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Tag: Academic method

Show Your Work: How to Communicate Your Historical Martial Arts Research and Interpretation with the HMA Community

Academic research is the foundation of Historical Martial Arts. When you try to recreate an action described in a book, that’s academic research. When you try to figure out what a particular phrase in a source means, that’s academic research.

Most mainstream academic research is presented in a way that is deliberately hard to get access to, and often deliberately hard to read. The only reason to publish that way is to get jobs at universities.

Historical martial arts books are usually written for practitioners. All of mine are, so I need my research to be perfectly clear and easy to distribute among the active historical martial arts community. I want my work to be accessible to beginners, experienced fencers, and my fellow instructors.

If you want your academic work to appear in academic journals, you need to find out what that journal wants, and present your work the way they ask. But if you want it to be of maximum use to the HMA world, this post will show you how I think you should go about it.

This is a big post, and not all of it will be relevant to your needs, so here's a table of contents to guide you through it. I've written each section to be reasonably independent, so cherry-pick what you need:

Introduction

Many historical martial artists generously share their interpretations, but do so in a way that makes it impossible to check their work. Simply doing the action in a video and posting it online is helpful to people who want to know how you do it, but useless for establishing whether it’s an accurate interpretation of the source. For that you need at the very least to quote the source, and explain any interpretive decisions you made. Video is not a good medium for that; it’s far too slow, and far too difficult to check the text. Books are better, but suffer from other limitations, such as being unable to show movement. The ideal way to show your work is to combine books and video. This post will show you how I do that.

It’s important to note that academic work is the foundation of our knowledge of Historical Martial Arts. But it has no necessary connection to our martial skill. You can be highly skilled in an interpretation and be able to teach it, fence with it, and apply it in all sorts of situations, without even knowing the name of the source it is originally based on. Likewise, you can be incredibly knowledgeable about a given source and be able to perfectly recreate the choreography of every action, without having any fencing skill at all. Most historical martial artists are somewhere in between.

In this guide I am only dealing with the academic side of things. I have a whole other book on creating training manuals for developing skill. You can find it at here.

What kind of work are you doing?

Before you present your work to the world, you need to know what kind of book it is. There are at least five different kinds of modern HMA publication.

  1. Facsimile. This is a printed copy of scans of the source. The ideal is to make it as close as possible to owning an original copy of the source. This is not an academic work, usually. It’s much more of an art project.
  2. Transcription. You take the trouble to type out the entire source (or part of it). This makes it much easier for people to use the source, because the electronic version of the transcription is now searchable.
  3. Translation. You translate the source from one language to another. Personally, I much prefer a translation to include at least a transcription, or a full facsimile, so I can check the translation against the source. This should also include copies of the images in the source if there are any.
  4. Interpretation. You demonstrate how you think the actions in the source should be done in practice. This can be through text and images, or through video.
  5. Training manual or workbook. You teach the student how to execute your interpretation as a living martial art. This can also be done through online courses.

It is generally not practical to create a book that is all five of these things in one volume. It would simply take up too much paper. It is much easier to demonstrate movement on video, but video is hopeless for sharing a transcription or translation. And a facsimile is by definition in the same general format as the source, which is some kind of book. But these five categories can overlap considerably. My From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice includes transcription, translation, and interpretation. But it’s not a facsimile, and it’s not a training manual.

I have produced all of these types of publication, in one form or another. Such as:

Facsimiles: I have published facsimiles of Fiore dei Liberi’s Il Fior di Battaglia (Getty Museum MS Ludwig XV 13), and Philippo Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi, (Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma MS Vitt.Em 1324). These are both affordable un-fiddled-with reproductions of the manuscripts, with a single-page description of what they are and where they come from at the back. It’s as close as you can get to owning the manuscripts themselves for under $50.

Michael Chidester at HEMA Bookshelf does much fancier facsimiles, in gorgeous leather bindings, and much higher production values, which is as close as you can get to owning the manuscripts, for under $500.

Transcriptions: I include transcription in my From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice series, and also produced a transcription of Vadi which I released free online. There are many other researchers who do the community a huge service by producing and releasing transcriptions of all sorts of other works. These are usually available online somewhere.

It’s actually quite unusual to find a pure transcription (with no facsimile or translation) published as a commercially available printed book.

Translations: my first properly published translation is in The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest. This is my translation and commentary on Vadi. I licensed the translation under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, which means it is free to use and share in any way, you just have to give credit. Perhaps the gold standard in translations are Jeffrey Forgeng’s translations of the Royal Armouries MS I.33,  published as The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship and of Joachim Meyer’s treatise published as The Art of Combat.

Interpretations: they say there is no translation without interpretation, and that’s largely true. How you understand the text will influence how you translate it. I include interpretation in most of my works, including From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice, and The Duellist’s Companion. There are many, many, published interpretations out there.

Training manuals: a training manual teaches you how to train in a particular interpretation. It does not usually include much about why you think the source means what you think it means. It must by default include your interpretation, but it does not usually show your working. The three books in my Mastering the Art of Arms series, The Medieval Dagger, The Medieval Longsword, and Advanced Longsword, are all training manuals.

Workbooks: a workbook is a training manual that is formatted for the student to make notes in. The difference is primarily in the format, though a workbook will usually have even less academic content than a training manual. I have a series of four workbooks for the rapier, combined into The Complete Rapier Workbook, and the first in what will probably be a series for Fiore’s Art of Arms, The Armizare Workbook, part one: Beginners.

As you can see, I’ve produced works of all five kinds (not to mention a book of mnemonic verses: The Armizare Vade Mecum).

Now that we have defined some terms, let’s go through the list and have a look at how to present your transcription, translation, and interpretation. Facsimiles are a separate category, and so are training manuals. I’ve written a whole other book (From Your Head to Their Hands: how to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial artists [link]) on, you guessed it from the title, how to write training manuals, because it’s the one kind of book that you actually write from scratch. Each kind of book will need a somewhat different introduction, so I’ll include specific instructions for the introductions too.

Transcription

Transcription introduction

Your introduction should answer the following questions:

  1. What book or other source are you transcribing?
  2. What versions of the source exist, and why have you chosen this one?
  3. Where can that source be found?
  4. Who wrote it?
  5. What do we know about the author?
  6. What images do we have, and are you reproducing them?
  7. What kind of transcription are you trying to produce? Where on the “diplomatic” scale do you fall?
  8. What conventions will you be following regarding contractions, suspensions, brevigraphs etc.?
  9. Who are you and why should the reader trust you?

You can find a very useful guide to transcription conventions, published by the University of Hull, here: guywindsor.net/transcriptionconventions (that's a redirectable link in case the article gets moved).

Transcription layout

You need to make a decision about whether to include scans of the original sources in your work. In general, if you can (due to copyright restrictions etc.), do. It’s much better to present the reader with the chance to check your work. This is especially true if you are transcribing a manuscript. If you are making a machine-readable copy of a perfectly clear-to-read source, then you don’t need to include the original.

If you are going to include scans of the original source, then layout becomes an issue. For instance, the first page of Fiore’s introduction is laid out in two columns, with a fancy capital. The text also continues onto the next page mid-sentence.

You basically have two options. You can reproduce your transcription and keep all of the layout decisions, so arrange your transcription on the page the same way Fiore does. Or you can arrange it separately. My preference would be to reproduce the whole source intact, and then present the transcription separately but with the same basic layout. That makes it much easier for readers to find the original source for any give bit of transcription.

