Lord Baltimore's Challenge

 Once again, it's been a hot minute since I posted here. Good times, good times.

So yeah, I know that I've still got some yelling about Silver and more Fabris and Marozzo and knives and stuff sitting in my drafts folder, languishing and incomplete, but I'm going to instead write about some thoughts, takeaways, and ideas that I have from attending Lord Baltimore's Challenge this past weekend. I have a bunch of them, and they're varied, so buckle up.

The first day had three tournaments - sidesword, single rapier, and rapier/dagger. This was my first time playing in a judged tournament format, and it was interesting. We were encouraged to self-call hits if we felt something and the judges missed it, which did happen occasionally. The rules for the tournaments, assuming I'm remembering them correctly, went something like:

• Sidesword
  These rules were intended to represent a lethal duel.
• Each pairing was three passes, stopped when a single blow was struck. Points got totaled up over the course of the pool.
• Cut or thrust to the head or torso: 3 points
• Cut or thrust anywhere else: 1 point
• Opponent steps entirely out of the ring: 3 points
• If there is a simultaneous 3 point wound, neither fighter was awarded points for that pass. The pass was not refought. Consider parrying.
• If there is a 3 point wound struck at the same time as a 1 point wound, the fighter who struck the lethal blow receives 3 points and the other fighter gets nothing.
• When the first blow is struck, the other fighter can return an afterblow, but it has to be thrown immediately and they have a single tempo worth of action to use. (In practice, this wasn't all too different than "if you're already in motion..." in the SCA, but some exceptions happened.)
• After each pass, the ring director has the discretion to award a "technical point" to a fighter who displayed good skill with their blow. These only counted to break ties.
  
  
• Single Rapier
  Similar to the sidesword contest, these were intended to replicate a lethal fight. Rules were identical to sidesword with the following exceptions:
• Cut to the head was 3 points. Thrust to the head or torso was 3 points.
• Cut or thrust anywhere else was 1 point.

The last tournament was set up differently:

• Rapier and dagger
  This was more SCA rapier style, but with Very HEMA scoring. The rules were intended to replicate a contest or display of skill, rather than a lethal engagement.
• Thrust only! Head or torso was 3 points, anywhere else was 1 point. Leaving the ring was worth 3 points for your opponent.
• In the case of simultaneous blows, both scored.
• Bouts lasted 90 seconds or until a fighter reached 15 points. 
• When a blow landed, time stopped and the fighters reset.
• Technical points worked as before.

These were fought in round robin pools, and the top eight scoring fighters across all the pools advanced to a single elimination bracket. (They did top 16 last LBC but in the interest of time, it had to be reduced.) Through arcane math, points were normalized for the pools which had 5 fighters vs the ones who had 4. I wasn't particularly stressed about this though. (Which is a theme I'll come back to.) Also, ring directors applied the technical points somewhat differently - some tossed them around like candy, for any blow which was thrown in tempo and was clean. Notably, Guy Windsor was very strict with his use of them, handing them out only for what he felt were excellent displays of technical skill.

I helped judge the sidesword tournament; I didn't have the time to get together the higher armor required for it, and honestly I wasn't sure if my shoulder could have handled it. After being there, I suspect it could have, but it would have been extremely tired for the rapier and dagger tournament, which would have been upsetting. Judging was certainly fun, although stressful, and absolutely forced me to spin up the long disused fight recall skills.

Fighting in single rapier was enjoyable as all get out. Definitely a different setup than the SCA in a lot of ways, and pretty cut heavy, but it was still a good time. I didn't perform as well as I would have liked, but I'm simply not as used to dealing with cuts (which I will have to remedy), and next time I'd really consider going down to a 39" rapier blade with a little more heft to it. I did walk out of Guy's pool with three (3!) technical points though, which served as an excellent counter to my brain being a bit down on my fencing. I was disappointed that I didn't do better, but I wasn't really angry with myself. I just have some concrete things to work on, is all. If you know me at all well, this will strike you as a shockingly well-adjusted response. It sure surprised me!

Rapier and dagger went similarly. I thought I performed quite well, though of course I have some things I need to work on there as well. Things to improve, but I wasn't stressed or angry about them. The vagaries of points kept me out of the top 8, but that's fine. I was wiped the hell out anyway, so getting to run back to the hotel a little sooner than normal and grabbing a shower was worth it.

Let's pause here during my recounting of the day's events and poke at a couple things. It was really weird to not be actively annoyed at my perception of my fencing. I think there are a few different reasons why, but the big ones had a lot to do with the atmosphere: I was just there to fence my best fencing - I wanted to bring my Fabris game and do it as well as I could, and if I did it well enough I should therefore do well in the tournament and that's good! That was it, though. Nobody was sitting around judging me. There wasn't pressure to Fight As Well As A Master Of Defense Should. I didn't need to put on a show or maintain a level of skill or anything. There were zero expectations on me that I felt like I had to fulfill in terms of how well I fought. I imagine that it would have been quite similar, if not more striking, for people who don't have these fencing awards - nobody's watching and judging and opining on whether you're Good Enough or anything like that. You could just go and do your best, whatever it was in that moment, and that's all. This was so goddamn refreshing, y'all. 

Seriously like... is this what a mentally healthy examination of a day's fencing is? Weird.

Let's talk about another thing that came up during the tournament: stepping entirely out of the ring was equivalent to a fatal blow struck against you. I loved this. I loved this so much. You actually needed to pay attention to where you were. You couldn't just retreat endlessly. No recentering. Not even a hold and restart. You either stopped and parried, moved sideways, or you lost. I want to do this so badly. Sure, I mean, if I'm doing a By The Book kind of thing, I can pull up (for instance) a stage size from my blog posts about it and set up a list to those dimensions and say if you put a foot out you've fallen off and lose. That's a really specific setting, though - the type of person to enjoy a By The Book tournament would probably be tickled by that kind of historic note. But most fencers in most other tournaments? Maybe not so much. But I want to do it anyway. 

The rings were 8 meters in diameter, which was plenty of room for us. They were using these foam interlocking pieces sold by Purpleheart Armory, though they aren't currently listed on their site. When they were, they were something like $535, which is a bit prohibitive to casually pick up. (This sounded like a lot to me, then I did the math about how long that circumference would be.) They were really cool though - not remotely a tripping hazard, but enough to give you feedback if you stepped on it, and enough that you can see them while you fight. Much better than ropes as a boundary if you're using this kind of rule. Other concerns for doing this in a tournament would be that lists must be of a uniform size and shape. I prefer circles for this because, honestly, no corners to get stuck in. So I'll be idly poking around for ideas for making this kind of list work. Lilias suggested cable covers, which might be a good place to start, if I can find some which aren't expensive and also can take a curve. We'll see.

Moving on! Sunday had classes - which is one of the two biggest reasons for me to go to these kinds of things! 

I ended up starting with Kaja Sadowski's classes on Godinho's two sword material, which was tons of fun to play with, great to learn about, and honestly a chill movement warmup for the morning. To summarize: Godinho's two sword material is all about crowd control and surviving. Not beating everyone there, but living until help comes or you get away. It's really cool and playing around with it in that context is great.

I followed these up with Guy Windsor's classes on Controlling The Story, which was about both mindset things and also maintaining blade control, as well as his class on diagnosing and figuring out fixes for fencing problems. These were excellent, and I'm looking forward to applying the lessons learned here in building drills and fixing the problems I noted the day before.

The other big reason I go to these things? The people. Getting to hang out and socialize and chat about nerdy sword things with other nerdy sword people is a joy. I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with David Biggs, and he generously let us examine and (carefully) take out some of the Actual For Reals Very Sharp antiques that he had. I've noticed it before, but I was struck by it again - these blades vanish if they're pointed at you correctly. Remy got some pictures of us with them (all the photo credit is his, and thank you for letting me use them), and as weird as it is to see it in this form, let me tell you, it's bonkers scary to experience it.

Here I am in my "I have been on a plane and traveling and am tired" Fabris stance. Spot where the blade is. For bonus points, tell me if you can guess the size of it and how far it is from you.

Remy's here in a more upright Capo Ferro stance. There isn't much more of the blade to see in here, either.

Finally, here I am with Guy Windsor, as we show each other how scary it is and why using swords properly was a thing people did.

The third picture really illustrates a lot to me - if anyone ever thinks, "Why do I need to find my opponent's sword? I can just take a bazillion other positions that work well," I think they're missing a really important historical point - actual rapiers are scary, they're sharp, and it's really hard to see them clearly. Our simulators have tips which stand out, and wider blade geometry which makes a difference too. If someone was pointing something like this at you, trying to put your sword right in the way and doing your best to close that line is what hopefully keeps you from panicking and dying.

Anyway! This was an absolutely amazing time, I had tons of fun, I got to see people I haven't seen in literally years and catch up with them and also be giant sword nerds with them and I cannot wait to see if this happens again next year. If it does, I will absolutely be there.

