this, thus: one awaits the peasant to attack one with his sword, and the one who waits should be in a narrow stance [piccolo passo: lit. Small pace, I.e. With the feet not too far apart] with the left foot forwards. And immediately that the peasant comes to strike, advance the left foot out of the way towards the right side [of the peasant]. And with the right pass across out of the way, grabbing his blow in the middle of your sword. And let it run off to the ground and immediately reply with the fendente to the head, or to the arms, or with the thrust in the chest as is pictured. Also this play is good with the sword against the axe, and against a staff, heavy or light.

Qui denanzi sie lo colpo del villano che ben glo posta la punta in lo petto. E cossi gli posseva un colpo per la testa fare e per gli brazzi cum lo fendente com’e ditto denanzi. Anchora s’el zogadore volesse ‘ntra de mi fare volendo mi ferire cum lo riverso sotto gli miei brazzi io subito acresso lo pe stancho e metto la mia spada sopra la sua. E non mi po far niente.

Here before is the peasant’s blow, that can well put the thrust in the chest. And thus one could do a strike to the head and to the arms with the fendente as is said above. Also, if the player might want to act against me wishing to strike me with the riverso under my arms, I immediately advance the left foot and put my sword over his. And he can do nothing to me.

I do it like so:

https://youtu.be/wi6-b0dH1EU

It’s worth noting that Fiore (or his scribe) spells colpo di villano in two different ways here: di, or del. It’s not important to the meaning, it’s just important to remember that standardised spelling was many years in the future, so don’t sweat it.

This section concludes with the 11^th play, which on the face of it makes no sense:

Questo e un zogo che vol esser armado chi vol metter tal punta. Quando uno ti tra di punta o de taglio, tu fay la coverta e subito metti gli questa per lo modo che depinto.

This is a play that should be done in armour, and that places this thrust. When one comes at you with a thrust or a cut, you make the cover and immediately place this [thrust] in the way that is pictured.

And then we have two blokes just standing there. What on Earth is the player’s sword doing down there, and what is the scholar up to?

My feeling is that this is no more than a general instruction: when in armour, thrust using half-sword. If we turn a couple of pages to 22v, we see this figure:

Io son bona guardia contra spada azza e daga siando armado, per che io tegno la spada cum la man mancha al mezo. Ello faco per fare contra la daga che me po fare de le altre arme pezo.

I am a good guard against sword, axe, and dagger, being in armour, because I hold the sword with the left hand at the middle. I do it [i.e. hold the sword with the left hand at the middle] to act against the dagger, which can do worse [to me] than the other weapons.

It’s clear then that the grip shown is the critical factor in armoured combat with the sword. Skipping ahead to the guards and plays of the sword in armour, f32v-f35r, we see only half-sword grips on the part of Fiore’s masters and scholars at the moment of the cover, which confirms the theory that half-swording is the critical instruction here. So I think that the ‘technique’ shown in the picture on 21v is a general admonition: ‘in armour, do this’ rather than a specific action.

Either begin in one of the armoured guards, or make the parry and shift to half-sword.

This concludes the sword in one hand section; next week I'll provide a summary of the material so far, and place it in some historical context. Be warned, there may be some German stuff coming… see you then!

This project is being published in stages. You can get part one, The Sword in One Hand, as a free PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below, or buy it in ebook format from Amazon or Gumroad. You can get Part two, Longsword Mechanics, from Amazon or Gumroad too!

Continuing on from last week…. If you’re coming late to the party, you should start here (where I explain what this project is all about, describe my decision making in the transcription and translation, and so on). Unless you are already familiar with Fiore, and are looking for a specific play, then starting at the beginning is the best way to go.

The sixth play is simplicity itself: push the elbow.

The text reads:

Qui ti posso ferire denanci. E questo non mi basta, per lo cubito che io ti penco, io ti faro voltare per ferirte di dredo, e la spada al collo ti poro butare, si che di questo non ti poray guardare.

Here I can strike you in front. And this does not satisfy me; by the push that I have given to your elbow, I will make you turn to strike you from behind, and I can throw my sword to your neck, and you won’t be able to defend against it.

By controlling the elbow, you can prevent them from parrying your strike. By pushing it, you can turn them to strike from behind. The seventh play shows this continuation. The text reads:

Per quello zogo che me denanzi per quello modo ti faro voltare e subito la spada mia ti butar al collo. Se io non te taglo la gola di pur che io sia tristo e follo.

By this play that is before me, in this way I make you turn and immediately throw my sword to your neck. If I don’t cut your throat, I would be a sad fool.

This is how I do it:

https://youtu.be/pyseqjumxl4

The 8^th play is interesting; it’s basically a breaking of the thrust (which I’ll detour into in a moment).

The text reads: 

Tu mi zitassi una punta e io la rebati a terra. Vede che tu sei discoverto e che ti posso ferire. Anchora ti voglo voltare per farte pezo. E di dredo te feriro in quello mezo.

You threw a thrust at me and I beat it to the ground. You see that you are uncovered and I can strike you. Also I want to turn you by pushing you. And I will strike you from behind in the middle of that [turn].

