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Beating people with metal sticks: The [sword combat/fencing] thread.
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I'm planning on writing a longer historical-ish post later so I will not go in depth right now
But your history here is both wrong on a basic level, and also so over-simplified as to be useless for describing the past.
For one thing, the rapier went out of fashion long before swords stopped being used on the battlefield or for personal protection, while both cutting and stabbing weapons continued on in use up until the dawn of the 20th century.
It's also extremely silly to say that "they" (who's that?) realized how great stabbing weapons were. The Roman Gladius (which actually describes a whole variety of similar Roman swords over many centuries) was being used as a primarily stabbing weapon more than a millennia before the rapier was invented. Even before that a wide variety of other stabbing swords were commonplace, to say nothing of the ultimate stabbers, spears.
One of the biggest problems with Talking About Swords on the Internet is the tendency towards huge sweeping generalizations to make conclusions that are simply not supportable by real, messy, contradictory history. The evolution of swords works the same way as real evolution - they adapt along with the circumstances, it's not just some sort of constant refining process from "bad swords" to "the best sword". As in the case of the katana, oftentimes those circumstances were economic as much as anything else - what materials were available, who was buying the thing, whether they could afford to replace it or whether they just wanted it to be a pretty heirloom. Examining more than just the immediately obvious application of the weapon is something we have to do with all historical artifacts, whether it's a sword or a spoon.
This is factually untrue, for example! Depending on where, when, and who you are looking at in Europe people were not allowed to carry swords on their person while being about town. There were laws against doing so. The Renaissance is probably the height of civilians walking around with swords in Europe, but there were times and areas where swords were restricted to certain classes, like knights, in Europe. So really not all that different from Japan, depending on what period of Japan and what period of Europe you are looking at.
Here is a video if you want to brush up your knowledge some on this topic, focused on England:
Paulus Hector Mair wrote and both the short and the long staff, for example. Also, pole weapons vs swords were almost certainly taught for those who would be fighting on the battlefield as such a situation was almost certain to arise from time to time when someone lost a pole weapon of their own and had to resort to their sword.
You can see an example of sword vs spear in the background of this picture, fore example: http://wiktenauer.com/images/1/11/Meyer_1570_Portrait_4.jpg
History is not so simple and streamlined. The rapier did not become prevalent everywhere and certain writers of the time, such as George Silver, absolutely detested the weapon and considered cut and thrust weapons like the backsword to be far better weapons than the quite frankly extremely focused almost to a fault design of the rapier. Cuts always remained a part of the Spanish school as well, to my knowledge. Likewise the popularity of the rapier tapered off with the sabre becoming the military weapon of choice for many countries and the small sword becoming the side arm for elites. There was not some singular, constant, shift from inferior cutting swords to superior thrusting swords like you make it sound.
This reminds me of something that I find to be really fun and interesting, and that is kabukimono.
What are kabukimono you ask? They were masterless samurai that lived as street toughs and dressed flamboyantly, and existed primarily between end of the Muromachi period and the beginning of the Edo period.
"Kabukimono would often dress in flamboyant clothing, combining colors such as yellow and blue, and often accessorized by wearing short kimonos with lead weights in the hem, velvet lapels, wide obi (sash), elements of European clothing or even kimono meant for women as cloaks.[1] Kabukimono also often had uncommon hairstyles and facial hair, either styled up in various fashions, or left to grow long. Their katana would often have fancy hilts, large or square tsuba, red scabbards and were usually longer than normal length."
In this case the sword is just a matter of fashion more than anything else, mostly a piece of their wardrobe, made long to look fancy and impressive.
They got up to all sorts of mischief and violent trouble, not paying bills and stealing and starting fights, but eventually faded away as the shogunate cracked down on things and tightened up its grip.
But man did they have style while they lasted:
And then just went FUCK IT WE'RE ADDING TWO MORE FEET
No, I wouldn't take a sword at all, because I'm not a swordsman.
I've been practicing HEMA on and off since 2008, although I'm somewhat unhappy with how education and other stuff occasionally hampered it. Started with Fiore, and transitioned to German longsword later on. I've also done a bit of Bolognese spada da lato, which is something like a hybrid between rapier and an arming sword. I primarily picked HEMA up due to prior background in martial arts and a bad tendency to skip from one martial art to another due to boredom. So I figured I'd try something different, and it was basically a choice between kendo and HEMA at the time.
It's pretty funny how often people hearing about it automatically assume I'm a LARPer or something. We don't have costumes, nor have I ever participated in a LARP. It's also really common to think that people practicing HEMA are just making it up as they go, despite the metric piss-ton of manuals used as the basis for all the technique being practiced.