Corble Collection To Be Digitized!

This is ridiculously exciting news! Big thank you to Gunðormr Dengir for pointing me at this!

(This is going to be an exclamation point heavy post. Deal with it.)

A portion of the headline reads, "KBR, KU Leuven Libraries and Google signed agreements to share a large portion of important digitised documents reflecting the rich cultural and historical heritage located in the libraries."

The article notes that more than 80,000 individual works are going to be made freely available, which is itself absolutely bonkers exciting. However, of special interest to me is the last bullet point example of what's going to be put up on Google books: "Corble collection: collection of the British fencer Archibald Corble (1883-1944), one of the world's most extensive collections on the history of fencing."

The Corble collection is probably one of the most extensive fencing-related collections you may never have heard of. A description of it is here, but let me just quote from it: "The collection consists of about 1,900 copies, dating from the 15th to the 20th century, and mainly originates in France, England, Latin America, Italy and Germany." Additionally, it notes that "This valuable collection is attractive to many scholars because of its diversity. The scope of the Corble Collection is much broader than only the art of fencing. It also contains treatises on duelling written by various fencing masters; works on self-defence; and books on the handling, making, and evolution of stabbing weapons and firearms. But the collection also contains material that focuses on the legal and religious side of duelling, such as pamphlets on lawsuits and legislation, as well as religious pamphlets that warn audiences against the dangers of duelling."

I am so excited for this! There's what looks to be a partial list of the collection here. That's just from a quick digging around - if I find a better or more useful list, I'll edit this post to include it. There are definitely works in there that are readily available in translation (Marozzo's Opera Nova, for instance) but I can't wait to see what manuals or treatises we haven't had ready access to before this get to be seen by anyone on the internet.

This is so awesome and I cannot wait.

Marozzo's Second Presa Revisited and Translation Funtimes

So a couple days ago I did a look at Marozzo's second presa. It was fine, it's a short little thing, and a fun play. Good times!

Then my friend Kate (whose blog is here, and has made some fantastic things and also has done some translation work!) was chatting with me about it and said that the take on it that she had was less of a shove, and more of a lifting motion from the legs. I could see that, but didn't have that as my takeaway. She mentioned having grabbed her copy of Swanger's translation of Marozzo, and that's when it clicked.

I hadn't used my copy of that translation. I'd gone over Wilson's translation at Wiktenauer, because I'd read through Swanger's before, thought myself broadly familiar enough with the play, and I didn't have the book at hand. This was where things got funky for me. Kate said that she had looked up Wilson's version, and said that it was pretty different. 

The key part of the play as translated by Wilson reads, "In the throw you will grasp the right thigh with your right hand while thrusting your head under his right arm and you will turn your shoulders and in this manner you will take him away and throw him to the ground." I read that as turning into your opponent with your right shoulder, which was more of a shove to me. 

Swanger translates that as, "...grab his right thigh with your right hand, shooting your head under his right arm as you grab his thigh, and straighten your back. This way you'll pick him off his feet and throw him to the ground..." Further he footnotes, 'straighten your back' with "Literally, "turn your shoulders rearwards"." This completely changed how the end of the play goes for me. Would lifting your opponent's leg and shoving them with your shoulder work? Yeah, I think so. On the other hand, would a lift with your legs as you straighten your shoulders out work better? Absolutely. As soon as your opponent's feet lose contact with the ground, their options shrink by a lot. They don't necessarily go down to zero, but they get pretty close to it.

So what did I learn from this?

1) Take the time to go find my preferred translation. (Even if it was out in the car and I would have had to brave the cold and snow.) Swanger is absolutely my translation of choice because of those footnotes, the extensive introduction, and the clarity of work that he has. (Which isn't to say that the text isn't unclear at times - but it's generally going to be Marozzo's fault when it is.)

2) Swapping translations mid-effort, even between discrete chunks like the blog posts let me do, can lead to some weirdnesses.

3) Talking to other people about their takes on a play and why they are what they are is going to be enlightening. (This is something I knew, but it sure got reinforced here.)

So! Next time, I'm for sure going to be working from my book.

Marozzo's Second Presa and Fiore

So a year and change ago, I took a look at Marozzo's first knife defense and compared it to the material in Fiore. After the last series of posts I wanted to get back to something I hadn't poked at in a while and also something that would be contained to a single post - so let's look at Marozzo's second defense against getting jumped by a guy with a knife!

Here we have a response to someone coming at you with an underhanded attack with a dagger. Marozzo wants you to block down hard with your left hand, grabbing his wrist or forearm. While you're making the grab, step in with your right foot to their outside. To perform the throw from there, grab their right thigh and pull up while you shove under their arm with your shoulder, putting them into the ground. (One of the sword and buckler plays describes a very similar presa but notes that you can "carry him away" if you want, so lifting them up into a fireman's carry is a very period option as well, it looks like!)

My first thought upon working through this in my head was that unlike the first presa, there wouldn't be clear depiction of this defense in Fiore. As best I can tell, I'm not mistaken here. Of the nine dagger masters in Fiore, only the eighth and ninth discuss dealing with this kind of underhand dagger attack, and there are no plays from either of them which resemble this takedown at all. 

Very similar takedowns do appear elsewhere in earlier wrestling texts though - on page 51 in Jessica Finley's Medieval Wresting, which is a working guide to Ott Jud's German wrestling treatise from the mid-1400s, this is termed the "slipping through" and Finley states, "This throw is shown in many manuscripts including the Kal (In Service to the Duke, Tobler, page 182), Talhoffer (Medieval Combat, Rector, plate 196), and Auerswald's "Running through Under the Arm", plate 10." Germany had a very rich tradition of unarmored wrestling both for sport and earnest defense, so honestly if it was going to show up anywhere else, I'm not surprised it showed up here. 

I have a couple thoughts about why a similar style of takedown doesn't show up in Fiore though, and they all center around one thing - Fiore has an assumption of armor. It isn't that everything is illustrated with armor (it isn't), but the techniques as best I can tell are based around the worst-case assumption in terms of dealing with the additional weight, bulk, or restriction of armor.

In this case, getting under the arm as shown in Marozzo is a tight fit in many cases. I certainly wouldn't want to trust my ability to get my helmeted head and armored body into there if I'm wearing a full harness. I might also be worried about if I'd get hung up on my opponent's armor in this case as well. It's a good takedown - and Fiore loves him some takedowns - but I'm really not sure I see it being a great idea here.

Also, I'm not all that sure that it's reasonable to assume that someone in full harness can themselves pick up their similarly armored opponent and be balanced and in good control. Unless, I suppose, they're Hulk von Hogan - well known practitioner of Fiore! (I'm a very serious scholar who takes himself very seriously. Clearly.)

With that, I'm going to wrap this post. I think I'll do the next presa pretty soon though - I'm hoping to find more lines to draw between them and Fiore's plays before I'm done, and I want to get to a presa that has a solid similarity to dig into!

More Guild Ranks and Drama and Things Like That!

Well, pandemic brain, mental health, surgery, and the holidays all conspired to make this take a lot longer then I wanted to get this done. (Remember when I said a day or two? Ha ha, I'm so optimistic before the crushing reality sets in.) But here we finally are, and that's just how it is, and we're doing the research and writing as we can, as best we can.

When we left off, we'd walked through the promotions up from scholar to free scholar. Next up would be Provost, and then finally Master. (To remind folks, there were the four ancient Masters who were in charge of the whole guild. They must have changed over time, but we have no record of this specifically, let alone how the promotions were decided.) 

The prize for Provost is where some of the really entertaining stuff starts to appear. When a free scholar decided to play for Provost, both he and his Master went to the four ancient Masters to discuss it. (The manuscript specifically notes that if the student's master were dead, they could choose one of the four ancient masters to fight under, so that's nice.) The four ancient Masters set the day of the prize, where the free scholar was supposed to fight at the longsword, backsword, and staff (though in reality these were somewhat flexible). At this point, the free scholar had to, at his own expense, give four weeks notice to all Provosts of the guild who lived within 60 miles of the location where the prize was to be fought that it was happening. For any Provost inside that radius who was not informed, the free scholar had to pay the ancient Masters a penalty of five shillings. According to the currency converter from my previous post, that comes out to $44.40 in today's dollars. Additionally, any Provost who lived more than 20 miles from the prize fight would have half of their travel expenses paid by the free scholar. (As an aside, Lilias pointed out to me the possibility of doing some fun math here as a free scholar - is it more expensive to pay half of someone's travel expenses or to pay the penalty for not inviting them?) Finally, assuming they pass their prize fight, to receive their Provost's Letter they must pay "to the four ancient Masters for the sealing thereof after the rate which is set amongst them with all manner of other duties belonging to them."

It all keeps coming back to those promotion fees and belt tests, right?