We turn the page to the 9^th play to find the results of the elbow pushed mentioned in the 8^th play:

F21v

Per la volta che ti fici fare penzando ti per lo cubito, a questo partido so’ vegnudo ben di subito, per cason ti butar te in terra, per che tu non fazi, ne a me ne altruy guerra.

By the turn that I have made you you, pushing your elbow, I have come to this play immediately, for the purposes of throwing you to the ground, so you will not make war with me or anyone else.

Here is how I do them:

https://youtu.be/XYCQ01bhhpQ

Notice that the parry is different- you must keep your hand low and whip the blade over theirs, middle to middle and drive it to the ground. How do I know that? Well, practice, but also this, the 11^th play of the master of the zogho largo crossed at the middle of the swords, shown on f26v:

The text reads: 

Questa sie unaltra deffesa che se fa contra la punta, zoe, quando uno ti tra una punta come to detto in lo scambiar de punta in lo secondo zogo che me denanzi che se de acresser e passar fora di strada. Chossi si die far in questo zogho salvo che lo scambiar de punta se va cuz punta e cum gli brazzi bassi, e cum la punta erta de la spada come ditto denanzi. Ma questa se chiama romper de punta che lo scolaro va cum gli brazzi erti e pigla lo fendente cum lo acresser e passare fora de strada e tra per traverso la punta quasi a meza spada a rebater la a terra. E subito vene ale strette.

This is another defence that is done against the thrust, so, when one thrusts at you as I said in the exchange of thrust, in the second play that is before me, one advances and passes out of the way. So you must do in this play except that in the exchange of thrust you go with the thrust, and with the arms low, and with the point of the sword high, as I said before. But this is called the breaking of the thrust, that the scholar goes with his arms high and grabs the fendente with the advance and pass out of the way, and strikes across the thrust about at the middle of the sword to beat it to the ground. And immediately goes to the close plays.

The action is completed in the next play, the 12^th:

Lo scolaro che me denanzi a rebatuda la spada del zugador a terra, e io complisto lo suo zogho per questo modo. Che rebattuda la sua spada a terra, io gli metto cum forza lo mio pe dritto sopra la sua spada. Overo che io la rompo o la piglo per modo che piu non la pora curare. E quisto no me basta, che subito quando glo posto lo pe sopra la spada, io lo fiero cum lo falso dela mia spada sotta la barba in lo collo. E subito torno cum lo fendente de la mia spada per gli brazzi o per le man come depento.

The scholar that is before me has beaten the sword of the player to the ground, and I have completed his play in this way. Having beaten the sword to the ground, I place my right foot with force over his sword. Either I break it or I grab it in a way that prevents him from recovering from it. And this is not enough for me, so immediately that I have put my foot over his sword, I strike him with the false [edge] of my sword under the beard in the throat. And immediately return with the fendente with my sword to the arms or the hand as is pictured.

Isn’t that wonderfully specific? The false edge in the throat under the beard. This action, a roverso mezano, naturally leads into a fendente, which you can do to the head (as Fiore shows later), or to the arms or hand, as you see…

Here’s how I do that:

https://youtu.be/gGD4KAz3JJQ

This is pretty straightforward. The next three plays are continuations from here, but I’ll leave them for when I translate that section, as they are not needed for understanding the 8^th play of the sword in one hand. But, it does look like I’ll have to cover the 9^th play of the second master of the zogho largo here, as Fiore mentions it in the text… ok, here goes:

Questo zogho si chiama scambiar de punta e se fa per tal modo zoe. Quando uno te tra una punta subito acresse lo tuo pe ch’e denanci fora de strada e cum l’altro pe passa ala traversa anchora fora di strada traversando la sua spada cum cum gli toi brazzi bassi e cum la punta de la tua spada erta in lo volto o in lo petto com’e depento.

This play is called the exchange of thrust, and it is done like this, thus. When one strikes a thrust at you immediately advance your foot that is in front out of the way and with the other foot pass also out of the way, crossing his sword with with your arms low and with the point of your sword up in the face or in the chest as is pictured.

Note the repeated ‘cum’, ‘with’. A common scribal error. Not secret messages from beyond the grave, ok? The instructions couldn’t be clearer, could they? I do this play like so (continuing onto the 10th play, which I'll cover later on):

https://youtu.be/JEsKnhBm_PU

 

I’m often asked about the difference between German and Italian medieval longsword sources. Here’s the big one, as far as I can see: Fiore tells us exactly what to do, and organises everything into a consistent and coherent system. The German sources… don’t.

Next week's post will complete the plays of the sword in one hand, and the week after that I'll summarise this section, and put its core action, the parry from the left, into some historical context with later Italian and German sources. I was thinking of putting these posts together into a pdf for you once I complete each section; would that be useful? If so, let me know in the comments below.

Just a gentle reminder: if you want me to see and respond to your comments on this material, you need to put them in the comments section on this site, or email me. I won't see it on crapbook, twooter, or the like. And, if you want to encourage me to get on with the rest of the treatise, then a tip in the tip jar would go a long way to persuading me you're finding this useful!

This project is being published in stages. You can get part one, The Sword in One Hand, as a free PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below, or buy it in ebook format from Amazon or Gumroad. You can get Part two, Longsword Mechanics, from Amazon or Gumroad too!