If you are quoting from a part of the transcription that includes a page break, note the point of the break by putting the page reference in square brackets, such as:

… l'o mostrada sempre oculta mente si che non gle sta presente alchuno [page break: F1r to F1v] a la mostra se non lu Scolaro,…

Or more simply:

…l’o mostrada sempre oculta mente si che non gle sta presente alchuno [F1v] a la mostra se non lu Scolaro,…

Translation

Translation introduction

Your introduction should answer the following questions:

  1. What book or other source are you translating?
  2. What versions of the source exist, and why have you chosen this one?
  3. Where can that source be found?
  4. Who wrote it?
  5. What do we know about the author?
  6. What images do we have, and are you reproducing them?
  7. What kind of translation are you trying to produce? Where on the “literal” to “analogous” scale do you fall?
  8. Who are you and why should the reader trust you?
Translation choices

Because of the interplay between translation and interpretation, we should discuss what kind of translation you doing. However you choose to do your translation, you need to make your approach clear in your introduction, so readers know what to expect.

A strictly literal translation translates each word in the source in turn, without reference to the meaning of the phrase, sentence, paragraph, or rest of the book. This is also called a direct translation, a word-by-word translation, or a metaphrase. Generally speaking, this is not a useful approach. How would you translate the word “match” in this sentence: “I met my match while striking a match at a football match”?

Beginners are often surprised or even upset to find that the same word is apparently translated differently in different places; this is only because they don’t understand that the context the word appears in is different. Languages are not ciphers of each other- you can’t simply convert each word and expect to find the meaning.

An analogous translation translates the meaning of the source into the target language. This is also called a paraphrase. This would allow you to translate “match” in three different ways based on those three meanings, as made clear from the context. Taken to extremes though, this can lead to translation decisions that fail to properly convey what the original author said.

All translations exist on a spectrum from 100% metaphrase to 100% paraphrase. You have to decide where on that spectrum you want to work, and what point is most useful to your target readers.

To my mind, it’s more useful to translate a bit too literally than a bit too freely. A lot of the readers of these translations are using them to teach themselves to work with the original sources. Over-interpretation makes that much harder.

Let’s take this phrase from Fiore, for example. It is part of the text regarding the punta falsa play, on f27v.

…Io mostro d’venire cum granda forza per ferir lo zugadore cum colpo mezano in la testa. E subito ch’ello fa la coverta, io fiero la sua spada lizeramente. E subito volto la spada mia de l’altra parte piglando la mia spada cum la mane mia mancha quasi al mezo. E la punta gli metto subita in la gola o in lo petto…

My translation in From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice:

I show that I am coming with great force to strike the player with a middle blow in the head. And immediately that he makes the cover I strike his sword lightly. And immediately turn my sword to the other side, grabbing my sword with my left hand at about the middle. And I place the thrust immediately in the throat or in the chest.

Tom Leoni’s, in The Flower of Battle, vol. 1, page 275

… I feint a strong mezzano to the opponent’s head. As he forms his parry, I lightly strike his blade, then immediately turn my sword to the other side, grasping it almost at mid-blade with my left hand. I can then place a quick thrust to his throat or chest…

I have a huge regard for Tom’s translation work, but every now and then he strays a bit too far in the analogous direction. Fiore’s description “I show that I am coming with great force to strike the player” becomes “I feint”. He also uses “forms the parry” for “makes the cover”, “opponent” for “player”, and I’d have to say that “mid-blade” is clearly not in the text (it’s just “at the middle”).

I should note that The Flower of Battle quoted here is an absolute gem of a book, and a must-read for any Fiore scholar. And I agree very much with most of the translation.

If you are faced with a phrase that has no meaning in the target language, then I would still translate it as written but add its equivalent phrase in a footnote. For instance, when Vadi wrote Et romperoti il brazo al diri dunave (on f20r), it means ‘And I will break your arm while saying a Hail Mary’. So that’s how I translated it. But I included a footnote which reads:

Though the Hail Mary prayer is quite long, the expression means “in a jiffy”. If you’re running late, you might say (in Italian) “I’ll be there before you can say a Hail Mary”, which is equivalent to “I’ll be there before you know it”.

That way, the reader knows what Vadi said, and also what I think he meant, where it might not be clear. This is very different to the modern English meaning of “Hail Mary”, which is a desperate last-ditch attempt.

You may also come across a word or expression that you can’t translate because you can’t find it in your various dictionaries. In many historical martial arts translations, the common practice is to throw in a word that might be right and hope for the best. A hail mary translation, if you like. But best practice here is to translate as much of the sentence as you can, and leave the untranslated bit in square brackets. Such as in this line describing the guard bicorno, in the Getty ms:

Questa e posta di bicorno che sta cossi serada che sempre sta cum la punta per mezo de la strada.

I translate this as “This is the guard of two horns that stands so closed that it always stands with the point in the middle of the way.”

Let’s say “serada” was unknown. Then it would read: “This is the guard of two horns that stands so [serada] that it always stands with the point in the middle of the way.”

It is perfectly alright to publish a translation with a few mystery words in it, so long as you’ve done due diligence to find them out. If they are commonly understood by native speakers, or easily found in a proper dictionary, then your reader will understandably lose faith in you.

It is common practice to leave some words untranslated, especially technical terms. As the translator, it’s your job to make judgement calls, and this is one of them. Some translators translate everything. Some leave far too much untranslated, rendering the translation useless to the reader. When I’m translating, I have my students in mind. What do they need? What do they already know?

So I often leave technical terms that we use in class all the time untranslated. This includes the names of blows (mandritto fendente for example), and the names of guards, and the names of certain techniques (colpo di villano, for example).

But I don’t do this the same way in every book. In a training manual aimed at practitioners, I’ll leave the terms untranslated throughout, and define them only on the first use. The students are supposed to learn them. But in a book billed as a translation (such as From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice), I’ll translate everything (as you see in the punta falsa and bicorno translations above).

However a lot of words that appear to be technical terms wouldn’t appear so to a native speaker, and it’s critically important that the target reader gets what they need, so I think it’s better to err on the side of translating everything.

Translation layout

Wherever you choose to fall on the analogous translation spectrum, you have choices about how to present your work. If there are large chunks of text with no illustrations, you have the following options:

Reproducing the layout of the original. This is excellent for making a version of the original text that’s simply more accessible to the reader. The trickiest part is the page breaks, where you have to decide where exactly in the sentence you make the break.

Side-by-Side with the original. This can make it even easier for readers to find which bit of the translation applies to which bit of the source, but will often compromise the layout of the source. The team at Freelance that produced The Flower of Battle went with this option, sacrificing the page layout of the source, but presenting each page with the transcription and translation in about the same place as on the facsimile.

Side-by-Side with the transcription. This is great for readers trying to learn to work with the original source. You can break up the transcription into paragraphs or even sentences, to make it even clearer. I used this for my transcription and translation of Fiore’s introduction to the Getty ms, in my From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: the Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi.

Where you have images, you must make it absolutely clear which image your transcription and/or translation refers to.  Many sources simply have one image per page, which makes things quite simple. But where you have multiple images per page, you must arrange the transcription/translation so that it is crystal clear which image the text refers to.

Using other people’s transcriptions and translations

You have to be very careful about copyright, and giving credit, when using somebody else’s work. If you are going to quote more than a few lines, you absolutely must have permission from the rights holder. In some cases, the work has been published under copyright terms that allow for unlimited non-commercial use, in which case have at it, just give credit (whether it’s required or not).