Once the free scholar fights his prize and becomes a Provost of the guild, some new rights and responsibilities are theirs. First, they may not keep a school within seven miles of any Master's school unless they receive permission from the four ancient Masters. They may not teach any scholar unless that scholar is sworn to the Provost's own Master; if done, the Provost must then pay the Master a fee of two pence for each scholar and another two pence to the "most ancient Master of the four" as well as showing his account books every quarter. If they happen to live within the 60 mile radius of a Provost's prize and they know about it, they must appear and fight (unless they are ill or "busied in the Queen's affairs") or pay a penalty of six shillings eightpence to the four ancient Masters. Finally, they are not supposed to play their Master's prize for another seven years - which again, seemed in practice to be a guideline more than a rule.

Now, the prize fight for Master. The Provost who wishes to become a Master does this through the Master under which he fought his prize for Provost (or again, under one of the four ancient Masters if necessary). Assuming they all approve, the four ancient Masters choose the day for the prize, and the Provost will have to fight at the two handed sword, the "Basterd sword", the pike, backsword, and (finally!) the rapier and dagger. The Provost was required to inform all Masters that lived within 40 miles eight weeks in advance of the day. Unlike the Provost, there's no mention of penalties for either the Provost for not informing anyone nor to the Master who doesn't attend. 

Assuming the student does well, he pays for his Master's letter and the sealing of it and all the duties that he might owe (which again, are unspecified), he's given his Master's oath and boom! A new Master! At this point, according to the Master's oath, the newly promoted fencer should not set forth any prize (which I take to mean bring up a student for a prize fight, but I could be wrong) or keep more than one school in London. Other items of the oath include stating that they also shouldn't poach students from another Master, set up a prize fight for a hopeful free scholar or Provost without going through the proper channels, and so on in that vein. 

Interestingly, there are a small number of instances where there did not seem to be a prize fight at all. Four times in the Sloane manuscript we see, instead of the usual prize fight information, "Master's agreement" which seems to indicate a handwaved promotion to Master. This also happened six times with a promotion to Provost, three times for free scholar, and in one Provost's prize it let the candidate skip the back sword fights, though not long sword. Naturally, there aren't any notes describing why this happened, only that it did.

Aylward has some notes as to how the prize fights themselves were conducted, which are pretty interesting. He notes that in each weapon, the prizor would be fighting two bouts with each person answering the prize - so if there were four weapons and six answerers that would mean the prizor would be fighting forty-eight bouts in that day. Naturally, many of those bouts would be one right after the other as well, although Aylward describes how the Masters running the show would call "this weapon is now done" with a fanfare of drums and would then confer with themselves upon it, giving the prizor a chance to sit and rest. They would then call "The first bout at such-and-such weapon" to more drums, and the bouts would continue.

There were definitely rules of engagement in the fights, too. Per Aylward, in 1599 George Silver (we had to bring him up eventually!) bemoaned that "there are now in these days no grips, wrestling, closes, striking with the hilts, daggers, or bucklers used in our fence-schools." I can almost hear him shaking his fists at the sky while screaming, "Back in my day!"

Interesting fact about Silver, though? He was not remotely associated with the London Masters of Defense. They were a trade guild, and Silver was a gentleman - certainly not someone who would join a common corporation! That said, he did write that he had nothing bad to say about the Masters, and he accounted them quite skilled.

I know, I said I'd yell more about Silver. I'll yell about him in another post, because we need to wrap this up sometime. But I did promise some drama, so here we are:

The Company of the Masters of the Science of Defense was not, as far as we can tell, actually an officially chartered guild. I mentioned this in a previous post. Henry VIII signed letters patent in 1540 to charter the guild. Henry died in 1547, and papers like the one he signed typically lapse upon the monarch's death and as Aylward puts it, "it depended largely upon the capacity of the grantees to satisfy the claims of officials paid only by their fees as to whether a revival was obtained from his successor." We had been wondering how the guild funded itself, and it seemed pretty slim - and this may well be proof of that. The Masters sure kept acting like they had a patent and they said they had one, but there's no record of it existing during Edward VI's, Mary's, or Elizabeth's reigns. In fact, they had been ordered to produce it in 1545 so they could set up schools in London, and the paperwork did not appear in court.

No, I don't know how they were able to open up schools anyway.

The Sloane manuscript purports that Elizabeth renewed the patent and added to it the right "to play openly within the City of London." (Which is just really stylish.) But no, there's no record of this existing anywhere else. They did fight a number of prizes before royalty, so they seemed to have some favor there, but not enough to get the paperwork from them.

With that, I'm going to wrap it here because otherwise I'll never post it. Next time, maybe Fabris. Or yelling about Silver and his shenanigans. Maybe Marozzo for variety. Who can say what'll happen around here?

Guild Ranks! Money! Politics! All that kind of drama! Part One of a Dramatic Series!

In my latest entry for my Let's Yell About the London Masters of Defense posts, we're going to look at the various ranks in the guild, what they would be allowed or forbidden, the money that was involved, and all that stuff that's both pretty practical and also could contribute to a ridiculous amount of drama.

There will, naturally, be some yelling about George Silver. Because if we're yelling about money and drama involving the London Masters, I can absolutely work in some complaining about Silver at the same time. It's basically mandatory.

To recap, there were four normally achievable ranks in the guild: Scholar, Free Scholar, Provost, and Master. (There were the Four Ancient Masters who were in charge of the whole thing, but we don't have any records of how the people in those positions changed or were replaced.)

Becoming a Scholar was something that basically anyone could do. When you decided to go to a master (or a provost who had been permitted to teach), the presumptive scholar would be given the oath by their new master (or possibly an usher or Provost so delegated) and pay the master 12 pence for the oath and 4 pence for entrance to the guild. Additionally, whatever fee the scholar and master agree on would be paid half up front, and the remainder as they agree to it; the examples of these fees are 30 and 40 shillings, which I imagine is a ballpark number for what the costs would have been. Despite there being no specific fee, masters are forbidden from undercutting one another. The scholar also had to bring their own weapons and supplies, or else "agree with his master or his master's deputy" for them.

(As an aside, I went to this currency converter and checked how much 40 shillings (or two pounds, per this site) would be in 2021 dollars, and it says about $710. I haven't done any real digging into how accurate that truly is, but it's amusing nonetheless!)

What's missing is how often a scholar is typically going to pay this fee to their master. The 16 pence in up-front fees are pretty clearly one-time costs, but the payment for lessons seems like something that would be recurring. There's nothing in the Sloane manuscript hinting at whether these are yearly or something else.

Incidentally, we don't have anything like an exact wording for the oath a scholar had to take. We know that it was on the cross of a sword, and that he wasn't allowed to use the teachings against his master or to teach them until he was permitted, but that's about it. No specific wording is recorded for that oath.

So! Moving upward, like I described in my previous post, the scholar could say that he wanted to fight for free scholar, get tested, get permitted to do so, and get the prize fight scheduled. There was one hitch which didn't come up in my last post because it was a background point to the prize fight itself, but it's germane to what I'm writing about here:

The London Mayor and Aldermen. 

As previously described, a prize fight was kind of a big deal - nearly a local holiday in terms of impact on the city around it. The fighter would process through the city with drummers and a retinue all the way to the location of the fight. People would want to skip out on work to go watch, and it seems about as disruptive to an area as a big game day is to the area around Fenway Park. In the "Analytical Index to the Series of Records Known as the Remembrancia,"(a catalog of London legal correspondence and records) we can see mention of letters from Ambrose, Earl of Warwick to the Aldermen asking for a license for his servant to play his prizes. The aldermen would routinely pull out "but the plague" as a ready excuse, and it really seemed as though getting permission from them could be a real pain. While they could prohibit the procession through the City of London pretty readily, there were a couple workarounds for holding the prize fights themselves: either go outside the city, or take advantage of one of the liberties therein - specifically Blackfriar's.

Going outside the city was straightforward enough, and there are records of a number of prize fights taking place almost literally in the shadow of the city walls. What seemed to happen more regularly however, was making use of the liberties of London - areas which were outside the control of the civic authorities. These liberties contained theaters such as the Curtain and the Theater, and inn-yards at the Bell Savage and the Bull. Blackfriars as well was located within a liberty, and has evidence of potentially being a headquarters of sorts of the London Masters, including rooms owned by William Joyner, one of the four Ancient Masters of the guild.

Back to the prize fight itself! These were events which were potentially extremely lucrative for the individuals fighting their prize, as well as the guild itself. There's no particular proof that theaters or inns would charge for admission; there seemed to be a strong ideal that prizes should be public. That said, it's very likely that they would have done a brisk trade in drinks. However, the real  money made for the guild would be from the audience throwing it at the stage if they were particularly pleased with the fights that they saw - certainly a real motivation for the fencers involved! The take from the stage seems as though it would have been divided up among the prize fighter(s), the guild, and based on a remark from the diary of Philip Henslowe, who owned a number of theaters, the venue itself. Henslowe notes that he was owed 40 shillings, which as noted above could be a really decent chunk of money for just supplying the space. If that's the cut that the guild was willing to hand over to the venue, I'm very sure that what they wanted to keep for themselves and for the prize fighters would be comparable at the least.