I'd also recommend adding Wiktenauer to the OP, by the way.
Egyptian Khopesh swords which allow for both a curved slicing edge and stabbing (possibly also hooking a shield to disarm) date to the same period
as a side note, a few caveats about this stuff: bronze age history is a very recent science. It changes rapidly. There are books I've read from even the 1980s or early 90s which are now quite out of date. In particular, from books prior to the 2000s you'll find claims that the Minoans were quite peaceful, that their rapiers are not practical, that khopesh's were not actually used in battle by the Egyptians etc...
Now it is true that any bronze weapon was not going to be in the hands of a conscript or common foot soldier. They were expensive. And ones placed in graves (which are the best preserved) were often made just to be grave goods so do not show signs of wear or have dull edges. But the same style of weapons were also used by elites in battle.
in the eastern Mediterranean down to the end of the bronze age the primary weapon was the bow (for elites the compound bow + chariot). Along with that a hand axe (could be bronze or even stone head), dagger and javelin. The primary armor was shields (many varieties of these) and helmets. Elites might have armor made of leather or bronze scales sewn onto cloth backing.
edit: keep in mind the bronze age is long before heavy infantry tactics like the phalanx.
In particular, he hated how the Italian style of rapier and parrying dagger fencing was overtaking the British style of backsword and buckler fencing during the mid to late 1500s, as evidenced by his intense rivalry with Italian fencing master Vincentio Saviolo (who had set up shop in London). You really need to read anything he wrote through that political lens.
Here's a good explanation of the situation by another fencer:
http://afencersramblings.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/george-silver-somewhat-of-explanation.html
In addition, George Silver is no Nostradamus, particularly not for military weapons. The beginning of 1600s was the era of the musket and pike for infantry, and by 1700, most national infantries were solely musketeers with long bayonets, to act as their own pike.
You definitely did not see any militaries arm their infantry with sword and buckler as a counter, even if Silver's treatises praises such a combination when attacking pike.
Hell, don't get me wrong, I love backswords; I'll take an 1845 or 1895 British infantry sabre over an Italian rapier any day, but Silver's treatise was really railing against popularity of the foreign rapier as the civilian side arm of the day.
Read it for yourself if you don't believe me.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html
Here's Vincentio Saviolo's treatise on rapier fencing, which had come out a few years earlier. This is the popular treatise that George Silver tries to debunk.
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~hudson/saviolo/firstbook.html
But mostly to illustrate that cut and thrust swords existed alongside purely thrusting swords. One did not supersede and replace the other.
Yeah, you can, but it's a hell of a lot riskier to attempt it in Epee whereas being a rule abusing jackass is basically the order of the day in Foil.
Yeah, different schools of rapier fighting had wildly different opinions on cutting. Some were all for hacking into someone if the opportunity presented itself while others used them only sparingly. If I remember right, Agrippa was all for using the edge because fuck it, it's there, might as well get some mileage out of it.
These sorta jackasses exist in every sort of combat art. Some do it out of sheer ignorance, some do it due to malicious goosery because they're trying to force others to play to the rules of the goose. I've heard from an SCA person about some schmuck trying to say lunges never existed just because he kept getting bopped in the ring. It's just the sorta sad crap everyone else needs to be ready to stomp out whenever it shows up within their respective groups.
If I had a time machine I'd put one of these guys in the same room as a Landschneckt and have them do a dance off to see who's the most fabulous.
Awesome, added! It's kinda sad that there's so little awareness and even some derision for western martial arts. I always end up having to point out that I don't do the costume stuff and don't really care about anything except the application of a blunt metal object to someone else's body.
It's kind of a natural problem with historical martial arts reconstruction in general, in that many of the people who get really good at DOING it are not actually approaching it from a historical background, but from the angle of a competitive sport. Not to make the argument that one approach is inherently better than the other (there's certainly no shortage of historians over time who've blindly repeated wild claims of martial prowess), but when the two fields start crossing over things can start getting really messy.
Dressing in Steel - Part 1
In the first part of this January 21, 2012 program, Armor Jeffrey D. Wasson gives a live armor-making demonstration at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wasson demonstrates the variety of tools and techniques used to craft European armor
Dressing in Steel - Part 2
In the second part of this January 21, 2012 program, Armor Jeffrey D. Wasson demonstrates how people dressed in armor. While the process requires an assistant, the armor's careful design allows for a wide variety of movement, even when fully dressed.