In most cases, you need permission from the publisher. I always check with both the author and the publisher, assuming I can get hold of both.

This is true regardless of the format you are using. For instance, I checked with Reinier van Noort before quoting his translation of Johan Georg Pascha’s jaegerstock material in a series of jaegerstock videos I was doing.

My quotation of the few lines of Leoni’s translation above falls squarely within fair use, but as a matter of courtesy I let the publishers know. It’s always better to be open about what you’re doing, and to give more credit than is strictly required.

It’s very common for HMA researchers to use other people’s translations. Translation is hard, and you may not have the language skills to do it yourself. There are some drawbacks though:

  1. You may have no way to know how accurate the translation is
  2. You may be using an out-of-date or inaccurate version
  3. Every translation is also an interpretation, so the translator may be coming from a completely different point of view, or have unfortunate ideas about how swords work that lead them to translate things incorrectly
  4. You have no right to use the translation without permission unless explicitly stated (which is unusual)
  5. You have no right to alter, correct, or change the translation, even if you find a mistake. You have to quote it precisely, and add any corrections in the commentary or footnotes.

I think that a professional instructor is morally obliged to be able to work with the original source in its original language. You simply can’t trust somebody else’s translation, unless you are able to at least check it yourself. But it would be absurd to require amateurs to master a long-dead dialect of a foreign language before getting to work on the interpretation.

Just be aware of the pitfalls.

Incidentally, the reason I only teach from sources in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Latin, is because those are the languages I can reasonably work in. The only foreign language I would publish a translation of would be Italian, but my skills in the other languages are at least sufficient to have an informed opinion about the translator’s choices. If you’ve ever wondered why I don’t publish work on German medieval combat, this is the reason.

Interpretation and Commentary

So far this has been fairly simple. There are tried and tested ways of presenting transcriptions and translations. But presenting your physical interpretation of the actions in the source takes us to relatively uncharted territory. There is no established academic model to follow, so I have created one. We should start with the questions your introduction should answer.

Interpretation introduction
  1. What book or other source are you translating?
  2. What versions of the source exist, and why have you chosen this one?
  3. Where can that source be found?
  4. Who wrote it?
  5. What do we know about the author?
  6. What images do we have, and are you reproducing them?
  7. Are you intending the reader to actually reproduce your interpretation?
  8. If yes, what equipment and prior training will they need?
  9. If no, have you provided other resources for readers who want to have a go?
  10. Who are you and why should the reader trust you?
Interpretation layout

Here is the ideal layout for presenting your interpretation:

  1. Source image where available.
  2. Transcription of the text if necessary.
  3. Translation of the text if necessary.
  4. Commentary on your translation and the play it represents.
  5. A blow-by-blow description of your interpretation.
  6. A video clip of how you enact that interpretation.

If you follow this format, people can see what you are basing your interpretation on, and why. They may agree with you 100% right up to the video clip. Or they may see an error in your translation that affects everything downstream from there.

You can see how this looks on the page here:

You may need to go into some depth and detail about a concept, rather than an action. In that case, it is best to separate that out into its own chapter. In From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice, I have a 13 page chapter on what largo and stretto mean, and conclude each section (such as the sword in one hand, or the plays of the zogho largo) with a chapter on how the plays fit together.

It’s necessary to separate these things out for three reasons:

  1. It makes it easier for readers to find
  2. It maintains the distinction between theory and practice
  3. Your physical execution is ‘what’ and ‘how’. The theory explanation is about ‘why’. It’s clearer to keep these separate.

For the blow-by-blow description, I would suggest using the same format as for teaching drills in a training manual, with the prerequisites clearly stated, and the actions carefully ordered into a numbered list. Here’s a sample from the second edition of The Duellist's Companion.

Creating video clips

Let the text do the work of explaining the ‘why’ of your interpretation. It’s simply miserable to sit through a video of somebody trying to explain why they do an action a certain way, unless it has been carefully scripted and beautifully produced. The video’s purpose is to show the action. If the clip is more than a minute long, you’re talking too much.

Set up a camera on a tripod, make sure there’s enough light and you’re in shot, and just record you and whatever training partner may be required doing the action. Record it from both sides (so, you facing right, you facing left). Edit out everything that isn’t clean or necessary.

You can add title cards and end cards too. This is a good idea if you plan to release the videos publicly, so people watching have an idea of why you’re NOT TALKING. And you can advertise your work to them. Your title card text should include:

  1. The name of the project.
  2. Your name and the name of any assistants
  3. The name of the specific action you are doing and where it comes from
  4. The date you shot the video (in case your interpretation changes later)
  5. My video clips are usually extracted from my online courses, so I also credit the course at the end. That also tells people who like the interpretation and want to be taught how to fence with it where to look for instruction.

You now have a video example of your interpretation of that specific action. How do we embed that into the book?

Embedding video clips into your work

It is tempting to just produce the book as a very large PDF, with the video clips embedded in it. Don’t do that. So many people will tell you it didn’t load, or doesn’t work, that you’ll spend far too much time answering emails and not enough time swinging swords. Instead, the best approach is the following:

  1. Upload your clips to an online hosting service. I use Vimeo, but you can use a free service if you don’t mind advertising other people’s stuff.
  2. Create a redirectable link that is easy to type, and paste the clip’s address as the target. I use PrettyLink, through my website hosted at guywindsor.net. So every link is guywindsor.net/somethingeasytotype and points to the specific video clip I want.
  3. For academic content, that is sufficient. But for training manuals and workbooks I also use a free online tool (easy to find with basic search skills) to create a QR code of the link, and include that in the book. Here’s an example from my Complete Rapier Workbook:

It is critically important to use the redirectable link. Do not ever just use e.g. a YouTube link. Unless you own YouTube and can therefore control what happens to it. The point is to future-proof your book. If I change the way I do an action, or create a better video, I can upload it somewhere, and go in to my website’s dashboard and redirect the link. If my Vimeo account was suddenly destroyed, I could upload the clips somewhere else, and redirect the links.

Using Photos

I highly recommend hiring a professional photographer if you can possibly afford it. It is really hard to take print-worthy photos without high-level gear, and without high-level post-production. You may have students, friends, or colleagues with a serious interest in photography, in which case by all means let them help. But be aware of what you’re asking for. The weekend it takes to pose and shoot a book is perhaps a fifth of the time needed to do the post-production.

Clarity is the watchword here, as always. Don’t go for artistic, don’t go for fancy. Make the photos crystal clear, and at a resolution that allows you to print them as large as possible. Shoot on the plainest background you can find, not the prettiest.

Do not insert the images in your text file. It will make the whole process horrendously difficult. Instead, name your pictures in a sensible way, and insert an instruction to layout, in square brackets, like so:

[pic: Getty fol 6v 4 4th play]

That tells me that it should be an image from folio 6v of the Getty MS, 4th image on that page, which happens to be the 4th play of the Abrazare.

If you have hundreds of images from a photoshoot, you might just go with the automatic image numbering from the camera. That’s fine, so long as you are very strict about getting the right numbers in the right place. I copy and paste the file names rather than typing out digits.

This way, even when your layout designer has no idea about your subject, if they can’t find an image, or they put the wrong image somewhere, you can find the correct image easily. Do not try to number your images in order (figure 1, figure 2 etc.) because you will end up having to redo the numbering many times as you edit the text. If you want figure numbers, put them in at the very end, after the first layout draft has been done.

