Interesting to see HEMA become increasingly popular.
I've done European medieval combat re-enactment for a few years, so I'd like to expand on that one fighter's comment on the "thee" and "thou" thing.
Generally, in the re-enactment community, there are three different focusses: one is authenticity, trying to replicate historical costumes, equipment and trades; another is entertainment of an audience that is rarely familiar with the subject matter; the third is combat, both as a martial art and as a form of group sports.
The theatricals that seem to be popular at American "ren faires" and the medieval markets in various parts of Europe are strictly an expression of that second focus. Most re-enactors I've met are either into the first or third one (or a mix thereof).
I see HEMA as a logical evolution of that third focus, though I personally find its emphasis on duelling and professional competitions (with all the restrictions that brings) less intriguing.
I guess my point is that you can have medieval combat without the "thee" and "thou" parts outside of HEMA as well. It's very different from HEMA and certainly attracts a different kind of people, but it's still an alternative even if you couldn't care less about the theatrics.
Semi-Related to this is Lars Andersen taking archery to the next level by using forgotten skills he learned by looking at old art and various texts. Worth a watch!
I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)
It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.
And, I assume a medieval fighter would take far smaller chances than these modern hobbyists knowing a counter blow could be (almost surely would be) fatal.
Also, these guys fight one on one. But in a war you would have to guard yourself from blows and cuts not just from one enemy but from a crowd of enemy soldiers, left and right.
The guy you were fighting might be using a sword or he might have another weapon. Maybe he was using a shield and you didn't. And if he had a sword, he might not have read the memo that it should be max 4 feet long.
And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow he might be fighting uphill or downhill, and just keeping ones balance when striking or blocking would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.
> I doubt it has close resemblance with medieval long sword fighting, though :-)
It does actually resemble it very much, but medieval longsword fighting was probably very different than what you think it was.
> It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.
Not really. The main difference is visibility. First, the modern HEMA equipment is a lot heavier than e.g. standard fencing gear. It's a lot thicker (like those dog attack suits) and often have steel or kevlar plates in the inside. Second, medieval gear wasn't all that heavy. I have a full suit of maille (as it's really called) and it weighs less than 15 kilos, helmet included. A full steel plate armour shouldn't weight more than 25 kilos. That's less than modern soldiers have to carry around on the battlefield.
The biggest difference is that a fencing mask gives you better visibility than a historical closed helmet.
> these guys fight one on one
That's what happened in medieval times too most often. The original medieval books were written mostly for one-on-one combat, either for dueling or trial-by-sword. That happened a lot more than being caught in a war on a battlefield. Swords have little use on a medieval battlefield anyway. You use different weapons and tactics.
> And fighting on some uneven, damp meadow [...] would be hard compared to fighting indoor on a floor.
My HEMA group trains for this as well, and I suspect many other groups too. It is also mentioned in the medieval books. I have trained in loose sand, in the surf on a beach, in deep snow, etc. It's true that competitions are usually held indoors on an even ground though.
I'm from upstate NY (US), and I agree wholeheartedly with everything mentioned here. This man speaks truth.
Our group focuses on medieval German Longsword, but we also take a dip into several other techniques, ranging through history from slings, to viking sword and axe, all the way through la canne and savate.
Like true vikings, we train in the snow (when the weather cooperates and gives us snowy fields). Nothing quite invigorates the blood like doing laps and duels in the frozen north!
I am surprised that nobody in this thread has mentioned the Dog Brothers from California. They do not fight with swords, but they practice live, full contact stick and staff fighting. In a cage. Without any armor.
Yes, I also thought that that can't possibly be a thing...
I came across a troupe of Longswording Englishmen in a fencing workshop in Scotland. They mainly practiced mowing down unarmed peasants with longswords, from what I could see. Perhaps you could expand on my limited insight?
He puts it a bit too general, but against full plate armour, swords are nearly useless. In the late Middle Ages, when plate armour became increasingly common, people started using weapons with better armour-piercing capabilities, like maces, warhammers and various polearms.