The Art of Arms and Armor: Challenges of Research, Display, and Education
Dirk H. Breiding, Assistant Curator, discusses challenges faced by the Arms and Armor Department, including widespread misconceptions and the difficulties of displaying weapons and armor that were rarely intended to be viewed in a museum.
How to Mount a Horse in Armor and Other Chivalric Problems
Museum curators and conservators explore a fascinating topic—Misconceptions. Talks highlight the permanent collection and address misunderstandings commonly held by the public and, occasionally, even by specialists in the field.
With very few exceptions, as far back as there are records it is logistics, discipline, organization/strategy and tactics that win wars (eg: the campaigns of Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE)
The two exceptions that come to mind are quite extraordinary events. First the initial successes of Francisco Pizarro against the Inca. Though even that was enormously helped along by the early death of the previous ruler to European disease leading to a massive civil war just before he arrived. And only during that initial conflict was it a matter of their weaponry. After that disease did it's work and the empire would have disintegrated even if the Spaniards had just gone home.
Secondly, and this is much more speculative, the spread of the Hurrian and Indo-European speaking peoples in the 18th century BCE (and that date is very soft) made possible by the innovation of the war chariot. Although really one could argue that again this was a case of innovation in tactics not weaponry. There is a little evidence that chariots had been known to the Hittites about 200 years prior as a means of transportation. What made them into the superweapon of the mid bronze age was the idea of how to organize many chariots for war.
IIRC there's a real good NOVA special about re-examining archaeological evidence left behind by some of Pizarro's battles, where they argue that the actual bones left behind were overwhelmingly killed by native weapons, and the Europeans weaponry advantage was probably not even a factor.
Or maybe I'm thinking of a different battle, I'm friggin' terrible at remembering meso-american stuff
But, but... the French had no defense against the might of the English longbow!
hehehe
really the first half of the hundred years war is a classic case of tactics winning battles (though the English kind of accidentally stumbled into some of their tactical advantages and their opponents had dreadful problems with command) and lack of logistics pissing it all away.
Yeah, a lot of the times the real thing a weapon allows for in terms of changing the battlefield is a new dynamic in terms of logistics, discipline, tactics, etc.
For example, its not that shot and pike changed warfare for a time because of the handling characteristics or because the pike was really good at thrusting something, it's that it allowed massive groups of infantry to be strong defensive force on the battlefield that could withstand cavalry. It changed the way you could build an army. And then the vast majority of changes for a long while to war with the Dutch reforms and the like were just a matter of improving the logistics and organization of such formations (taking notes specifically from the roman manipular formations) to make the fighting force more effective.
Logistics isn't sexy like sword fighting, but it wins wars.
Yeah, when you take a 100% historical way of fighting and put it against someone who's looking at it from a competitive anything goes perspective, things start getting really weird. Like with SCA rapier fencing they don't put any minimum on blade length which means that you end up with really fucked up situations where someone with a 40" blade trying to fight based on, oh say, 16th century techniques is squaring off against someone who's basically using a smallsword and just fighting to win with no set style. Unless everyone agrees to stick to a set of rules and styles designed to mimic the historical period being represented with the weaponry you end up with standard gamer min/max crap that can make things not fun for the people trying to approach the combat as a historical martial art. Neither approach is wrong and it can be fun occasionally mixing the two, but it can get really frustrating, especially for the historical crowd.
I think that probably would have been Cortez vs. the Aztecs. After the Aztecs caught on to the fact that Cortez was just a heavily armed con-man they attacked him and his men. Cortez and some of the Spaniards managed to escape and spent the next couple years building up a coalition army of all the native people in the area who were not happy with Aztec rule and raiding. The force that attacked Tenochtitlan was almost entirely made of these non-Aztec native peoples.
Yeah I think that's what I was thinkin' of
Problems really only arise when someone from one group tries to assert expertise on another. A HEMA practitioner is not going to be an expert on SCA rules, a SCA practitioner's experience won't necessarily help at all in HEMA (and might even hurt if unlearning something becomes necessary), a sport fencer's technical expertise does not translate to HEMA (in its entirety, some things do translate partially), nor does a HEMA fencer's knowledge of the original techniques help at sport fencing(what with a vast amount of them being illegal to use, weapon differences etc.).
From what I've followed discussion on the subject, there's quite a bit of butthurt on all sides. One contentious issue has been the USFCA HEMA certification program. That one ruffled a lot of feathers.
On a lighter note, this is a pretty neat video of the 2012 Olympic Epee final:
It's fun watching the guy on the left figure out (albeit too late) what he needed to do to start running the match back.