So! Assuming the scholar was judged sufficiently skilled, he would have to pay "all orders and duetyes" as appropriate to a free scholar. The Sloane manuscript doesn't indicate what those would be, though. There aren't any indications of further privileges that a free scholar gets, only that they need to wait for seven years before they're allowed to test for Provost.

This is getting a little long, so I'm going to cut it off here, and wrangle the remaining draft into a part two within a day or so, rather than sitting on this for even longer. (Pandemic brain is a thing. Who knew? Focusing on things is hard now.)

Let's Yell About Prize Fights

So wow, you get one injury and a lot of your focus for even writing about fencing and fencing-related topics is just completely shot. Whoops. But hey, we're back now and as promised I'm going to have another couple of fun times posts and yell about the London Masters of Defense prize fights, how they worked, fun things around them, and all of that. I've talked a little bit about them before (in this four-part series: one, two, three, and four) but I really wanted to focus in on the guild in general and the prize fights in particular here, rather than as an adjunct topic to the sizes of raised stages. Also, honestly, they're a fun thing to read about and also for me to write about here, and I wanted to spend some time just going on about a fun topic today. I'm going to focus solely on the prize fights in this entry; I think in a subsequent post I'll yell about the guild as a guild, talk about how it worked, poke more at their structure, and talk about the money.

Sources for people to hunt down and read! I'm pulling from a few books and articles here. The first is "The Noble Science" by Herbert Berry. This is a transcription and study of the Sloane Ms. 2530, which are some papers pertaining to the Masters of Defense, covering about 1540 to 1590. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend this. It's a fantastic resource. Next is "The English Master of Arms" by J.D. Aylward. The sections which cover the time period of interest are just wonderful. Finally, "Methods and Practice of Elizabethan Swordplay" by Craig Turner and Tony Soper. This is less about the time period in general and focuses more on presenting the manuals of di Grassi, Saviolo, and Silver for stage combat purposes, but it still has some good stuff in here.

For easily found online articles and resources we have "Public Fencing Contests on the Elizabethan Stage" and "The Schools of Defense in Elizabethan London" both of which are available on JSTOR. (Herbert Berry also has a handful of articles there, focusing primarily on playhouses. Not directly relevant here, but really good reads!)

Getting to it, then!

In this context, prize fights were fought because they were a requirement of advancement in the London Masters of Defense. There were four ranks in the guild - Scholar, Free Scholar, Provost, and Master. (There were four Ancient Masters who were the heads of the guild, but we don't have any record about if or how they were replaced over time.) When someone decided that they wanted to go learn the noble science and became a student, they were administered an oath and admitted to the guild as a Scholar. (There was some entertaining financial rigmarole around this, which I'll get into in another post.) At this point, they'd study under that master for an indeterminate period of time; there's no specific time laid out that a scholar was required to study before they could challenge to become free scholars. 

When a scholar felt as though they were ready to become a free scholar, they would first go to their master and ask permission to hold a prize fight. Their master was supposed to contact the four ancient masters of the guild and let them know of the scholar's intent. At that point, the ancient masters would set up a private test within a school where the scholar would be required to defeat six other scholars, specifically with the back sword and longsword. This private test is not a requirement we see for the later prize fights but let's be honest, we can all think of newer fencers who would absolutely have tried to rush ahead with a public display before they were ready. Assuming the scholar passed that test to the satisfaction of the ancient masters the scholar would be told what days he would play his prize. The first day would involve the longsword against whatever scholars wished to fight, and the second day would have whichever other weapons the ancient masters decided upon. Sword and buckler were the most common, but staff and backsword also showed up in the records we have. Afterwards the ancient masters would confer and decide whether or not to promote the scholar.

Assuming the scholar was promoted to free scholar, they would pay whatever dues were owed to the guild and not be permitted to fight their prize for provost within seven years. Despite this restriction, the Sloane manuscript notes a number of folks who fought their provost's prize well before the seven years were up, though I don't know of any source explaining how those came to pass. I'm assuming that money talks, but that's pure speculation on my part.

Things would get more interesting when the free scholar sought to play for provost. Just like the last go-round, the free scholar would ask his master's permission to fight the prize and the four ancient masters would set the day and location. At that point, it was up to the free scholar to notify all provosts who lived within 60 miles of the prize fight's location, and they would owe a fine to the guild for each provost not notified. While provosts who lived within 20 miles of the prize fight traveled on their own dime, any provost farther away would have half their travel costs paid by the free scholar. In the section describing how the Provost's prize was to be played, the Sloane manuscript states that the free scholar would play at the two handed sword, back sword, and staff but the summaries of a number of prize fights list a number of different weapons used. Sometimes fewer than those three were used and sometimes more; I presume it was up to the ancient master who was overseeing that particular prize being fought. As before, the ancient masters discussed the prize fights and decided whether or not to promote the free scholar.

Again, assuming the free scholar was promoted to provost, they were not to be allowed to fight their master's prize for seven more years. Also, again, there are a number of people who fought their provost's prize well before the required seven years between free scholar and provost. Maybe the idea of seven years between ranks was more a guideline than a hard and fast rule?

Moving up to master was much the same as moving to provost. He would approach the four ancient masters, and they would set the day. The provost would then give warning at least eight weeks in advance to all masters who lived within 40 miles of the prize fight's location. The page listing the order for the master's prize says that the weapons would be the two handed sword, bastard sword, back sword, and the rapier and dagger. As with the provost's prize, in actuality there were some variations in the weapons used. While there was no further rank to challenge for, the restriction at this point was that the new master could not open up a school of their own for a year and a day after they were promoted.

Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, at each of the ranks of free scholar, provost, and master, there are recorded instances of the prize fight not being fought at all, but the rank being awarded by an agreement of the four ancient masters. There aren't any details about the reasons for these, so it is up to us to speculate as to why this was the case.

Finally, the Sloane manuscript lists a number of challenges which were fought before the Crown. These weren't prize fights, but presumably displays of skill which the Crown had to attend as part of the job; I don't think this was a specific indication of royal favor beyond "this is one of the guilds in London and the Crown is attending this function" or something similar, mostly because the London Masters weren't nobility or the like, but were middle-class tradesmen.

That's the quick and dirty discussion of the prize fights themselves. In the next couple posts, I want to look at some other issues in and around the guild - the duties and restrictions on the various ranks, as well as some of the problems they had in getting the prize fights set up. I also want to touch on what I've been able to figure out of some of the economics that were in play.

Let's Do Dagger Data!

 (or: in which a random question makes me wonder a few things, so I made a spreadsheet about it!)

I know, I keep saying that I'm going to post about certain things (more on prize fights, more on Fabris' second book) and believe me I have some incomplete posts sitting in the drafts folder, but I got hit with a thing so here we are.

Over on the Facebooks, Lissa posted a question about daggers and dagger length, and it set off a short side conversation in the comments about what were actually used historically. So I decided to take my recollections and go get some data and throw them all together.

It's kind of an aphorism that fencers in the SCA trend towards "longer is better" in terms of weapons. As a general rule, there's something to it: being able to get your point on someone before they can reach you is always good. On the other hand, there are some important points which can throw a wrench into this. For instance, a smaller person using a sufficiently long sword can run into leverage and movement issues with the blade. If a sword is too long, a canny opponent can potentially get past your point more easily. A longer sword can be harder to keep free from being found by your opponent. 

...and a longer dagger can be much, much harder to maneuver around your sword into sound guard positions. Folks with shorter arms are particularly prone to this.

Those are all functional combat concerns, though. On a more practical level, a sufficiently long dagger becomes increasingly useless as a generally useful knife as well as becoming more and more annoying to wear as a daily carry item. If the dagger was purpose-built to be used as a dueling weapon, a companion to a sword, that might be one thing. As a day-to-day item though, that's something else.

So where does that lead us? 

Well, it lead me to hitting up the Wallace Collection, and going through their collection of daggers. I skipped past weapons which weren't plausibly parrying daggers from the period I'm studying - call it the mid 1500's onward - and then I weeded out more modern composites as well. (There were a surprising amount of 1550s dagger blades mounted on 1800s small sword hilts!) The bulk of them are from Italy, Northern Europe, Germany, or Spain. When an item had a date range listed, I used a year in the middle of the range for mapping purposes, but made a note of the range on the spreadsheet.

Of the 61 examples, all but two had the full weapon length listed. There were 23 entries which didn't have the blade length specified. Despite that, there was some neat data that I grabbed! As a note, one foot is 30.48 centimeters. I've been doing a lot of eyeball conversions during this!