Swords are great against lightly armoured and unarmoured targets, like peasants, archers and civilians. Swords remained in use as a side arm and civilian weapon, and a popular duelling weapon, which may also be why so many medieval manuscripts are about one-on-one fights. Carrying a polearm with you everywhere you go is a lot more cumbersome than having a sword hanging on your belt.
But swords were absolutely used on the battlefield. Romans and vikings used them a lot. Knights had them of course, and even they became increasingly less useful against other knights, they often didn't really want to kill each other anyway. Pikemen generally had a short sword as backup weapon (the Katzbalger), and there's of course the massive two-handed swords used by Landsknechts to break up pike formations (supposedly; nobody knows for sure). But again knights in plate armour, you'd better get something that can knock holes in it. If you want to kill him, that it.
You might compare the sword to a pistol. You don't usually send a mass of soldiers into battle with just a pistol; you give them assault rifles (or polearms). But officers and civilians tend to carry a pistol, and maybe some soldiers have one for backup.
>He puts it a bit too general, but against full plate armor, swords are nearly useless.
A sword may not be an ideal weapon against an armored opponent, but half-swording with one is still very effective...
Also its important to note, the sword pedagogically-speaking is the root weapon of HEMA systems. So the fact these folks train with a sword as their primary weapon makes sense. Manuscripts support historical training following the same pattern. I teach you how to use a sword, then I teach you how to use a pole-axe...
This is a good point, I think people often overlook how knights and samurai on foot share the same battlefield weapon configuration: <primary weapon> + <longsword/Katana> + <dagger/Tantō>
>He puts it a bit too general, but against full plate armour, swords are nearly useless.
they are useless for penetration. The rest of effects are in place. The beauty and usability of sword comes from it being very convenient weapon to focus and amplify the power of your movement in much wider envelope of possible positions and movements - much better than any other type of weapon. Hammer/axe comes close but it trades in significant part of the envelope for penetrating abilities in other part of the envelope.
A spear or halberd were much more effective than swords.
Swords were partially ceremonial and partially "nobility" weapons. Walking around with a spear in town is tiring, because its big, heavy and awkward.
On the other hand, swords can be sheathed. They were expensive to manufacture, so they denoted wealth. And finally, they were effective weapons at the end of the day.
Pistol vs Machine Gun is the best way to compare a Swordman vs Spearman. It is said that you can train a Spearman in a week to beat even expert Swordsmen (with years of training) regularly.
Spears / Polearms were cheaper to manufacture, more effective in the battlefield, and easier to teach. Swords were more of a "city personal defense weapon", very similar to pistols today. I'm sure the HEMA players around here know how much that range advantage gives you.
A Halberd was perhaps the perfection of Medieval combat weaponry. A long spear-tip for stabbing, a strong blade for cutting, and a hook for pulling people off of horses. Halberds could definitely do a lot more than swordmen, at much cheaper costs.
I mean, what is a swordman supposed to do against a heavy-Calvary charge? Halberdiers also outrange Swordmen, and have stronger formations. The two-handed poleweapon can be swung with massive leverage that can break shields and cut through even plate with ease. While the stabbing point can be dug in to brace against calvery charges. It was an effective weapon at all stages of medieval combat.
The only swordmen on the medieval battlefield were the legendary "Double-paid" Zweihanders (The Doppelsöldner). But the massive swords these Doppelsoldners used were approximately the same size as a halberd.
But they were expensive, and the full-metal massive swords that they wielded were heavy, expensive, and required extensive training. (ie: more expensive) It was more effective in the long term to just train more Halberdiers, and the Zweihanders left the battlefield by the 1500s.
In any case, the "Longsword" is much shorter than these Zweihanders, and is at a considerable range disadvantage against spearmen. Mind you, King Author of legend killed Mordred with a Spear.
Swords were probably carried by Soldiers in case their primary weapon broke. They are excellent sidearms (like Pistols today), but I personally am much more comfortable with a pole-weapon (Spear, Pike or Halberd) than I am with a Sword. And I started with Foil Fencing mind you.
My understanding is that in battle, there were very few knights in full plate - it was very expensive, required training, ie. tended to be nobles. So while swords were effective against the peasants, knights were usually captured alive and ransomed.
