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Guy's Blog

Guy frequently keeps this blog updated with thoughts, challenges, interviews and more!

Category: Learning Swordsmanship

It’s always the way. You bring out a new book, and somebody comes up with something that makes you jump up and down going “I wanted that in my book!!! Why couldn’t that have come out a month ago!!!”

It’s actually a good feeling. Because no book is the last word on any subject, and no non-fiction book is ever truly finished (which is why we have second editions, third editions, etc etc.).

You may have heard that I’m into bookbinding. I got into bookbinding while I was researching Vadi, and came across the auction house catalogue for the sale of the manuscript to the Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma. The catalogue included a collation of the manuscript, which is a description of the way the pages are bound together. It’s extremely important because it can give you a great deal of insight into what might be missing from the manuscript. I’ve written about that here.

So a couple of weeks after my new Fiore book came out, Mike Chidester (who was one of the inspirations for the book) sends me this email:

A few weeks ago, while trying to do preparatory work on the second facsimile project, I ran into problems with the Getty museum on the subject of how many pages are missing from their online offerings. The reproductions department sent me six scans (the inside and outside covers and one flyleaf) and swore blind that that was all of the missing pages. I was pretty sure that was wrong, and ultimately my questions were bounced to the manuscript department, which sent me this arcane formula:

This is an example of a collation statement, which tries to capture the exact way in which the manuscript is bound together. Manuscripts are built up out of quires, which are stacks of paper that are folded in half and then sewn down the middle, so that each sheet (bifolium) becomes two pages (folia). Medieval manuscripts are often bound in quires of 4 (quaternions), which is the number of parchment sheets of roughly A4 size that you can expect to harvest from a single goat. The number actually typically ranges from 3-5 (ternions to quinternions), because perfect plans rarely survive contact with reality.

The Getty manuscript is a normal-seeming manuscript of 49 numbered folia, so one might expect 7 quaternions (for 56 total folia), with several blank pages at the beginning or end. Instead, when I created a visualization of this diagram (inspired by work I've seen Daniel Jaquet and others do), it turned out like this:

Two single bifolia bound into the spine, and then a series of very large quires—quinternions and a sexternion. What's more, any student of Fiore knows that folio 38, which contains dagger plays, is misplaced; specifically, it belongs between folia 14 and 15, which are the end of quire III and the beginning of IV. Since folio 27 is also bound into the book as a single leaf, we can surmise that 27 and 38 were originally a single bifolium, forming the outside layer of quire IV—making it a septernion, or seven-sheet quire. At the time, I thought that this was a ridiculous number of pages for a manuscript quire. What little I knew. (Excerpt reproduced with permission. Personal correspondence, May 27th 2020).

Finally, finally, finally, we have a collation statement for Il Fior di Battaglia. And the mystery of how folio 38 ended up where it did is solved. It used to be the first page of the next quire, and at some point the vellum tore along its fold, the pages fell out, and what should be folio 15 got bound back in in the wrong place. That binder needs a good slap round the back of the head, of course. But it’s always a relief to get confirmation of a theory. Until now, there was no way to be certain beyond all doubt that the naughty folio 38 wasn’t in fact in its original place (if, for instance, it appeared in the middle of an intact quire), and Fiore just decided to strip a page of dagger plays and dump them between the pollax and the spear plays. 

O happy day, calloo callay! But now of course I have to edit the introduction section of From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice.

Not this year though. 

It is extremely useful to be able to direct your attention to whatever you want. It is also extremely useful to be able to control your state of mind.
There is an awful lot of unnecessary bullshit around meditation. You can use bells and whistles, if you want. You can build yourself a special meditation chamber on a remote hillside, if you’ve got the cash and the time. But to be really useful, you need to be able to meditate without special equipment, and without a calm space around you. With the right training, you can be the calm space.
There is nothing mystical or magical about this (though I am partial to a bit of magical mystery myself). Meditation, as I do it, is simply practising to direct your attention, and using that skill to create a state of mind, a particular pattern of brain activity, which has (I believe, and as is quite well documented) benefits that persist after the practice is over. It’s a bit like sleep: sleep is a very active brain state, but differently active to being awake. Good sleep massively improves your awake time. Good meditation can too.
One of the students on the Solo Course contacted me about how to train after an injury which has him not allowed to move much for the next six weeks. Meditation is an obvious thing to practice in that condition- but for some reason I haven’t created a meditation course, though I’ve been teaching it for twenty years. I don’t know why I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, but it’s time I did.
I thought I’d do something a bit different this time though. Rather than just video myself teaching the course, I’m going to run a live six-week online class, record those sessions, and use them as the basis for the online course. The classes will be on Tuesdays at 4pm UK time, starting next week (June 2nd). I’m charging £55 for the six classes. All students will get access to the recordings as soon as technology allows, and as and when I get the online course ready, they will get free access to that too.
Each class will begin with a gentle physical warm-up, to get your bones comfortable, then we will do one or two kinds of meditation, and finish with a gentle ‘return to normal headspace’ practice.
Over the six 45 minute classes we will cover:

  • The theory of meditation
  • Ways of sitting and lying down for meditation
  • Creating a regular practice
  • ‘Awareness of Breathing’ meditation
  • ‘Body Scan’ meditation
  • Using mantras
  • Moving meditation

There should be some time for questions and class discussion before and after each session, so allow a full hour for each class. By the end of the course you should be able to meditate without help, and be feeling the benefits of the practice. I can’t promise that you’ll be able to levitate, move things with your mind, or see the future though.
You can find the course sign-up page here.
While I was researching how to set up this event, I figured I might as well use the same platform for my consultancy times. So if you need help, coaching, or advice and want to book a 30 minute consultation with me (or even a private meditation class), you can do so here.
I look forward to seeing you in class!

We are not alone.

No, I’m not talking about aliens. Even stranger: woodworkers!

If you’ve been keeping up with the World of Guy you’ll know that I’ve been doing a ton of woodworking lately, and it shows no sign of slowing down. This has lead me to look up all sorts of things on t’internet, like better ways of cutting dovetails (everyone does it differently), and drooling over incredibly unaffordable handsaws. Seriously beautiful, and I can totally see where the money is going, but dayum, I can get a sword for that!

The gorgeous Mallard saw from Skelton saws: https://www.skeltonsaws.co.uk/mallard-saw

Sharp steel is magical, and the high-priest of sharp is Ron Hock, author of the stunningly good The Perfect Edge (affiliate link) which tells you everything you need to know about sharpening anything made of steel. I’ve bought several of his blades and am on his mailing list which sent me spiralling helplessly down a rabbit-hole you might find interesting… because it leads to historically-obsessed recreationists, just like us sword folk. I clicked on the link to the Handworks 2020 event, and that lead me to their vendor list… oh shit. I could spend so much money. Fortunately I am a highly disciplined martial arts instructor, with immaculate self-control. Really.

Anyway, from there, I got to Kieran Binnie’s Over the Wireless blog, which is absolutely fascinating (and he has kindly replied to this blog post with his own). Among other things, he is recreating a woodworking bench from André-Jacob Roubo’s L’Art Du Menuisier, published in 1774, available in translation from Lost Art Press. Just as we are recreating martial arts from historical sources, there are people out there recreating woodworking from historical sources. There are so many parallels it’s hard to know where to start. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Working from written sources, and all the problems that come with them, from translation issues, cultural changes altering meaning, and frames of reference changing over time (more on that below).

2. The existence of a current living craft, that is related but different. Ikea make furniture! How is that different? In some ways modern furniture can be considered better than the traditional stuff, especially from an economic standpoint, just as modern martial arts (such as pistol shooting) are unarguably better at killing people than medieval swordsmanship, especially when you look at the training time required to become competent. 

3. Technological changes change everything. A lot of modern furniture is made the way it is because it fits the machine, not the other way round. Machine-cut dovetails have an absolute minimum pin-size determined by the shank of the router bit- usually ¼ inch (6.35mm). But we can cut them by hand with a minimum size determined by the thickness of a saw blade: perhaps 1/50th of an inch or a shade under 0.5mm. And what is the history of martial arts if not the history of weapons technology?

4. Fashion changes everything. A perfectly excellent and functional style of furniture may be superseded by something empirically less good, if the fashion changes. A perfectly excellent sword may be superseded by something empirically less good at killing people, if the fashion changes. 