Top-level epee fencing is always awesome to watch. I don't care if people say it's slow and less exciting than saber.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
It sorta comes across as the beginnings of a HEMA version of McDojo. No reputable instructor I know of claims the title of 'master' due to the still-in-progress HEMA research, and out of respect for the masters(i.e. authors of the manuals).
On a completely unrelated tangent, I've always found the Khopesh one of the most aesthetically pleasing sword types.
Yeah, Epee isn't bogged down by the rules so you don't get crap like video reviews, right of way arguments, and excessive whining. What you see is what you get and epee fighters know that success or failure is entirely up to them.
Compare the prior match to this one:
There's really no contest as to which one ends up being more fun to watch. Saber may be a bit more explosive but it's got a lot of double hits that come down to referee decision and the losing saber fencer just starts getting whiny (which is unfortunately far too common). The losing epee fencer hardens the fuck up and figures out what's going on because no amount of bitching is going to solve anything in epee.
Ah, see, I think you and I are probably coming at HEMA from different places. I absolutely do not want to see HEMA become a sport, legitimate or otherwise. The sportification (pretty sure I just made that word up) of combat pretty much always comes at the cost of historical accuracy and rigor, and it is the historic aspects that interest me far more than the sport/competitive aspects of it.
If I wanted a sport (and there is NOTHING wrong with wanting a sport, I want to be clear here) I would go take up fencing or kendo or something similar. But I don't want a sport, and thus my growing interest in HEMA.
Gimme some good HEMA vids instead.
They shouldn't be trying to certify "masters" because that way lies madness (especially when different historical texts can both teach rapier but in wiiiildly different ways with very different terminology. There's no way to account for the huge variety), but a general certification revolving mostly around safety is good stuff. The SCA basically has the same thing and it makes life a lot easier. You get rated for fighting (which just means you're a safe fighter), rated as a marshall (which just means you can run safe matches), and so on. When you can just show up to a place and say , yeah, I'm a rated marshall, well bam. That place now knows you're not just some potential hack who could cause problems and get people hurt because you've got a card or paper or whatever that says yeah, I can do run this safely, don't worry. That sort of "legitimacy" is never a bad thing.
I fight epee in fencing precisely because I fucking hate tons of arbitrary rules. SCA rapier is equally fun because the fairly minimal rules are there just to keep anyone from getting severely hurt/killed. They just dictate what sort of gear you should wear for safety purposes, acceptable minimum blade flex, stuff like that. They don't have anything saying "no, you can't learn to fight this way or that." So yeah, that's basically all I was driving at. If HEMA has something like this already in place then I really don't see the point to the extraneous certification processes that USFCA tried to impose. Anyone teaching incorrect stuff is going to get name and shamed really fast in the community and the historical manuals are widely available meaning anything taught can get double checked by the students.
No doubt some sort of widely recognized certification of safe pedagogical practices would be great. The issue people took with this approach probably had more to do with the incredible hubris and lack of respect in designating 'masters', when the last master died centuries ago. Doing that out of ignorance is no better, as it just highlights how sorely lacking they are in familiarity with the precise thing they're supposed to be certifying people for.
Aaaanyyywayyy... Some gatherings/tournaments of various sizes are being organized, such as HEMAC-Dijon , Swordfish in Göteborg, Copenhagen Open Longsword, Championat di Suisse and EHMS Summer Camp(which I'll be attending next week).
I've got Agrippa, Thibault, and Giganti's texts too that I want to experiment with before I settle on one to fully learn so I should be pretty well amused for a while.
Learn them all then take the best of each and develop your own style.
You don't need to write a manuscript or anything.
I do have my own style already and it definitely gets the job done even if it is a bit thuggish. As I read and learn I am absorbing some techniques into how I fight as I go along. I just want to learn a specific historical style partly for fun so I'm checking them all out. I also plan on moving down south at some point which will let me fight with a proper HEMA group at some point and having prior experience with dedication to an actual style would make the transition easier.
Speaking of which, I was reading Agrippa's work on the flight to Anchorage today and have a bit of a question. In the process of describing his attacks he frequently rattles off in the same description what reads like both his four guards and what seem to be the four quadrants to strike on the opponent. Is that accurate or am I misreading this?
Apparently there is an SCA group. Looks a little....renfair. But I might check it out. Apparently there was a HEMA group until recently too.
Personally, much more rewarding to approach arms and armaments as historical and social constructs. Katanas were the best swords ever in the social context that spawned them. Rapiers were preeminent in the social context they existed in.