For showing actual movements, I use video clips. Unless you are writing a training guide for videography, the video just has to be clear. Shoot it in the highest resolution you can, and edit it as short as you can make it without losing the necessary detail, and you’re done. The point is to replace the need for photos, not to create instructional videos.

Adding a Glossary

Are there any terms a lay reader may need to look up? If there are six or more, I’d suggest including a glossary at the back of the book. Such as my Academese glossary, reproduced here:

Academese Glossary v.1.02

Citations and Bibliography

Your research will no doubt refer to other people’s work. The modern standard is for in-line citations. This works by simply putting the author’s name, the year of publication of the source you’re citing (if necessary- see below), and the page reference in brackets, in the sentence or immediately after a quote. For example:

Guy’s completely erroneous interpretation of Fiore’s sword draw (Windsor 2018, 52) sets the seal once and for all on his reputation as a complete turnip-head!

Or:

Questo zogo sie del magistro che fa lo partito qui dinanzi. Che segondo chello ha ditto per tal modo io fazo. Che tu vedi bene che tua daga tu no mi poy fare nissuno impazo.

This play is of the master that does the technique before this one. I do it in the way that he has said. You can well see that your dagger cannot cause me any trouble. (Windsor 2018, 52)

Note that I indicate the quotation with a change of text formatting. Whatever you do, make it abundantly clear what you are quoting, and exactly where your reader can find it.

Bibliography

What books have you referred to in your book? List them here. I usually divide them up by type, then organise by author’s last name. Include the author’s full name, the title of the work, the publisher, and the date published. Such as:

Windsor, Guy. Mastering the Art of Arms, Book 1: The Medieval Dagger. Freelance Academy Press, 2012.

Windsor, Guy. Mastering the Art of Arms, Book 2: The Medieval Longsword. The School of European Swordsmanship, 2014.

The date is especially important if the author has more than one book in your bibliography. That way when you are citing them in your text, you can use the standard in-line format, for example (Windsor 2012, 147) which means page 147 of the book this Windsor chap published in 2012.

If they only have one book in your bibliography, you can leave out the year. Such as (Windsor 147).

If they have produced more than one book in the same year, then format it like so: 2018/1, or 2018/2 etc.

Other Things to Include

These are less critical to making your research available, but they are good practice to include. Your work should have an acknowledgments section, a list of your other works, and some biographical information about you. I summarise this like so:

Acknowledgments:

Who helped you learn this stuff in the first place, and to produce the book?

More books by Guy:

If they liked this one, they may like the others.

About the Author

Who am I, and why should you listen to me?

How can they find you online?

And how can they get on your mailing list? [top tip: you can get on my mailing list with the form at the bottom of this post]

Publishing and Distribution

There is no sense in putting all this work into writing up your research if nobody ever reads it. So you need to make some decisions about distribution. Let’s start with copyright.

Copyright options

As the author, your work is automatically protected by copyright law. But, you have various options available to you whether you want to give it away, or get paid for it.

If you want to sell your work it is not strictly necessary but still a good idea to register your copyright. This can be done through various agencies. I use protectmywork.com.

If you publish your work yourself, then you don’t need to get anyone’s permission. If someone else publishes it for you, then you will need a contract with them that licenses your copyright to them. Freelance Academy Press has licensed the copyright to my book The Medieval Dagger for English language only, paperback and ebook only, worldwide distribution. I have the rights to the hardback and to foreign language versions. This is why you can find a German translation of the work, and you can only get the hardback from my online store (swordschool.shop), not the paperback or ebook.

Releasing the work for free can be done by simply stating your terms in the form of one of the creative commons licences. You can for instance allow:

  1. Free use to anyone for any reason, with no need to credit you (CC0)
  2. Free use to anyone for any reason, but you want credit (CC BY)
  3. Free use for non-commercial use, but anyone selling your work needs your permission (CC BY-NC)

And there are other options, allowing for the work to be changed or not. You can find the entire list here: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

You apply the licence you want by simply stating it somewhere in your work, with a link to the licence terms. This booklet Show Your Work, for instance, is © 2023 Guy Windsor. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Which allows allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

Note that this noncommercial licence stops other people selling the work. I can still, for instance, produce a version of the book for sale.

For free distribution, you simply need to produce the book to a reasonable standard of editing and layout (any word processing software will do that), and export it as a PDF. Then share that PDF wherever you like. I would suggest including the following, which are easily forgotten:

  1. Your name
  2. Your copyright terms
  3. Page numbers
  4. A link to your website or anything else of yours that the reader may be interested in.

I cover publishing books and marketing them in detail in From Your Head to Their Hands: how to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial artists, so if you are planning on producing an actual book that people can buy, please refer to that.

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The False Thrust: Fiore Translation Project #24

One of the most stylish techniques in the system is the punta falsa, literally “false thrust”. Fiore’s instructions are very detailed:

Questo zogo si chiama punta falsa o punta curta, e si diro come la fazzo. Io mostro d’venire cum granda forza per ferir lo zugadore cum colpo mezano in la testa. E subito ch’ello fa la coverta, io fiero la sua spada lizeramente. E subito volto la spada mia de l’altra parte piglando la mia spada cum la mane mia mancha quasi al mezo. E la punta gli metto subita in la gola o in lo petto. E de miglore questo zogo in arme che senza.

This play is called the false thrust or the short thrust, and I’ll tell you how I do it. I show that I am coming with great force to strike the player with a middle blow in the head. And immediately that he makes the cover I strike his sword lightly. And immediately turn my sword to the other side, grabbing my sword with my left hand about at the middle. And I place the thrust immediately in the throat or in the chest. And this play is better in armour than without. 

This is the 17th play of the second master of the zogho largo, and so in its basic form is done as a riposte after a successful parry of the first attack (as shown by said master). It can of course be done any time there is an opening to throw the mezano feint, but let’s start out being strictly canonical. We bring this to life like so:

https://youtu.be/BkhdctzyE2g

When practising the punta falsa, there are some things to bear in mind.

  • Make sure you leave enough space to turn your sword when feinting. A small step offline with the back foot can help, when making the feint.
  • Keep the turn of the sword tight, by rotating it around the midpoint of the blade, then let the point lead you in.
  • Cross-handed pairs will find that the punta falsa only works when there is a forehand (mandritto) mezano being met by a parry on the inside of the attack. This allows the turn to half-sword, which is only mechanically possible from this situation. A left-hander will therefore need to strike the mezano to generate a parry from their opponent’s left side; right-handers need to draw a parry from the opponent’s right side.  

Incidentally, in Italian, punta can mean ‘point’ (as in the point of the sword), or ‘thrust’, depending on context. So you may find the term punta falsa translated as ‘false point’, and punta curta as ‘short point’. (or indeed, references to ‘exchanging the point’ or ‘breaking the point’). It doesn’t actually matter from an interpretation standpoint, but as a fencer, I would be more inclined to think about actions rather than parts of the sword. Where it matters are when Fiore is telling us which bit of the swords are crossed (such as in the first master of the zogho largo, crossed at the points of the swords), or where to grab the blade (see for instance the 14th play, where we should grab it ‘near the point’). This has changed over time: in modern Italian ‘a thrust’ is ‘una spinta’, while ‘point of the sword’ remains ‘la punta della spada’.

We should also think a moment about the ‘better in armour’ injunction. Why would Fiore put a play here that apparently belongs in the armoured section? As I see it, it is because firstly it can be done out of armour – it’s quite safe to do if you get it right. And secondly, this play is something that a person wearing armour when you are not might do, and as we shall shortly see, the counter works just fine out of armour. 