Another element we have in common is the astonishing levels of nerdery that historical swordsmanship/woodwork entails. Mr Binnie is such a good historian that he is recreating Roubo’s bench using Roubo’s units of measurement. “So what?” you might ask (but no true historical martial artist would). So Roubo’s pouce (thumb or inch) is slightly bigger than the modern standard: one pouce is 1.066 modern inches. At least according to the awesome Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney. Mr Binnie is using one of Mr Gaffney’s Pied de Roi (King’s foot) rules, which is marked out as close as research can establish to the same standard that Roubo would have used. His bench will therefore be ever so slightly bigger than it would otherwise have been. This led me on to an absolute must have new tool: the cabinetmaker’s sector, which sadly Mr Gaffney is not making any more, so I’ve made one myself. It's crap, compared to his. Mr Gaffney, if you're reading this- please make me a sector?

There is a renaissance afoot in recreating Roubo’s benches, which I think may have begun with the work of Christopher Schwarz, author of many excellent woodworking books, including Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use (affiliate link), which explains how he built a Roubo bench. The bench is detailed in Plate 11 of Roubo’s book, and indeed we find a website at the url www.plate11.com that is all about one man’s obsession with recreating the bench commercially (I.e. You can buy his benches. I wish! No, actually I’d rather build one…). Can't you just imagine that link going to a plate from Capoferro?

Even up-to-the-minute young woodworkers like Matt Estlea have built a version of the Roubo. This video is a summary of his process- note the digitally controlled machinery etc. Mr Estlea is also using modern hardware on the bench such as the vice screws (as does Mr Binnie).

These Roubos are so popular even Barbie has one! 

(The only good reason to join Instagram I’ve ever seen. Seriously amazing pictures.)

This rabbit hole goes on and on… going back further, Mr Schwarz has a book on the Roman workbench (Ingenious Mechanicks) which I ordered the moment I saw it on Rex Krueger’s video about building a super-cheap version of the bench, here:

But I first found Rex Krueger when Steve Chalkey of the Ipswich Makerspace sent me a link to his video about recreating a whole other kind of historical woodworking bench, the so-called “English Bench”. Here:

Which in turn led to this incredible video of Mike Siemsen showing how you can do literally every hand-tool woodworking operation on a bench with no vice. Because a lot of historical benches didn’t have a vice, and apparently these woodworking geniuses didn’t need one.

 

Which reminds me oh so very much of how our martial forebears solved every kind of martial problem without computers, knowledge of biology, etc. etc. They had perfectly effective solutions that did not require the more technologically sophisticated solutions that we have come to take for granted to the point that we are helpless without them. 

When it comes to swordsmanship training, I have all the gear. Of course I do. This is my job. You wouldn’t be surprised to see a professional cabinetmaker with a really good toolkit. So I’ve got sharp swords of all shapes and sizes, blunt training sword-like-objects of the best quality, I even own a salle. But, and it’s a big but (like yours will be if you don’t get some training done!) it can be very liberating and encouraging of creativity to leave all that fancy stuff aside, and see what can be done with just a stick. Or a pair of wine bottles covered in tape. I've shot a video of clubs training for my Solo Training Course, you can see the first ten minutes (out of 29) in this sample video here:

As the unplugged woodworking community (and more pertinently the historical record) has shown, there is nothing in woodwork you can’t do with just hand tools. It just will take more time and skill. The same is true of swordsmanship. 

It is possible to spend thousands of pounds on training gear. Possible, but unnecessary. There are sword-like-objects everywhere, and all sorts of conditioning opportunities that do not require expensive equipment. I’ve shot a short video discussing some of the options as part of the Solo Training course. (Which you can get for 4% of the original price for the duration of the pandemic. And if you need it but can’t afford it, email me and I’ll give it to you for free.)

The key points as I see them are:

1) Swords are labour saving devices- they make it easier to hit more effectively from further away. Fitness equipment is labour intensifying- it makes any give action more difficult by loading the motion.

2) You need to be able to do the following three things with a sword: Thrust, Cut, and Parry. Thrusting is all about point control, cutting is all about edge alignment. Parries are the hardest thing to practice alone and without an actual sword. For thrusting, use a point-control target; for cutting, actually cut stuff; and for parrying, forms are the closest you can get alone.

3) Conditioning: you make a motion harder by either loading it with weight, increasing the range of motion, or slowing it down. 