Here we've got a breakdown of the overall length of the daggers in question. There's a really clear clump in the middle, ranging from just short of 37cm up to a bit more than 43cm - that's about 14.6 inches to about 17.1 inches of overall weapon length. Many fencers I know use daggers whose blades alone are in the neighborhood of those sizes, yet here we have a number of parrying daggers whose full length sits nicely inside the blade length of SCA daggers.

Now let's take a look at the weapon lengths compared to when they're from. The bulk of them are clumped from 1600 through 1615 or thereabouts, which works pretty well for what we generally study and recreate with rapiers. The much later group - 1650 through 1675 - is interesting in that the bottom half of the weapon length drops right off, leaving us with generally longer weapons in that time. We have a good number of full sail guards from Spain in there (and it may be totally composed of them, but I'd need to dig around further), with blades which are solely made for combat, and not at all suitable for general knife use.

So I mean, in short? (Ha ha.) Shorter daggers, more minimal hilts seem to be the order of the day. 

Also, here's a link to the spreadsheet if you want to take a look at the items, the raw data, or anything else! Warning: it's a work in progress! For instance, I need to clean up the conventions for descriptions (which is to say, I need to create conventions for the descriptions). Going forward, I'm hoping to get data from other institutions for fun as well. I want to hit up the Royal Armouries site next, but their interface just isn't as convenient for grabbing this information so it may take longer.

Anyway, more ongoing projects that I can do when I'm bored and that aren't dependent on the weather are handy. I'll still get back to the London Masters prize fights real soon though, and of course more Fabris.

Wrapping the London Masters of Defense Rabbit Hole

 Okay, let's wrap up this random dive. (For now, anyway.)

While I started in on this by mulling over list sizes and hitting the boundary and deciding to poke at prize fights on the scaffold, the size of the scaffold, and so on, I definitely went a bit into the whole prize fight thing, inn-yards and playhouses, and more general bits about how the London Masters of Defense worked. My prior three entries covered a lot of that, but I want to take this last entry and go through some general interesting things about the London Masters of Defense, how they worked, and some side notes which I found really interesting.

So the beginning of the London Masters of Defense can be traced to Letters Patent from 1540 signed by Henry VIII, the text of which I dropped in an old post here. There are a couple really interesting things to note about this. First is that there's nothing about teaching or organizing or structure or anything else here. It's literally just "hey these twenty people (masters and provosts of the science of defense, according to the text) can go out and look for people who are supposedly teaching this stuff but are doing so really poorly and making actual masters look bad and are overcharging to boot and can drag them to a judge who will make them stop." That's really it. Secondly, and related to that first point is that although the patent implicitly gives the named individuals if not a monopoly on teaching fencing, at least massive control over it, but it doesn't actually incorporate them. They're not actually a guild in the way that, for instance, all the Livery Companies in London were. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to nail down any actual texts for a guild's Charter of Incorporation. I found one for the city of Wells, and while that's not quite the same, it does demonstrate the concept of the "rights and privileges" which the governing positions would be granted - which the Masters lack. (Though I did find a list of all the charters granted, which is kind of neat.) In "The English Master of Arms," Aylward says about it that, "If we compare it with, for instance, a Patent incorporating the Salters, issued by Elizabeth nineteen years later, we find that the Salters are given powers to elect Wardens, to make ordinances, and to enjoy all former liberties, none of which are given by the Patent of 1540 to Ric. Beste and his associates." That said, there was never any claim specifically made about them being a formal company, corporation, or guild - they only ever referred to themselves as the Masters of Defense.

What this all means is that there was one major impact of not being a formally chartered company - the Masters of Defense were not considered exempt from the various laws regarding vagrancy. Specifically, the Vagabond Act of 1572 (which I did a lot of digging for but the internet doesn't seem to have the full text of the act) mentions fencers specifically. In short, being a Master of Defense did not itself seem to be considered employment for purposes of fulfilling this act. Many such people had either an actual other job or a position just on paper to avoid the harsh penalties for vagrancy. Others may have sought connection a noble household, been a legitimate tradesman, or they could have found two judges to issue them a certificate of exemption from the act. While on a practical level if a Master had an established home and was settled and owned a school they would be more or less immune to being hassled over this law, it was still something to be concerned about.

Further complicating matters, Aylward points out that Patents of the kind that was issued by Henry VIII generally expired upon the death of the monarch, and there is no proof of renewal by Elizabeth. In fact, in 1545 the Alderman of London required them to produce a copy of such a Patent as part of a court case to settle an issue about setting up schools in the city of London, and no such copy was produced. On top of that, the Sloane Manuscript 2530 - the papers of the Masters of Defense that Herbert Berry transcribed in "The Noble Science" has example Master and Provost letters which include statements that Elizabeth did renew the privileges granted by Henry and also went so far as to grant them license to "play openly within the City of London." Yes, the Sloane Manuscript is the only place we have this written down - no other records we have back this up. Now, I'm not particularly conversant in what might have burned in the Great Fire. Maybe records relating to the London Masters of Defense were among them, I don't know. It's possible, but I'm inclined to doubt it. We have so many papers of Elizabeth's official patents and charters that I don't think that we'd somehow be missing something here.

And that wraps it up! I want to follow up further at some point with a more detailed look at what prize-fights entailed, and I'll likely do that in a few weeks. That's a separate rabbit hole in my mind though, because that's something that I really want to recreate at an event sometime. I still have dreams of a raised stage up at Bicolline for Les Beltaines some year - because doing that in that setting in front of the tavern would be a blast. It's for sure Not My Event but the setting would be wonderful.

And that wraps up this random little dive into inn-yards and raised stages and fencing on them and some fun background into the Masters of Defense and all that! Like I said, next time I'll probably write up a look at prize-fights and I'll also get back into Book Two of Fabris. (Remember that I was doing writeups of that? I do!)

Yet More Playhouses!

I'm just continuing down this here rabbit hole and I'm okay with this! I might come up for air but I'll probably just end up looping back to poke more at the London Masters of Defense and then prep for a class about them. So that's cool!

So, prize-fights and the venues.

Prior to 1570, there was a fair variety of places where prize-fights occurred. The most common was the open-air market of Leadenhall, but there were other outdoor settings as well. After 1570 however, prize-fights almost entirely shifted to inn-yard theaters and public playhouses. The two most commonly used inns were the Bull and the Bell Savage, with the Curtain and the Theater as the two most popular playhouses.

I mentioned in my last post that I pulled out some stage sizes for two playhouses in London - the Fortune and the Globe. Ironically, according to O.L. Brownstein in his article A Record of London Inn-Playhouses from c. 1565-1590, "there are contemporary references to fencing shows in all the public theaters except the Globe and the Fortune." Both of those were buildings that were built specifically as playhouses though, and never adapted from anything else. What about the other venue that we've seen discussed in reference to prize-fights: the inn-yard theatre?

An inn-yard theatre is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A raised stage would be temporarily built in the courtyard of an inn, and plays would be performed there. The audience would be charged for an entry, and a multi-story inn could also effectively have raised viewing galleries due to the rooms and balconies along the sides of the courtyard.

While the Sloane Ms. 2530 has a number of inns listed as prize-fight venues, in his study and transcription of the manuscript, "The Noble Science," Herbert Berry notes that the Ms. 2530 was neither the official register of the company nor a complete accounting of the company's activities. We know from other documents of the time, such as letters to the Aldermen of the City of London asking for permission to hold a prize-fight with all the attendant pomp, that other sites were used that were not noted in Ms. 2530. Although I have not yet found proof that any prizes were fought at the Boar's Head, it seems to me to be a good enough example of an inn-yard which was converted over time to a true play-house. That said, I did note that in "The Boar's Head Playhouse" (Folger Books, 1986) Berry speculates that the stage built in 1598 - 3'6" high, and it specifically had a railing to prevent the audience from trying to climb up - could have been placed in the middle of the yard with the hope of enticing prize-fights to happen there.

So let's talk about what the stage and the inn-yard looked like at various points in its development! (All of this data is from "The Boar's Head Playhouse," by the way.) In its original form, the full size of the open yard was 55'7" x 54'6", and the first free-standing stage in the middle of this was 25'x39'7". 

To this point, I recently grabbed a tape measure, some cones, and a Lupold, and we laid out a rectangle the size of that initial stage. Then we took up a pair of spears - being the most sizeable weapons we'd expect to use in any of rapier, C&T, or A&S projects - and proceeded to play around in the list we'd set up. I am here to tell you that it was luxurious. Even when we were testing it on all angles while moving around one another, we never really felt as though we were in imminent danger of stepping outside the boundaries of the stage being used. (Or what would have happened in period, falling off of the stage.) I imagine that if the fighters were fighting across the shortest dimension with larger weapons that they'd be very aware of the edge, but as long as your fight didn't consist solely of backpedaling, you'd probably be fine.