The next play is the last play of the zogho largo; the instruction is simplicity itself, but the action is very counterintuitive for most people.

Questo sie lo contrario del zogho ch’e me denanzi, zoe de punta falsa overo di punta curta. E questo contrario si fa per tal modo. Quando lo scolaro fieri in la mia spada, in la volta ch’ello da a la sua spada, subito io do volta a la mia per quello modo che lui da volta a la sua. Salvo che io passo ala traversa per trovar lo compagno pui discoverto. E si gli metto la punta in lo volto. E questo contrario e bono in arme e senza.

This is the counter to the play that is before me, so, the false thrust or short thrust. And this counter is done in this way. When the scholar strikes on my sword, in the turn that he makes with his sword, I immediately make a turn to mine, in the same way that he makes a turn to his. Only I also pass across to find the companion more uncovered. And I place the thrust in his face. And this counter is good in armour and without. 

The exact nature of the blade action and the relationship between the weapons was first figured out, as far as I know, by Sean Hayes at WMAW 2006. We had just attended a lecture on the manuscript given by Brian Stokes, and seen really high resolution scans for the first time- so clear that places where the manuscript had been corrected (by scraping off the original ink and redrawing a line) could be seen. The counter-remedy master’s sword was suddenly, clearly, on the inside of the player’s (the one trying to do the punta falsa). I will never forget the time about half an hour later when Sean tried out this interpretation on me, and sold it in one go as my attack collapsed as his point magically appeared in my mask.

Here’s how it looks in practice: 

https://youtu.be/E4Y0AAZ9Z_0

Perhaps the most common problem when attempting this counter is ending up outside your opponent’s sword. Don’t worry, that’s how everybody did this play for years. It works, it just takes longer. It can also be documented in other sources, so it’s even historically accurate. But if your partner does it, yield immediately to pommel strike on the other side. 

The text continues on this page with two paragraphs side by side, with no illustrations:

Qui finisse zogho largo dela spada a doy mani, che sono zoghi uniti gli quali ano zoghi, zoe rimedii e contrarie da parte dritta e de parte riversa. E contrapunte e contratagli de zaschuna rasone cum roture coverte ferire e ligadure, che tutte queste chose lizerissimamente se porio intendere.

Here ends the wide play of the sword in two hands, that are joined together plays, which plays are: remedies, and counters from the forehand and the backhand side, and counterthrusts and countercuts of ever type, with breaks, covers, strikes and binds, that all these things can be very easily understood.

This passage is actually quite tricky to translate, as the second line is unclear: ‘che sono zoghi uniti gli quali ano zoghi, zoe…’

I am translating ‘zoghi uniti’ as ‘joined together plays’, in the sense of they are joined (united) in some way. It’s a clunky sentence, I think. Though the meaning of it is reasonably straightforward to tease out, the exact grammar makes no sense to me. Then Fiore continues with what appears to be a bare-faced lie: these ‘joined together plays’ are apparently “remedies, and counters from the forehand and the backhand side, and counterthrusts and countercuts of ever type, with breaks, covers, strikes and binds.” We have seen nothing, zip, nada, from the backhand side, and while we have arguably seen a counterthrust, countercuts have there been none. Plus, there has been exactly one counter-remedy (the last play of the section), so not ‘contrarie’, counters plural. Unless we count the 14th play, which kind of counters the break and is then countered.

So what do we do with this statement?

I think we go back and play. And sure enough if we take this material and play with it, pretty soon we do end up doing all these different things. Applying the exchange of thrusts idea to cuts gives us something astonishingly like a zornhau ort, for instance.

What’s a zornhau ort? Don’t you read the German stuff too? It’s really interesting… basically, it’s when a mandritto fendente (sorry, forehand oberhau) is met with the same blow, leaving the defender’s point in the attacker’s face. We’ll need something like that for the next section, so I’ll go into it then.

The plays of the zogho stretto are coming up. Take a look at this two-page spread:

The master of the zogho stretto is the first play on the recto page. The text introducing the stretto plays is at the bottom of the verso page. This makes perfect sense when you see the pages as they are bound in the manuscript, but the sense is lost when you look at individual pages. Or worse, when the pages are bound such that the verso pages are printed on the recto side, and vice versa. 

The text reads:

Qui cominza zogho de spada a doy man zogo stretto, in lo quale sara d’ogni rasone coverte, e feride e ligadure e dislogadure e prese e tore de spade, e sbatter in terra per diversi modi. E sarano gli remedij e gli contrarij de zaschuna rasone ch’e bisogna a offender e a defender.

Here begins the play of the sword in two hands zogo stretto, in which will be, of every type, covers, and strikes, and locks, and dislocations, and grips, and disarms, and throwings to the ground in various ways. And there will be remedies and counters of every type necessary to offend and defend.

Well, that sorts us out then. It reads like a trailer for a movie: there’ll be drama! And excitement! And explosions! And sticky situations over a pound note! Don’t miss it!

(Full marks if you spotted the Blackadder reference. If you don’t know what Blackadder is, start here. The reference is from Season Three episode Ink and Incapability).

I am now working on the next section, the stretto plays. I’ve been thinking though of not publishing them here, just making them available as part of the book I’m compiling from this series (provisionally titled “Fiore dei Liberi’s Longsword Plays on Foot Out of Armour”). What do you think?

And in the meantime, you can get parts one to three as snazzy ebooks here for reading on your phone, kindle, kobo, or other device. 

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

And you can get Part three, the Plays of the Zogho Largo, from Amazon or Gumroad.

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The Fiore Translation Project: sidetrack #1, the manuscripts

One very good question that has come up in the comments on my Fiore Translation project, is why focus on the Getty MS? It’s the manuscript that’s had the most attention, the most work done on it. Why not focus on the Pisani Dossi, the Morgan, or the Florius?

In case you are new to this, let me explain what those things are…

To quote from The Medieval Longsword, pages 5-6:

The four surviving copies of Fiore’s manuscripts are:

Il Fior di Battaglia (MS Ludwig XV13), held in the J. P. Getty museum in Los Angeles. “The Getty”, as it is generally known, covers wrestling, dagger, dagger against sword, longsword, sword in armour, pollax, spear, lance on horseback, sword on horseback and wrestling on horseback. The text includes detailed instructions for the plays. Regarding dating, in this manuscript Fiore mentions a duel between Galeazzo da Mantoa and Jean le Maingre (Boucicault), which we know took place in 1395. He does not mention Galeazzo’s death, which occurred in 1406 (a crossbow bolt in the eye at Medolago). So it seems likely that the manuscript was written between 1395 and 1406. The treatise was published in facsimile by Massimo Malipiero in 2006, and a full translation into English was published by Tom Leoni in 2009.

Flos Duellatorum, in private hands in Italy, but published in facsimile in 1902 by Francesco Novati. “The Novati” or “the Pisani-Dossi” follows more or less the same order and has more or less the same content as the Getty. The main differences are that the spear section comes between the dagger and the sword, and the dagger against sword material is at the end. The text is generally far less specific than in the Getty, but it is the only version that is dated by the author, who states that he is writing on February 10th 1409 (1410 by modern reckoning). He also states that he has been studying for 50 years, which would put his date of birth around 1350, assuming he began training at the usual age of 10 or 12.