4) Any old stick can stand in for a sword. Wine bottles make dandy indian clubs. Body-weight exercises can be modified and adapted to train almost anything. A broomstick in a chair makes a fine pell. Cutting vegetables in the kitchen can be useful sword practice. The dangling thread? You’ll need to watch the video for that one….

In a sword fight there is no time to think. You see, you act. The essence of training is to adjust your instinct so that the instinctive response is also the correct one. I’ve spent decades training my instinct, and  I apply this to literally all parts of my life. I don’t decide what to do when I get up in the morning, and I certainly don’t plan my week/month/year. I do whatever my gut tells me is the right thing, and figure out why afterwards.

I’m spending a lot of time in my shed at the moment. Not to get away from the wife and kids- in fact the best times are when one or other of them join me, and sit in the chair I keep there for the purpose chatting to me while I chisel. Or when my youngest is cutting stuff up on the bandsaw, just for fun. I’ve completed the major project I was working on (a Pilates ladder barrel for my wife), and have spent almost all my time in there since re-organising my tools and making better tool storage solutions, such as this saw till.

Please note, I should probably be doing that sabre video class for the Solo course, but I’m not. I will, but not until my instinct tells me it’s time. I wondered why I was spending so much time out in my shed, and eventually it came to me. This is a period where the normal illusion of control (I can go here, I can do that) has been stripped away. We actually have exactly the same degree of agency we’ve always had, but as good citizens we are deciding to obey the government guidelines and stay home (yes really please do). The environment seems stranger and more hostile than usual, and it makes us feel helpless. So I have been spending my time in an environment I can control, and exerting that control in a clear and obvious way by making things, particularly things that change that environment for the better. This is the linear opposite of stressing about the plague. 

When I figured that out, I thought “good job, brain! nice one” and carried on making this:

Here it is from another angle.

What the hell is that? I hear you ask. Well now…

I don’t know if you have ever written a book. I have, several in fact. And every single one is like being constipated for a year or more, before finally it forces its way painfully out, and you lie spent from the struggle clutching this thing you’ve made. I should probably have written ‘pregnant’ for ’constipated’, but I was present for the birth of my children, and actually, giving birth seems to be orders of magnitude harder than producing a book. 

My latest extrusion is done and dusted, and the hardback pre-orders have been sent out. Hurrah!

In it I take you through all of Fiore's longsword techniques on foot out of armour. Each play is shown with the drawing from the treatise, my transcription and translation of the text that goes with it, my commentary on how it fits into the system and works in practice, and a link to a video of the technique as I interpret it. The book contains a detailed introduction describing Fiore's life and times, and extensive discussion of the contexts in which Fiore's art belongs.

You can get the ebook (in all formats) from my gumroad shop here: https://gum.co/longsword1

It’s available to pre-order from Amazon in any one of their national stores, just search for its ASIN: B08629VNKY

But before you go dashing off to buy it: it’s Fiore sword geekery in the extreme. Please ONLY buy it if you are really into the historical side of historical swordsmanship, and/or you want to know how I think Fiore’s art is put together. This is not a basic introduction to how to hold a sword.

Or you can get the ebook for free… if you can tell me what the object pictured above is for, let me know in the comments, and the first correct answer will get the ebook. Note, that the object is lying on my bench, and may or may not be correctly rotated in the images.

I will also give out a free ebook to the best answer, correct or not!

I will post a picture of the object in service, and the best answer(s) next week.

Producing a book is a marathon, not a sprint, but the finish line for From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi is in sight!

I’m in my study plodding through the first draft of the the laid-out print file. This is simultaneously very exciting (my NEW BOOK! HURRAH!), very nerve wracking (I’ve got to find EVERY error!), and very tedious (I’ve got to go through every page with a fine-tooth comb. For instance, in the bibliography I had the publication year for Domenico Angelo’s School of Fencing wrong. Doh!). This is simultaneously the best and worst part of publishing: the best because you can see that the book is real, not just a thing in your head; the worst because the temptation to rush through the last few hurdles is extreme. 