From there, when the stage was moved to be permanently up against one of the buildings bordering the inn-yard which had been converted to a tiring-house, they kept the same basic dimensions for it. Notably, despite expanding the galleries available for the audience, there is no evidence of the stage height increasing; presumably the owners wanted to be able to fill the floor of the yard to the brim and have it visible from anywhere. The only other meaningful change to the stage would have been that it was accessible directly from the tiring-house, without steps or ramps or clambering up a three and a half foot step.

There we are! A reasonable example of a free-standing temporarily erected stage in an inn-yard, which could well have been used in prize-fights!

I think there'll be one more post wrapping up the London Masters of Defense rabbit hole, and then I'll try to roll it all together into a single short class for the kicks of it.

More cool history stuff! Scaffolds and stages and prize fights!

So okay (for I begin in the traditional manner of my people) a couple days ago, I posted a bit about a small dive I took into how backing up was seen as bad, and how at one point Saviolo said that he thought Englishmen backed up too much in their fight and that this made Silver sad enough to post more than a hundred flyers around where Saviolo's school was to challenge him to a fight.

What came up in that was the idea that fighting on a raised scaffold, or stage, was a thing. Silver wanted to fight on one explicitly so that if someone backed up too much they'd fall off, but fighting on a raised stage without railings was pretty common in England. It was a standard thing for the prize fights fought for advancement among the Masters of Defense!

For context, there were four ranks in the guild. There was scholar, free scholar, provost, and master. (There were four Ancient Masters, but those were the folks in charge of the whole thing. You didn't just get promoted to that.) You joined as a scholar and had to stay there for seven years. Then you could play your prize for free scholar. Seven years after that, you could play your prize for provost. Another seven years and you could play your prize for Master. (That's how it was on paper. In reality there were a number of spectacular exceptions to those rules, sometimes to the point where people who had to adhere to the rules seemed to be the exception.)

So. Prize fights were big deals. For the rank of provost and master, the candidate had to invite all those of the rank he was fighting his prize for as lived within 60 miles (for provost) or 40 miles (for master) of London. If the provost or master had to travel for more than 20 miles, the candidate had to pay for half the travel costs as well. (There were penalties owed for any eligible provost or master not notified, as well as penalties for provosts and masters who did not attend a prize fight, barring certain exemptions.) The candidate also had to pay a fee upon promotion, in exchange for what was supposed to be a fancy set of letters patent with signatures and seals and all. (I haven't been able to track down any surviving examples of the letters themselves, but the Sloane Ms. 2530 does contain the text for example letters, which is pretty great.

Anyway! So there was going to be a monetary cost to the candidate, but they were usually able to end up making a good profit after their expenses because prize fights were a big deal. There are still written records of how there would be a giant procession from the edge of town to wherever the fights would be taking place. Drums, noise, the whole nine yards. If you made money by selling food along the route - or better, near where the fights were - you might be pretty happy about this. Other businesses not so much, and they weren't shy about making that known. There's a lot of background drama about whether or not permits for the procession or the fight would be granted, if they held them anyway, the whole lot of it. But the upshot was that prize fights were almost an impromptu local holiday, and they would draw a huge crowd which would typically show appreciation for fights by tossing money onto the scaffolding, which the candidates claimed as their own. Everyone profits, everyone wins! The London Masters really were a functioning (though at times very dysfunctional) trade guild.

Right, so that's all the context for why fighting up on a stage for these sorts of things happened. I wanted to get an idea about how large a space the prize fights would have to take place in, which is its own thing. A number of them took place on stages built in inn-yards; the Bell Savage comes up regularly in this context. I haven't nailed down the size for what might be built as a temporary structure in an inn-yard, but I did find some articles by Herbert Berry (the same person who wrote the study and transcription of the Sloane Ms. 2530!) which might shed some light on this! There's one on the Bell Savage, another on the Red Lion. I'm hoping that there's a reference to a stage size, or at least a reasonable set of guesses based on building foundations and the like, since it was mentioned that the Bell Savage had theirs set up against the side of the inn. As an aside, while the plans are from the 1800s, the London Picture Archive has this and this if you want a general layout idea of the Bell Savage, which is really cool. I'm hoping to get a chance to skim through "Inns and Taverns of old London" which at least promises to be interesting!

Playhouses though, are another matter! They were also used for prize fights, and even without needing to cannonball into JSTOR there's some decent starter information out there. The wiki page for English renaissance theater has a sketch from 1596 as well as a shot from the modern reproduction of the Globe which show a bit of the layout. Also, playshakespeare.org has an article about the Globe which says, "A rectangular stage platform, also known as an 'apron stage', thrust out into the middle of the open-air yard. The stage measured approximately 43 feet (13.1m) in width, 27 feet (8.2m) in depth and was raised about 5 feet (1.52m) off the ground." Britannica.com has articles on the other three well-known playhouses of a similar style, the Rose, the Fortune, and the Swan. The Rose was smaller, and the article doesn't note a stage size. The Fortune's stage was about 43 feet by 27.5 feet according to the contract with the builder. The article on the Swan has no information about the size of the playhouse or stage.

Even if it's raised and has no rails, 43 by 27 sounds like a list which is positively luxurious in size compared to what many of us are used to! 

I'm going to get back to doing that Fabris Book Two Part One retrospective, and I also want to do more with the Marozzo vs Fiore knife defenses as a treat, but I may try and collect a list of the playhouses where we have records of prizes being fought, and see if I can nail down specific stage sizes for those. That should be a fun spreadsheet to look forward to!

List boundaries and historic prize fights, or what happens when you mean to write one thing and find a related research rabbithole instead.

Now that we've gone through all the rules for the single rapier in book two, I wanted to kick some thoughts around them in general. I had intended this entry to be something along the lines of "what principles do they illustrate and have in common and what can we learn from them all and how are they useful to us in what we do."

I meant to do that. I really, really did.

But see, I started by kicking around the thought of "look, how useful is it for me to just do the implacable walk of death towards someone if they can back up into infinite space because we don't have static rapier list boundaries." Because we don't, right? One of the discussions about major tournaments that comes up regularly enough that I can set my watch by it is what to do if someone backs into the ropes. Responses usually vary between "call a hold to make sure nobody goes outside of them and continue, repeating as needed" and "call a hold and recenter them before continuing." Neither of these offer a particularly realistic take on how personal combat happened in period, where that level of retreating could be seen as cowardly.

That's where this all started.

Anyone who has taken a class with Tom Leoni has heard about how renaissance Italian dueling custom held that if a duelist backed up out of the circle or other bounds, they forfeited the match. The closest I've found to a clear citation in writing on this is in Saviolo's "Of Honor and Honorable Quarrels." (Jared Kirby edited and presented an edition under the title "A Gentleman's Guide to Duelling" which I think is still readily available.) In the section entitled "In How Many Cases A Man May Overcome In The Lists" Saviolo writes, "Last of all is the running out of the lists. Of this sort of losing the field everyone is so much the more shameful by how much the more I have placed and set him down in his lowest place or room. To be slain in the field is less shameful, though it is far more dangerous and hurtful."

Additionally, Silver (I know, I know) wrote about an incident involving Saviolo, his friend (possibly employee or co-teacher?) Jeronimo, and Silver himself in "Paradoxes of Defense." As Silver described it: "Then came Vincentio and Jeronimo, they taught Rapier-fight at the Court, at London, and in the countrey, by the space of seaven or eight yeares or thereabouts. These two Italian Fencers, especially Vincentio, said that Englishment were strong men, but had no cunning, and they would go backe too much in their fight, which was great disgrace unto them. Upon these words of disgrace against Englishmen, my brother Toby Silver and my selfe, made challenge against them both, to play with them at the single Rapier, Rapier and Dagger, the single Dagger, the single Sword, the Sword and Target, the Sword and Buckler, & two hand Sword, the Staffe, battel Axe, and Morris Pike, to be played at the Bell Savage upon the Scaffold, where he that went in his fight faster backe than he ought, of Englishmen or Italian, should be in danger to breake his necke off the Scaffold."

It was fairly common for the London Masters of Defense to conduct prize fights on raised stages (what Silver terms a scaffold), usually set up in the yard of an inn or playhouse so that an audience could gather and watch. Covering the neighborhood in flyers, which George and Toby Silver did as well, was also a pretty common thing to do based on this story as well as how prize fights would be announced as well. 

Anyway! All of this fun rabbithole diving is what causes me to keep thinking, "we should come up with a compromise there somehow" and I keep wondering how I'd go about building a list with sturdy railings so that when a fencer hits the edge of the lists no hold is called and everything just goes on. I don't know how practical it is to do that for the many lists that a major tournament has - the usual solution of list poles and rope is just a whole lot more space efficient for storage, as well as being adjustable when setting up. But maybe doing something for a single list for cool prize fights done in a period style or a display or something like that?