Il Fior di Battaglia (Morgan MS M 383), “The Morgan”, held in the Pierpont Morgan museum in New York, proceeds more like a passage of arms: first comes mounted combat with lance, sword, and unarmed; then on foot, spear, sword in armour, sword out of armour, and sword against dagger. There is no wrestling or dagger combat shown except against a sword, though they are mentioned in the introduction. I conclude that the manuscript is incomplete. Most of the specific plays shown here are also in the Getty, and these have almost identical texts.

Florius de Arte Luctandi (MSS LATIN 11269), recently discovered in the Bibliotheque Nationale Francaise in Paris, is probably a later copy. “Florius” has Latin text and is beautifully coloured. It follows the approximate order of the Morgan, though is more complete, containing all the sections seen in the Getty and the Novati.

It is much easier when dealing with multiple versions of the same source to pick one as your main focus and refer to the others when necessary. Most scholars working on Fiore agree that the Getty is the most useful source, since it is as complete as any other, and has the fuller, more explanatory, text.

The Medieval Longsword came out in 2014, so unsurprisingly it doesn’t refer to the most recent major Fiore publication. 

My goal in studying Fiore is primarily to understand how sword fights work. I am a martial artist first, historian second. From that perspective, it makes sense to focus on the most complete version of the book (which would rule out the Morgan), with the best illustrations and the most complete, explanatory, text. The Getty is the only sensible choice. 

But, and this is a very large but, it would be very foolish not to take advantage of the other sources. Here’s how I see them:

The Morgan 

You can download a copy here. Morgan MS.M.383 copy

The first thing to note is that the Morgan starts with the lance on horseback, and proceeds in the reverse order to the Getty. This means the book is following the order of a passage of arms, rather than the (probably) best pedagogical order. 

It is also sadly incomplete. Though the introduction mentions dagger, for example, the book ends at the play of the sword in one hand.

The ms has been rebound out of order. I would order it like so: Folia 1-14 are correct. There’s a page missing after 14, then the order should go: 16, 15, 18, 17, [page missing], 19, [rest of ms missing if it ever existed].

Where we have the same plays and actions, the text for the Morgan is remarkably similar to the Getty. This is uncontroversial; you can check the transcriptions on Wiktenauer here.

To my mind the Morgan is principally useful for the one key theoretical insight it offers: the play of the sword on horseback showing the crossing of the swords:

Top right image from f6r.

Quisti doi magistri sono aqui incrosadi a tuta spada. E zoche po far uno por far l’altro, zoe che po fare tuti zoghi de spada cum lo incrosar. Ma lo incrosar sie de tre rafone, zoe a tuta spada e punta de spada. E chi e incrosado a tuta spada pocho gle po stare. E chi’e incrosado a meza spada meno gle po stare. E chi a punta de spada niente gle po stare. Si che la spada si ha in si tre cose, zoe, pocho, meno, e niente.

These two masters are here crossed a tutta spada (“at the whole sword”). And what one can do the other can do, thus [they] can do all the plays of the sword with the crossing. But the crossing is of three kinds, thus a tuta spada (at the whole sword) and a punta de spada (“at the point of the sword”). [Note the inconsistency here: he says ‘of three kinds’, but mentions only two at this point.] And he who is crossed a tuta spada, little can he stand. And he who is crossed a meza spada (at the middle of the sword), less can he stand. And he who is crossed a punta de spada, nothing can he stand. So the sword has three things in it, thus: little, less, and nothing.

This is of course a matter of leverage: when the crossing is near the hilt (a tutta spada), you have some strength, you can stand, withstand, support, or hold, a little. At the middle, less, and at the point, nothing. Please note, fencers with a more modern background (shall we say, from 1550 onwards), will be leaping up and down in excitement because in more modern systems, generally featuring swords with more complex, hand-protecting, hilts, parries are done with what Fiore would call the tuta spada against the punta di spada. Or what rapierists would call the forte against the debole, and smallswordists the fort against the feeble (or foible). But, please note, in every single case where Fiore describes the blade relationship at the parry, he specifies middle to middle. This is, I think, for two reasons. Firstly, with an open-hilted sword, you cannot afford to put your hand so close to the enemy blade, you must parry further down the sword. Secondly, parries are not done as a gentle but firm closings of the line; they are rebattimenti, beating actions. The tuta spada is not moving fast enough to hit with enough force to beat the opponent’s weapon aside.

Other than that, while it's an interesting source, it doesn't add anything to our understanding of the Art. I'd love to be proved wrong on that, so if I've missed something, let me know.

The Florius

You can see scans of the MS on this wiktenauer page.

Ken Mondschein has published a paper on it here. This is one of those “Fiore scholars, you have no choice, you have to read this” moments. It's basically everything we know about Fiore, his life, and a lot of fascinating insights into his patrons and milieu. Plus, it's even free. Go.

As I see it, this is a very pretty, but not very useful, version of the book. I paid the BnF about a thousand euros for the scans (which I’m not allowed to share, because they are a tight-fisted lot at that institution, but they've now put them online, see above), and while I don’t regret that, it didn’t actually change a single thing I was doing in class. No new techniques or concepts. The artwork is stylised to the point where it’s not a usable reference source, and the text is as short and even less helpful than the Pisani-Dossi. As Ken wrote “the Paris manuscript changes the source material so considerably, and in a manner so consistent with it originating in the court of Leonello d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara, that we must consider it almost a separate work.” Scholars need to know about it, and study it to some degree, but martial artists can move swiftly on. Again, if I've missed something, let me know!

The Pisani-Dossi

You can download a good pdf of the book here: Flos_Dvellatorvm_in_Armis,_sine_Armis,_Eqvester,_Pedester_(Novati) copy

There is a cadre of Fiore scholars that remember the bad old days when a very poor photocopy of the Pisani-Dossi ms, with extremely bad English translations pasted over the original text, was the ONLY version of Il Fior di Battaglia that we had. 

Seriously. That was all we had to go on. No wonder we struggled. I first saw the photocopy in 1994, and felt totally justified in keeping smallsword as my main focus. By the early 2000s, we had heard of the Getty, but it was almost impossible to see a copy. I blagged some not-very-clear scans in 2002, and better ones in 2005. In 2006 we saw full-res scans for the first time, when Brian Stokes gave a lecture on them at the WMAW event in Dallas. Oh my, did we get excited. We saw the first micro-filmed scans of the Morgan in about 2002, and better images became available by about 2010. As for the Pisani-Dossi, a decent quality un-messed-about-with pdf became available in about 2002. Halleluliah. 

Now do you understand me when I say you don’t know how lucky you are?

To be clear, the version we are all working from is the facsimile made by Francesco Novati and published in 1902. The original is in the Pisani-Dossi family vault, and to date has been seen only by Brian Stokes, because it is basically impossible to arrange a viewing: it requires all the heirs of the family (who do not get on) to be present for the vault to be opened. However, as far as we know, the facsimile is accurate (according to Brian).

This ms is as complete as the Getty, but as we saw in the discussion of the sword in one hand master, the text is much less useful, generally. However, as we also saw here, it does include some illustrations and plays that add significant depth to our understanding. Especially noteworthy is the crossing of the sword in zogho stretto from the roverso side, shown here:

Questa e coverta de la riverssa mano

Per far zoghi de fortissimo ingano

This is a cover from the backhand side,

To make plays of the greatest trickery.

Per la coverta de la riverssa mano acqui to afato

De zogho streto e de ferire non fera guardito

By the cover of the backhand side I have got you here

You can’t defend yourself against the close plays or the strikes.