I have Basil Poledouris’ soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian on repeat coming in through my noise-cancelling headphones. This helps.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

In the late 14th century Fiore dei Liberi, an Italian knightly combat master, wrote a magnificent treatise on the Art of Arms. He called his book Il Fior di Battaglia, the Flower of Battle, and it is one of the greatest martial arts books of all time, describing how to fight on foot and on horseback, in armour and without, with sword, spear, pollax, dagger, or with no weapon at all. Guy Windsor has spent the last 20 years studying Fiore's work and creating a modern practice of historical swordsmanship from it. In this book, Guy takes you through all of Fiore's longsword techniques on foot out of armour. Each technique (or “play”) is shown with the drawing from the treatise, Guy's transcription and translation of the text, his commentary on how it fits into the system and works in practice, and a link to a video of the technique as Guy interprets it. The book contains a detailed introduction describing Fiore's life and times, and extensive discussion of the contexts in which Fiore's art belongs.

This is essential reading for any scholar of the Art of Arms, and will also provide fascinating insight to all martial artists and historians of the medieval and early Renaissance eras.

What do you think?

I don’t have a draft of the cover yet, but my friend Siobhan Richardson is starring in the image above (by Dahlia Katz) for it. I think it looks fantastic, and really tells the story of the book.

Staring at the pages of the new book means that I will soon also be staring at the bills coming in from my editor (Andrew Chapman) and my layout artist (Bek Pickard). Both these fine humans totally deserve to be paid for their work. And of course they will be no matter what – I would never stiff a freelancer.

I used to crowdfund my books through Indiegogo to cover the costs before publication. I don’t do that any more because the platform fees are rather high, and they also tend to hold onto the money for weeks. Instead, for the last couple of books I’ve taken limited pre-orders for the hardback, through my Gumroad account. It’s much more efficient- I get paid at the end of the following week, and the platform fees are way lower. I’ve set it up to allow maximum 75  pre-orders.

If you pre-order the hardback I can’t guarantee that it will be faster than ordering it through your usual bookshop (online or bricks-and-mortar) when it's released, because sometimes the shipping takes forever. But you will get immediate access to a pdf of the current draft (no images, but the video links all work), the ebook version the moment it's ready, and your book will printed and shipped before the book goes into general distribution. 

So, if you would like to order one or more copies of the new book, go here! https://gum.co/longsword

Greetings!

I have been beavering away on the Fiore Translation Project, and have completed the work on the Stretto plays. Hurrah! You can find them here: https://gumroad.com/l/ftp4

I am now working on bringing the four parts of this series together into a coherent whole, starting with the defences of the dagger against the sword, and ending with the conclusion to the Stretto plays. This covers the entirety of the longsword on foot out of armour. I hope to have that complete book in your hands before Christmas, but dashing off to Australia next week makes it something I'm not willing to promise!

It's true I'm a Fiore man through and through, at least when it comes to Longsword. But, I do hear good things about that Meyer chap, though he was born a full century after Fiore must have died, and tended to wear outrageous trousers when fencing. So I have teamed up with the excellent Alex Beaudet who has compiled the MS A.4º.2 version of Gründtliche Beschreibung der Kunst des Fechtens into comic-book format (CBZ). You can get that for free (or pay what you want) here: https://gumroad.com/l/meyerThat all should keep you busy while I'm cracking on with the compilation!

I've been working on The Fiore Translation Project for about a year now, working through all of Fiore's longsword plays out of armour on foot. The work so far has been published here on this blog in 24 instalments, taking us all the way from sword against dagger to the end of the zogho largo section, and which have also been published as three ebooks:

The Sword in One Hand

Longsword Mechanics

The Plays of the Zogho Largo

I have just completed the work on all the stretto plays. I made the decision not to publish them bit-by-bit on the blog because I am going to compile the entire work into a proper book, and I want to keep something back from the public domain to encourage readers to go buy the book!

However, I will be making the Stretto Plays available to buy on its own on my Gumroad account in due course, so that people who have already got the first three can complete the set.

Watch this space for updates!

 

You There is a critical feedback system between transcription, translation, and interpretation. Getting the words in the original language right is a good first step, which allows for better translation, which enables better interpretation, which in turn may resolve issues of translation or transcription. It would be foolish to begin with interpretation and try to make your translation work from there, but when there is some doubt regarding the transcription or translation, sometimes one version works in reality, and the other doesn’t. For this reason I’ve been hesitant to translate the mounted combat section. Sure, the language is quite clear and straightforward, but still, it seems odd to me to publish a translation of descriptions of actions that I haven’t tested in reality. This is a common problem for historical martial arts translators, but doesn’t seem to bother those translating fiction so much. Though I reckon Sir Richard Burton was careful to test every translation in practice when working on the Kama Sutra.