I'd love to be able to do something like that on a raised platform, and definitely that should have railings. A more immersive event would be awesome for this, or at least a thematically cool site for it. I guess what I'm saying is that I need to see about setting up a raised stage or at least a fenced in list for the town square at Beltaines and then posting flyers some weeks beforehand about a prize fight or something. See? Super period!

Then I went down the related dive of remembering that the London Masters were a business. (One article about them refers to them accurately as a "corporation.") This means that when you played your prize for promotion from scholar to free scholar, free scholar to provost or provost to master, you had to do things like notify members of the appropriate rank within a certain radius that the contest was happening so they could come and fight. If you failed to inform someone, you had to pay a penalty. If someone traveled more than twenty miles to get there, you paid half their traveling expenses. When you got your signed and sealed letter of rank, you had to pay duties and such for that as well. It's pretty bonkers.

Point is though, raised stage with railings for cool period prize fights in a really cool town setting.

This is what happens when I start to look into something and then just keep going and going. Next time we'll talk about things like technique and underlying principles and such. This time it was cool history stuff and that's just fine.

Book Two, Rule Six, The Plates!

 Okay, let's dive right in. Last time we looked at the text describing rule six for the sword alone. This time we're going to look at the example plates. Like I mentioned previously, there are six plates total - two sequences of three plates each - so I'm stringing some together with the magic of MS Paint and here we go!

Here we can see how an approach would look if we entered on the inside. Looking from plate 151 to 152, we can see how our arm will pull back to our body and our torso rotate so the left side is presented as we step forward, causing our blade to remain stationary in space. Interestingly, in our first plate we already begin with our left shoulder about even with our right. Fabris states that it allows us to fortify our sword and keep ourselves safe to the inside and only a little open on the outside. (This has come up a couple times previously, and I really want to play around with this in the future. I don't think it's a universal concept but rather something which is true in specific circumstances, such as when you're constantly advancing towards your opponent. I don't think practicing on the fencing dummy will really let me figure this out, but that's also worth a shot.)

Stepping into plate 152, we've completed a pass with our left foot. Our arm is about as far back as it could reasonably get, and our left side is fully forward. From here, all that's really going to happen is that we'll pass forward ahead with our right foot and then wound our opponent, which we see in plate 153.

Fabris really doesn't add much from here; he notes that our opponent really won't be able to turn themselves into fourth to cover themselves to the inside because with the angle our arm is at as well as the measure we're in mean that we're going to be in a much more mechanically strong position. At that measure, they certainly won't be able to perform a cavazione successfully, either. Fabris notes that if they tried it back in plate 151, we could contracavazione as we proceeded forward and things would still work out the same. 

What's worth noting is that Fabris calls out the "union of body and sword and the motion of the feet" being what keeps us safe, and we can especially see that in the conclusion of this play. The step we take is longer than the smaller steps we've taken previously, but not unduly so. Our arm doesn't straighten, but it returns more or less to the angle we see in the beginning of the play. What does happen is our right shoulder turning forward with the right hip shifting forward on the passing step. This maintains the unity of forces through our body and is going to be much harder to resist than the extending of an arm would be, as well as covering a surprising amount of distance and keeping our body safe as we clear our opponent's blade.

The second play occurs with our opponent on the outside. Interestingly, we're in fourth against their third. We choose this guard for two reasons according to Fabris: it's stronger to the outside (because, remember, it points to the outside) and it keeps us safe in the opening that the angle of the guard creates. Notice that we're fairly squared off with respect to our opponent, preparing for the next step, seen in plate 155.

Frankly, Fabris doesn't have much to say about this middle step; the situation is much the same as earlier, as well as at the same point if we were on the inside. Our body positioning, measure, progress forward, and left hand all ensure our safety to the inside and our blade keeps us safe to the outside.  

Finally, we see the wound in fourth. At that distance, with those body mechanics, there's really no reason to take the time to shift to second. There's still a rolling along the spine to shift the right shoulder forward, along with the hip, and the body is lowered as well. Fabris reminds us to push in with our body and not to extend our arm, which would open us up to a girata or possibly a parry. We need to drive forward and not lean ourselves to one side or the other, which would create an opening and cost us our union of forces.

Fabris spends a little bit of ink describing that he didn't go into how to use this technique on first, second, or fourth guards, or generally go into approaching withdrawn guards, because he feels that if you master these techniques, you'll understand how to properly apply them to these other circumstances. Once again, he's trying to describe theory and demonstrate the application of it in some ways and leaves it to the reader's understanding to work out how to apply them in a more general sense.

As an aside, it occurred to me while I was standing in my hallway working through the steps from rule six that there's another reason to set up in fourth even if we're opposing on the outside. If we are in fourth, and if our opponent attempts to cavazione as we approach, we can move ourselves into third and more readily interrupt our opponent's cavazione while keeping them to the outside. From our perspective, our opponent's sword would be moving clockwise while we move our hand counterclockwise into them, and keep them safely to our outside, which is what our body is set up to deal with in that case. If we were in second we would need to contracavazione, which we lack the time to do, or turn our hand into fourth but be unable to cover ourselves with our hand before we would be struck. I'm going to have to play around with this in other situations and see how it bears itself out.

That's it! That's all of the sword alone for book two! We'll be going into the sword and dagger portion of book two soon enough, but maybe I'll do another Marozzo and Fiore dagger defense comparison first. Who knows! It'll be a surprise.

Book Two, Rule Six!

 We're doing it! We're going to wrap up the first part of book two. (Then maybe we'll look at something else before we dive into the second part - proceeding with resolution with the rapier and dagger.) Let's get to it.

Fabris opens by stating that all the techniques we've seen so far can work, but the more sophisticated the technique is, the more likely it is to succeed. Naturally, the technique that he's about to show us is the most sophisticated one of them all.

We start off just as usual, approaching with natural steps. As we reach misura larga, we should bring our sword with our sword point against their debole but in a way so that we're in a stronger position. So far, this is all pretty much what we've come to expect from the outset. 

As we proceed forward from misura larga we will be stepping forward while we retract our arm, leaving our sword essentially stationary in space. Fabris wants us to be taking very small steps while we do this, so as to ensure that we'll always be able to deal with whatever movement our opponent might make. To allow ourselves to move as far forward as you can without moving our sword, our hand will end up coming very close to our body. To allow ourselves to move even further forward, we also end up effectively creating a void with our right side and allow our left side to pass forward. Ideally we won't wound our opponent until we have passed the point of their sword, and we shouldn't wound them by moving our arm. Instead, we'll keep our arm in its withdrawn position and carry it through our opponent with our body. (When we get to the plates, we'll see that we can still use the turning of our body back to our right shoulder forward, as well as a slightly longer step at the end to really drive our sword forward instead of relying on our arm.)

Fabris gives us one specific instance in this portion of the text, noting that if we are on the inside line and our opponent brings their sword high we should do the same but only just enough to maintain our crossing. If they move to pass underneath our sword, we can find them in third and we should keep the left side of our body forward. (Again, we'll see a variation of this in the plates which will make it more clear.) He goes on to note that we do this to keep our body safe if they perform a cavazione from our finding them in third (because our body is already past their point) and because it increases our sword's strength and ability to create an angle if we desire.

Fabris summarizes this rule by saying, "In this rule, you should follow this motto: keep your sword where you had it when you first found the opponent’s blade - keep it there until you wound. And do not wound unless your body has passed the opponent’s point, or wound just in the instant you pass it." He goes on to emphasize that if our opponent makes some movement in the tempo while we move forward, if our body can't pass their point we're better off not trying to wound them but to pick them up on the other side and then continue forward more safely.

Interestingly, Fabris also goes into some details about how this will or won't function with the sword and dagger. (Why? I have no idea.) He says that if our opponent's sword is properly joined to their dagger, we really can't find their sword without putting ours right into their dagger. We should refer back to the technique which has us place our sword by our opponent's hilt while keeping it free, and do that. As we perform the rest of rule six, our dagger will necessarily move itself so far forward that it will keep us safe just by being there.

Finally, I wanted to leave you all with this quote, because it's just so perfect: 

"Some individuals, more out of arrogance than out of knowledge, state that there are certain unstoppable attacks to which there is no possible counter. To them, I reply out of experience that every blow has its counter, and that no blow exists that admits no counter. To put it another way, any attack is unstoppable if it is performed in its correct tempo and measure; just as it is true that an attack that is borne out of thewrong tempo and measure not only has a counter, but is also easily parried.

So, under these premises, it is both true that any attack has its defense and that all attacks are unstoppable. Whoever believes otherwise greatly deceives himself, as do those who think that the same technique can be invariably used against any kind of opponent. Personally, I think that a good fencer can indeed face any opponent, but that he should operate differently depending on the opportunity presented to him."