I am also jolly fond of the third master of the dagger from this ms; it has a gloriously fun disarm:

Qui comenca zoghi de mi riverssa zoghi forti

Per tali zoghi non savez asay ne sono morti

E li zoghi li mie scholari seguizano

E pur de parte riverssa comenzazano.

Here begin the plays of my strong backhand plays

By these plays you don’t know how many have died,

And the plays of my scholars that follow

And only of the backhand side, they begin.

Per lo zogho del magistro la daga o guadagnada

E de ferirte te fazo grande derada.

By the play of the master I have gained the dagger

And by striking you I’ll cause you great discombobulation.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The non-technical smack-talk cries out for non-technical language play. Derada is not discombobulation, but the sense is the same.

One of the principal reasons I include this play in my Dagger Disarm Flowdrill, part of my basic syllabus for Armizare, is to specifically refer to the Pisani-Dossi, to make sure all of my students are aware that there is more than one copy of the source.

Let me just make the point about the text very clear. Here is the Pisani-Dossi version of the Exchange of the thrust:

Aquesto e de punta un crudelle schanbiar

In l’arte piu falsa punta de questa non se po far.

Tu me trasisti de punta e questa io to dada

E piu seguro se po far schivando la strada.

Here is a cruel exchange of the thrust,

In the art you cannot do a more false [deceptive] thrust than this,

You came to strike me with at thrust and I did this to you,

And [to be] more secure you can go avoiding [out of] the way.

And now the same play from the Getty ms:

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.

You can see then that one is general, and the other very specific. If you want to know which foot to move where, there’s only one ms that will tell you, and is also complete.

So, for anyone wanting to recreate Fiore’s art, there is only one sensible choice of source to focus on. But, and it’s a big but, you should also be intimately familiar with the Pisani-Dossi, and the Morgan, and at least aware of the existence of the Florius. Now that we have established why I’m focussing on the Getty, let’s briefly look at the overall structure of the Ms.

If you don't already have it, you can download a pdf of the ms here:

FiorDiBattaglia_MS_LUDWIG_XV_13_sRGB_150dpi copy

This is (again) taken from The Medieval Longsword, pages 8-13:

The Structure of il Fior di Battaglia

Il Fior di Battaglia is a vast and complex treatise, covering an enormous range of weapons combinations, techniques, counters, and fundamental concepts. As it was written around 1410, it comes from a different cultural and educational background from ours, one in which memory training was fundamental. As a result, the lack of theoretical discussion in the work, and the way the information is presented, can present stumbling blocks to the modern reader. The sheer amount of information is daunting, and as it is spread over some 90-odd sides of vellum (conventionally numbered 1 to 47 recto and verso)*

 

keeping the structure clear in your head as you read can be difficult, so I’ll lay it out for you. The first three written sides (p. 3 recto and verso, p. 4 recto) are taken up with a text-only introduction. This covers the following points:

• A brief autobiography of Fiore himself

• A list of his more famous students and some of their feats of arms

• A brief discussion of the secret nature of the art, and Fiore’s opinions about different modes of combat (fighting armoured in the lists versus fighting in arming doublets with sharp swords)

• A further description of Fiore’s training, and his opinions regarding the necessity of books in general for mastering the art

• A connection of Fiore himself and the book with a higher authority (Nicolo, Marquis of Este) who commissioned the work

• An overview of the book and its didactic conventions, begin- ning with some background information on wrestling, and advice to the student on what is required

• Discussion of poste (the guard positions used in this art)

• A description of a crown and garter convention by which one can tell at a glance who is winning the fight in any given image.

This last is critically important to following what is going on in the treatise, so I’ll expand on it here. The figures that begin each section are shown standing in guard, and wear a crown to indicate their masterly status. They are the “first masters”. Following them are one or more “remedy masters” (also called the “second masters”), who illustrate a defence against an attack. Following each of them in turn are their scholars, who are identified by a garter, who execute the techniques that follow the previous master’s remedy. After a scholar or master may come a “counter-remedy master” (the “third master”), wearing a crown and a garter, who illustrates the counter to that remedy, or to a specific scholar. Occasionally, there is a fourth master, who may be called the “counter-counter-remedy master”, who wears the crown and garter too. Fiore specifies that most sequences don’t get beyond the third master (i.e. the attack is met by the remedy, which the attacker counters), and it is perilous (perhaps because it is insecure) to go beyond three or four. This visual convention is unique to Fiore as far as we know, and makes it easy to be sure who is supposed to win from any illustrated position, and what stage of the fight (principle or guard; defence; counter to the defence; counter to the counter) is being shown. When reading the treatise, you can immediately identify who is winning in a given picture by his bling—the most bling wins!

The finish to the introduction is particularly interesting: “The coloured letters, the illustrations and the plays will show you all the art clearly enough for you to understand it.” In other words, this book should be enough to transmit the art completely. A bold claim, and one that is borne out I think, once the conventions are understood.

Weapon by Weapon: the Sections of the Manuscript

The manuscript is divided into sections, which are linked together. The primary divisions (mentioned in the title of the Pisani-Dossi) are on foot, on horseback, in armour and out of armour. The secondary divisions are by weapon. We begin on foot, out of armour:

• Abrazare: wrestling. This has one remedy master, and a total of twenty plays. The first sixteen are unarmed, then come two with a short stick (bastoncello), and two with the stick against the dagger, connecting us to

• Dagger: this is a huge section, with 76 plays, divided upbamongst nine remedy masters. This is followed by defence of the dagger against the sword, and hence

• Sword in one hand: this contains one remedy master followed by eleven plays, which will be detailed later in this book. They lead us to

• The sword in two hands: this starts with a description of footwork, then six different ways to hold and use the sword, then twelve guards. The plays are divided into

• Zogho largo, wide play: 20 plays, including two remedy masters

• Zogho stretto, close play: 23 plays deriving from a single remedy master, which is followed by

• Defence from sword guards on the left side—a single remedy master, with no scholars, who is followed by

• Staff and dagger against spear, and two clubs and a dagger against spear. This seems to finish the unarmoured material (though some of the dagger plays required armour). 

There follows:

• The segno page, or “seven swords”; a memory map for the system as a whole, and illustrating the four virtues required for success in the Art.

From here on, we are mostly in armour:

• Sword in armour—six guard positions, one remedy master, one counter-remedy master, and a total of sixteen plays.

• Pollax—again six guard positions, eight plays with no specific remedy master, and two more showing variations on the axe: one with a weight on a rope, the other with a box of poison dust on the end. This is followed by the:

• Spear—first we see three guards on the right, one play and one counter-remedy, then three guards on the left, and one play.

And finally, mounted combat:

• Lance—five plays, each with their own master, including one counter-remedy,

• Lance against sword—five plays, including three counter- remedies.

• Sword—one guard position, shown against two attacks, with nine plays.

• Abrazare—seven plays including three counter-remedies.

• On foot with ghiaverina, a type of spear, against mounted opponents, one master followed by two plays.

• Lance and rope—a last play of lance against lance, showing a specific trick for dismounting an opponent.

• Sword against sword—a last, probably allegorical, play, in which you chase your opponent back to his castle, in which his villanous friends are waiting.