If you find this process inherently interesting, you'll enjoy my book From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice.

I had the opportunity recently to work on the plays on foot against attackers on horseback, from folio 46r. I went to visit Jason Kingsley (of the Modern History youtube channel), who has a superb riding facility, and is an expert jouster and horseman. I am neither, so we had a go at recreating the plays of the ghiaverina on foot, which meant that Jason did the riding, and I got to stay on the ground, which was much safer all round.

Now that I’ve worked through them, here’s my transcription and translation. I’ll comment as I go.

Qui sono tre compagni che voleno alcider questo magistro. Lo primo lo vole ferir sotto man che porta sua lanza a meza lanza. L’altro porta sua lanza restada a tutta lanza. Lo terzo lo vole alanzare cum sua lanza. E sie de patto che nissuno non debia fare piu d’un colpo per homo. Anchora debano fare a uno a uno.

Here are three companions who want to kill this master. The first wants to strike under-arm so carries his lance by the middle. The other carries his lance couched by the end. The third wants to throw with his lance. And it is agreed that none of them may make more than one blow per person. Also they must do it one by one.

This is an interesting set-up. As we have seen elsewhere, there are three different kinds of blows each represented by a different companion. Though they want to “kill” the master, there is an agreement in place that they will only make one blow each, and will come one at a time. Fiore uses the expression ‘a meza lanza’ and ‘a tutta lanza’ in the same way that he has used ‘a meza spada’ and ‘a tutta spada’ (see the discussion of the crossings of the sword for more information). I’ve translated them as ‘by the middle’ and ‘by the end’; ‘a tutta lanza’ means that the whole lance is extended, as you can see from the image. So how does the master handle them? Effortlessly, it seems:

Vegna a uno a uno chi vol venire, che per nessuno di qui non mi son per partire. Anche in dente di cenghiaro son presto per aspettare. Quando la lanza contra me vignira portada o vero de mane zitada, subito io schivo la strada zoe che io acresco lo pe dritto fora de strada e cum lo stancho passo ala traversa rebattendo la lanza che mi vene per ferire. Si che d’ mille una non poria fallire. Questo ch’io fazzo cum la ghiaverina, cum bastone e cum spada lo faria. E’lla deffesa ch’io fazo contra le lanze, contra spada e contra bastone quello faria li mie zoghi che sono dredo.

Come one by one who wants to come, I’m not for leaving here for any of them. Also in the boar’s tooch I am ready to wait. When the lance will come against me, carried or thrown from the hand, immediately I avoid the way, thus, I advance my right foot out of the way and with the left I pass across, beating away the lance that comes to strike me. If there were a thousand, not even one would fail. This that I do with the ghiaverina, I do with a stick or a sword. And the defence that I make against the lance, against the sword and against the stick I will make my plays that follow.

The first line of this reminds me of Margaret Thatcher’s famous remark “the lady’s not for turning”. It’s the same construction: ‘non mi son per partire’: ‘I’m not for leaving’. The ‘fuck you’ is clear in the subtext. He re- iterates that this action is done against the lance whether it is held or thrown, though he uses a new locution: ‘schiva la strada’, which literally means ‘avoid the way’, and of course means ‘get out of the way’. This is perhaps the sixth or seventh time we’ve seen the instruction to step the front foot out of the way and pass across.

I always assumed that this would be quite hard to do, and so the next line about being able to do it a thousand times was hyperbole. Well, you’d get tired after about a hundred, but otherwise, this is way easier to do against a mounted lancer than it is to do against one on foot. Jason is a superb mounted combatant, as one would expect the companions to be (at least by our modern standards). As his lance approached me, the point was rock-steady, and because he was on a horse, he didn’t come straight at me- his lance was angled off to his right by perhaps 30 degrees. This gave me plenty of space and time to do the action, and the steadiness of the lance made this absurdly easy to do. The only real challenge was being careful not to hit him or the horse, which of course would not be an issue if we were doing this in earnest.