Good, yeah?

So this rule, despite being the most sophisticated, is pretty short. Our next entry will be about the plates, of which there are six, being two sequences of beginning, middle, and end on the inside and outside. And then we'll be done with the first part of Book Two!

Book Two, Rule Five, the Plates

Okay, we've looked at the initial text for Rule Five, so let's get into the plates. There are nine of them, and of that number there are three pairs of beginning and ending plates. The remaining three are a beginning with two potential endings. Now that we know what to expect, let's get to it!

Here we begin with our fencer standing on the right. We're in fourth on the outside, and our point is aimed at the hilt of our opponent. Since our sword is slightly below our opponent's, if they try to pick us up in second, it will only take a small cavazione to remain free. As a bonus, it will be pretty simple to perform the cavazione such that we end up with our sword crossing over the top of our opponent's, leaving us in a very strong position. Fabris' words are that "the opponent may believe he can find the debole, but he will find the forte instead," due to the fact that as we perform our cavazione we are constantly advancing, bringing our forte into play earlier than expected. If our opponent does not move, we can simply continue to our ideal measure and wound them as-is.

If our opponent takes the opening they see above our sword, we see the outcome of this in the next plate here. (Yes, the perspective has flipped and our fencer is now on the left.) You can see the slightly dropped hilt of the opponent, as they are trying to keep their own line covered as they attack. We perform a tight cavazione and wound them in fourth, as our forte will be pushing against their blade in the tempo of their attack. Note the passing step being used here; all of the forward movement in Book Two are "natural steps," or one foot in front of the other, until there's a possible lunge to drive the point home. Should our opponent be pressing an attack without moving forward, all we need to do is lift our point above their blade and continue forward. Our forte will make contact with their sword, and we continue in to wound them. If they try to retreat so as to gain time and space to parry, we can go back to an old favorite to avoid the parry and wound them in second underneath their blade.

The next sequence has us standing in fourth on the inside of our opponent's blade. Note how squared off we are - Fabris says that our chest is "wholly exposed" which sure isn't an understatement. He does clarify that the purpose of that is to invite our opponent to attack on that inside line or at least move to find our blade as a precursor to an attack at this giant opening. If on the other hand our opponent doesn't move, Fabris notes that we should just move in with our forte on their debole and strike them. Okay, straightforward enough.

The followup plate has a few interesting layers to it. The accompanying text is really straightforward. As we approach in fourth on the inside, our opponent turns their blade into fourth to cover himself, find our sword, and strike us. The solution that Fabris gives us is to perform a small cavazione after running our sword along theirs, and using the angle that being in fourth gives us to allow us to strike them in turn.

What I find interesting here is that while Fabris notes that this works because we are "in motion," our cavazione happens because our sword is "stationary." The distinction between us as the fencer moving relative to our opponent while our sword as our sword is stationary relative to ourselves is, well, neat. Certainly it makes sense when it's all laid out like that, but I think that most of the time, we don't separate the weapon from ourselves in terms of what's moving and what's still. Doing that lets us describe how we are constantly closing measure but noting that we're keeping the weapon relatively stationary can open up a number of options that we can look at.

In addition, Fabris doesn't call it out, but I think that there's some off-line movement happening with the passing step in plate 145. We're pushing our opponent's blade out somewhat, but I think clearing a little bit farther off in that direction would probably help with getting past the point of their sword. Now that I'm writing those words out here though, I'm second-guessing that. Maybe we can just pick up our opponent as they're rolling into fourth and the point of their sword is still outside of our presence, before they angulate it back into our chest? I think that's possible. Both reads strike me as plausible anyway, and I think working it through slowly would help me settle on one side or the other.

Moving on to the next set! As expected, we begin in fourth. Our opponent is in second and we're in the outside, pointing at his hilt. (We're on the right side in all three plates in this sequence, for a change.) As in the previous exchange, we're leaving out chest fairly wide open as an invitation. Of note is the fact that our chest isn't squared off towards our opponent as part of this invitation, unlike the previous play where we were showing a mostly flat chest as part of the invitation. Playing around with the stances on my own, it seems that this is mostly because of how the orientation of the shoulders impacts the arm and wrist in terms of where we can point our sword. If we want to point our blade towards the inside, then squaring off is fine; it doesn't inhibit our arm angling itself in that direction. On the other hand, if we're in fourth but trying to point to the outside, squaring off means that we're really going to notice our shoulder being impinged and relatively immobile. Additionally, to get the angle for the sword to point outside, we'd need to angulate our wrist to a point that's pretty uncomfortable and also remove any good arm structure we'd otherwise have. It's like our shoulder position makes a big difference with Fabris! (This is not a surprise.)

The first outcome from this beginning is what happens if our opponent does nothing at all when we enter measure; in this case, we bring our point over our opponent's hilt while staying in fourth. Fabris reminds us of this guard's "natural strength" to the outside which will keep us safe. (Remember, the blade is stronger in the direction toward which it points, and our fourth will naturally want to point to the outside.) We'll continue in with a passing step to keep a steady forward movement, but we can extend it a bit because it's the final movement we need. We need to make sure that our right shoulder and hip are turned forward as we extend into the strike, otherwise the broken body structure could let our opponent push through and probably lead to a double-hit. As a final note, Fabris points out that if our opponent performs a cavazione to the inside to wound us from seconda the same thing happens in that our fourth can protect us just as well, which we're about to see!

So even though Fabris previously said it would all work out the same, he's going into a little more detail with the "but what if they cavazione and try to hit me with an angled second" scenario. 

Here our fencer continues forward as normal, and our sword point has already moved from our opponent's hilt to their body. Just like the illustration would indicate, our arm doesn't extend so much as reach across our body, and we can see how our torso is helping get that breadth as well. The other important point which we can see in the illustration (and is made clear in the text) is that we're catching our opponent mid-cavazione, not after they complete it. This is made possible by the facts that we are closing constantly (forcing their cavazione to grow in size) and that our guard isn't changing, so there's less movement and time needed to just pick up their blade with our forte and hilt.

Fabris points out that we can get this same end result if we're approaching to the outside and our opponent tries to wound us over our sword. We can cavazione to the inside and cause them to try and point their sword down to parry us, and we end up pushing through it. That could work, but I think that one of the previous sequences could work just as well. I'd want to play around with it though.

Finally, we have an example of what we should do if our opponent presents us with a very low guard, refusing typical blade engagement. (This has also come up in the first, second, and fourth rule as well, which says to me that this would have been a pretty common concern. Certainly this situation comes up in the SCA regularly, when people just try super hard to avoid any semblance of blade contact.)

Fabris has us point at our opponent's hilt as we have been doing, with our sword in third and directly over theirs. This means that they will need to do something other than just bringing their blade straight up and into us, and the movement to one side or the other will give us the tempo we need to do something about it. If they don't do anything, we just move straight in, stay in third, keep our hilt close to their sword and pass our blade through them. (Specifically through their throat near their right shoulder.) Straightforward enough, as we can see in the final plate.

The aforementioned final plate has some serious similarity to "their sword is held low" plates from
earlier rules. (Seen in rule one, rule two, and rule four.) It's nice to see consistency inside a martial system, but also, I think it says a lot about best practices for dealing with certain problems. Don't reach with the tip of your sword. Get your hilt to their blade. Keep your sword between your body and their sword. Push them farther out of presence as you close. All of the things we've consistently seen applied whenever possible.

Fabris tells us that we'll end up using second in this situation, if our opponent tries anything. When they raise their tip, we'll either yield around them if they go to the inside or wound them underneath their arm if they go to the outside. These reactions only work if we continue to move forward. If we don't, we'll almost certainly take their sword through the chest, throat, or face. 

That's it! That's all of rule four, so I'm going to take a minute and poke at the one huge textual thing which caused me to blink a lot and be very confused before I just shrugged and rolled with it: the fact that in the introduction to this rule, Fabris said that our sword point should be pointing slightly downward. Which kind of is exactly not what was illustrated here except for maybe when our opponent is in the extremely low guard.

I kind of want to poke at the original Italian text for this but honestly, I don't have any fluency at all. I'd be relying mostly on Google Translate which loses me any possible chance of idiomatic usage or anything else. I could maybe stretch and say that the sword is pointing down from the point so maybe it's just a translation weirdness, but the language around why we point downward doesn't seem to support that. Maybe that we keep the sword pointed down as we begin enter measure but move to pointing at our opponent's hilt as we go? I could honestly see that (as I'm staring off into space trying to visualize it) but I'd want to try seeing how these play out with a partner before I really solidly conclude anything.

That concludes rule five for the single sword! I'd like to try to get another ramble about Fiore vs Marozzo Knife Fun but I might just get taken by the urge to push into rule six and wrap up all the single sword material in book two, so I promise nothing.