In this book we shall confine ourselves mostly to the three sections of the sword on foot, unarmoured. This does not suggest that these sections are somehow a standalone treatise; on the contrary, under- standing them has required many readings of the entire manuscript, and exhaustive recreation of the entire system on foot. The sections complement and reinforce each other: when a longsword pommel strike comes in, treat it like a dagger attack: when you end up too close to use your pollax, use the wrestling plays. There is much to learn about the spear from the plays of the sword, and so on. I have left out the plays in armour simply because most readers will not have access to a complete harness, and there is no point doing armoured plays without it. Likewise, we should not imagine that the work is done: there remain (in other sections) plays that have not yet been convincingly interpreted by anyone, and the mounted combat material is beyond the scope of any but the very best riders, with highly trained horses.

In any given section there will usually be one or more “remedy masters” wearing a crown, illustrating the defence against a partic- ular attack. These are followed by scholars, wearing a garter, who complete the play of the previous master. There are often also counter-remedy masters, wearing a crown and a garter, which counter either the scholar that comes before them, or the master himself. In other words their action may be specific to one scholar, or more generally applicable to the remedy itself.

The plays are the illustrations of the techniques, so a picture of a player (wearing no crown or garter) getting beaten by a master, scholar, or counter-remedy master. One technical sequence, such as a parry and strike, might take up one, two or three such illustrations, each of which is a play. As the term implies, there is often a lot of “play” in the execution of these techniques, and several different ways to enter into a given play. Fiore scholars tend to keep the key plays in memory, in the order that they appear in the Getty MS. It has become the norm to refer to the plays by their number—such as “the third play of the second master of zogho largo”. This is more useful than saying “p. 25 verso, bottom left illustration”, because it puts the play into its context. It is also how Fiore himself refers to the plays. In this numbering system, the illustration showing the master is the first play, and all the images that follow him, up to the next master, are numbered two, three, etc. This makes it very easy to find the play referred to—simply find the right master (wearing a crown and no garter), and count from there. So when reading this book, if you keep a copy of the treatise handy, you should be able to find the source for every technique I describe.

*Footnote: These Latin terms are the technical names for the front and back surfaces of a page: the recto is the right-hand (usually odd- numbered) page in an open book, and the back of that page (which, when the page is turned, becomes the left-hand page, usually even- numbered) is the verso. Definition from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Also it is worth noting that the pagination in general use and which I am using here is different to that employed by the Getty museum; because the first page has a “3” written into the corner, we number the treatise from page three onwards; the Getty numbers the pages from the first extant page. Malipiero gives both uses, the Getty’s version in brackets.

I hope that’s made it clear where I’m coming from, and given you some insight into the currently known copies of the book. The next instalment of the Fiore Translation Project will be coming out on Tuesday, which happens to be Christmas Day. Merry Christmas everyone!

This project is being published in stages (including side-tracks like this one). 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!

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A glossary of medieval Italian fencing terms

Many students find the (often) foreign terminology a major barrier to learning swordsmanship. I get it. I really do. In 2006 I even wrote an article explaining why I translate “meza” and “tutta” the way I do. I put a glossary in the back of most of my books, and I created a separate pdf handout for the Longsword Course that includes the essential terms for studying Fiore and Vadi. If you'd like a copy, sign up below and I'll send you one automagically.

 

 

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This belongs to you. Fabris’s Sienza d’Arme, the best rapier book ever, yours free.

A spot of rapier and cloak in the morning?

I have the enormous privilege of owning an original copy of Salvatore Fabris’s Sienza e Pratica d’Arme, printed in 1606. I bought it from Sr. Roberto Gotti, of Brescia, in 2014. It is in incredibly good condition, and an excellent, clean print. It is still in its original binding. The value of the book comes from two things: the information it contains, and the artefact itself. I own the artefact, it is mine, mine, mine, and woe betide anyone who tries to take it from me. But I believe the information it contains belongs in the public domain. This book is yours. So I asked my friend Petteri Kihlberg to photograph it, and I am releasing those photos (with his permission) free and with no strings attached. If you choose to use them for some commercial purpose (such as printing an edition for sale), then I ask as a matter of courtesy that you give credit where it’s due, but I do not insist on it. I've set it to “pay what you want”, and would be grateful for any donation you choose to give; the more money I have, the more fencing treatises I'll buy, all of which will go online for free.


I want this!

I own this book, but the information it contains is part of your birthright as a human being. I hope you will enjoy it, share it, and make something beautiful with it.

Please share this post so that everyone who wants a copy of the book can get one.

And don't miss my other free books! Marozzo's 1568, Girard's 1740, Seven Principles of Mastery, and many more.

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FOUND in Translation

Five years ago, I got an email from a German friend of mine asking about the German translation of my book, The Swordsman’s Companion. I had no idea what he was talking about, and so he sent me this link.

I nearly fell off my chair (this was before I changed to a standing desk, and just as well, or I might have fainted). There, out on Amazon, was a translation of my book, the only translation of any of my books, published without my knowledge. I was beyond furious, as you might imagine.

So I contacted the publisher, Hans Wieland of Wieland Verlag, and asked him what the hell was going on. He said that he had a deal with my publisher at the time, Chivalry Bookshelf, in which Wieland would publish my book in German, Chivalry would publish a book of theirs in English, and to make the accounting simple, I would get royalties on the German book, and the German author would get the royalties from my book.

Let me say that again: someone else would get author royalties for my book. Only a writer can truly fathom the wrongness of that.

Unfortunately, the contract I had signed with CB meant that this deal was in fact legal, and Wieland had naturally assumed that CB had discussed it with me. But nobody had even told me about it, let alone asked for my help in preparing the German edition. Wieland sent me a copy, and I hit the roof (again). The book is beautifully made, gorgeously laid out. (I can’t speak as to the quality of the translation, but I assume it's pretty good.) But the cover. Oh dear.

Handbuch

Here it is, in all its glory. There are notches on the blade, the sword is in the wrong position, held in the wrong grip, with bent wrists; the person is in wrongly made mail, wearing the wrong jacket, with no elbow protection, the gauntlets’ fingers are too short, the gauntlets and mail are 200 years out of date with each other; even his mouth is open (so he may bite his tongue or break his teeth if he gets hit).

Not to mention the dodgy facial hair and mad staring eyes.

And many people have thought that that was ME on the cover! Aaaaaaaaarghhhhhh!

I gave Mr Wieland a piece of my mind, over email. He was polite and apologetic, and there was nothing to be done. I should state here that it is still a good book, and publishers have always been at liberty to make whatever covers they want; marketing the book is their job, after all.

A couple of years later, I was part of a class action suit (organised by Greg Mele, who worked tirelessly over many months to gain a favourable outcome) against Chivalry Bookshelf in which the rights to my first two books reverted to me. (The terms included a non-defamation clause, so I will be very polite about what went on.) This is why both the Swordsman’s Companion and the Duellist’s Companion are back in print (thanks, Greg!).

Shortly afterwards, I got an email from Thomas Laible of Wieland Verlag, informing me that in the circumstances (the break with CB, and the obvious non-publication of the German book in English for which I was supposed to get paid), Wieland would be paying me all the back royalties on my book.

Though they had absolutely no legal obligation to do so, and despite my unrestrained response to the cover, they were offering me my royalties (which by this point were about 1500 euros). I nearly fell off my chair (again).

Since then, we have signed a contract for them to publish The Duellist’s Companion, and just last week, we signed the contract for the German edition of The Medieval Longsword. That’s right, people, Fiore is about to speak German. He already does, in Osnabruck, but with the new books coming, the potential for the true (Italian) art to spread in Germany is hugely increased.  Halleluliah!

It is an unmitigated pleasure to do business with people who can be relied on to do the right thing. And I am hugely pleased to think there may come a generation of German-speaking longsword enthusiasts doing Italian longsword.

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