The plays that follow are these two:

Questo si’e zogho del magistro ch’e denanzi che aspetta cum la ghiaverina quegli da cavallo in dente di zenghiaro in passar fora de strada e rebatter chelo fa elo intra in questo zogho. E per che ello sia inteso, io lo fazo in suo logo, che cum taglio e punta lo posso ferire in la testa. Tanto porto la mia ghiavarina ben presta.

This is the play of the master that is before, that waits with the ghiaverina, for the one on horseback, in boar’s tooth, passing out of the way and beating and then enters into this play. And because he understood it, I do it in its place, that with cut and thrust I can strike to the head. Thus I carry my very quick ghiaverina.

In terms of interpretation, this is easy enough. Having stepped out of the way and beaten the incoming lance aside, you can strike with cut or thrust. The language is a little awkward, with some apparently redundant phrasing, such as ‘and because he understood it’. Likewise at the end, ‘tanto’ usually means ‘a lot of’, but it’s one of those words that has a range of uses (such as in ‘ogni tanto’, every now and then). I take this last line to mean essentially ‘this is why I’m carrying a ghiaverina. It’s very quick and takes care of those pesky horsemen’.

If you’re familiar with the plays of the spear on foot, then this last play of the ghiaverina will come as no surprise.

Anchora e questo zogho del ditto magistro ch’e denanzi in posta de dente de zenghiaro, in suo scambio io fazo questo ch’ello lo po fare. Quando la lanza e rebattuda, io volto mia lanza, esi lo fiero cum lo pedale, che questo ferro sie temperado e di tutto azale.

This is also a play of the aforesaid master that is before me in the guard of the boar’s tooth, in his exchange I do this which he could do. When the lance is beaten aside, I turn my lance and then strike him with the butt, the which iron is tempered and completely of steel.

As before, in terms of interpretation this is perfectly straightforward. Because the butt of your ghiaverina is shod with steel, you can turn the weapon and hit him with the butt instead of the head. We’ve seen this before in the counter-remedy of the spear, on f39v, where he also mentions that the butt (pedale) is shod.

The language is a bit less straightforward though. I read ‘in suo scambio’ to mean ‘in his exchange’, in other words, in his technique. Others (Hatcher and Leoni, for instance) both read it to mean essentially ’in his stead’, in other words ‘I can do this instead of that’. From a practical perspective, it makes no difference, of course. Likewise though there is no doubt about the sense of it (hit him with the butt because it’s shod with steel), the specific locution is tricky. “Ferro” is iron, of course. And it also has the connotation of ‘the metal bit attached to a stick’, as in the English word ‘ferrule’. Temperado is ‘tempered’, as steel may be, and as iron cannot be, a fact Fiore would certainly have known. The last word, ‘azale’, is probably a version of acciaio, steel as Florio’s dictionary has azzale for steel. (See here: https://www.pbm.com/lindahl/florio/065.html)

I may be making a meal of this, but I think it’s useful to show my working (as my maths teacher used to insist on).

So, what do these plays look like in real life? Here are Jason and I (and the inestimable Warlord) working through them, in the latest instalment of his excellent Modern History TV:

See also: my interview with Jason Kingsley on The Sword Guy, here.
and my book From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice.

Five years ago, I hired Jessica Finley to come teach a medieval wrestling seminar for my School in Finland. It was awesome, and my students all thoroughly enjoyed it, though I think their favourite bit was the way she bashed me on the floor like the Hulk dealing with Loki.

But Jess is nothing like the Hulk. She doesn’t turn green when she’s angry, for a start. 

And she uses skill and speed not raw brute strength.

The effect is much the same though.

Why am I telling you this?

Because she has kindly produced a series of solo wrestling videos for my Solo Course. It turns out that there’s a lot of wrestling practice you can do alone; and yes, conditioning is even more important for any unarmed arts than it is for fighting with weapons.

The new material covers:

  • Introduction and Warm-Up
  • Falling practice- how to do back falls, side falls, forward rolls, backwards rolls, and how to get up off the ground when you’re in armour
  • Mat exercises, like the shrimp, and sit-outs.
  • Footwork exercises
  • And training with a dummy, learning to throw, and practicing setting up throws.

This is great stuff, and I’ve learned a lot just editing the videos. Imagine if I actually practised the content!

This is included in the Solo Course, which you can either buy outright, or subscribe to through the Mastering the Art of Arms package at Swordschool Online.

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