Sure. The problem is that swords don't have much effect on an armoured opponent. There are three types of attacks you can do with a sword: slashing, stabbing and cutting. Against a gambeson (jacked made of 20+ layes of linen stitched together) stabbing works, slashing is hard and cutting mostly doesn't work. Now add a layer of maille over the gambeson. Cutting doesn't work at all anymore, slashing probably only bruises you or breaks some bones and stabbing only works with narrow and sharp-tipped swords. Replace the maille with steel plates and you're pretty much invulnerable to swords, except at the joints, eyeslits, etc).
So, sending out a group armed with swords on the battlefield isn't going to do much. You want warhammers with backspikes that can pierce steel plate and crush bone, halberds that can hit so hard it crushes anything underneath armour, long pikes to keep the enemy at a distance, bows to pierce maille. The best weapon on the battlefield is actually mass. Get a group large enough close together and trample your opponents.
That's how most battles were won. In viking and early medieval times you would use large shields and short spears, create a shield wall and run over your opponent. Later on heavy cavalry appeared who could easily run over them. Cavalry dominated until the English started using the longbow en masse to kill the mounts of the cavalry. Swiss pikemen started using 6+ meter long pikes in tight bock formations. These pikes were so long that cavalry could be stopped dead before they reached the pikemen in a charge. It's like a wooden cumple zone. That pretty much spelled the end of heavy cavalry. Then soldiers started using halberds to get in between the pikes and crush pike blocks.
Swords were often carried on the battlefield but usually as a backup weapon, not as the primary weapon. Their cross shape granted them a lot of symbolic meaning in those religious times, but there are much better weapons available if you want to win large battles.
I think the most important insight about medieval warfare is that it too was a constant arms-race, it was not some sort of static period with knights and swords that magically disappeared one day to be replaced with musketeers and riflemen. There are so many weird myths and ideas, and it's always nice to see people who know what they're talking about. :)
I've read a few accounts and seen a few programs about how the word bulletproof came about, which also illustrates this period of change. It was a title given to (plate?) armor to protect the wearers against bullets (I'm not sure to what effect). For that even to be a thing means that suits of armor and guns were on the same battlefield.
Early blackpowder was of poor quality, as were the handgonnes, and round balls are ballistically inefficient (and the actual projectiles were usually worse). So, probably pretty well, until you got too close.
P.S. The primary effect that I keep seeing mentioned is that they make a really loud noise and scare the crap out of everyone.
P.P.S As far as I can tell, the use of armor declines as the momentum of the projectiles (and number of firearms) goes up. Accuracy was the last attribute that was important on the battlefield. (Except for individual rate of fire.)
I'd imagine that facing a row of soldiers aiming things that go "boom" at you must have been an extremely effective way to break morale no matter how inaccurate the projectiles are.
Besides, all that hot lead had to go somewhere. Maybe you wouldn't be hit by the guy in front of you, but you'd still risk getting hit by the one behind him or the ones next to him. Arrows may have been more precise, but at least you could see where they were going.
I have no idea whether the term used at the time for sling ammunition was bullet, but even so, I can't imagine that being a selling point given the penetration power of human powered sling projectiles would have with regard to plate armor. Also, the sources I've seen were very clear to link it to the rise of guns on the battlefield.
Interesting. I didn't know there was that much controversy (albeit for earlier armor technology). I was assuming, so I guess I was luckily right through ignorance. ;)
The weakness of the phalanx is that you can be outflanked; it's really hard to turn a long pike to address an opponent not in front of you. I would imagine that having cavalry to protect your flanks would make it a lot more effective.
The swiss didn't ise a classic wide phalanx formation but a more densely packed square formation. Their pikes would stand out in all directions as a sort of hedgehog. Only the corners would be a weaker point. The flanks and rear would be well covered by pikes.
The pikes would generally stand only in one direction at once, and their drills had diagonal forms, so the corners would not be a weak point.
When people think pikemen, they think of very static formations, with little mobility. This is true of a lot of historical pike units, but the Swiss pikemen are the opposite of it. They drilled as small companies of ~100 men, and they were so successful because they made mobility as an unit into an art. A swiss pike block was drilled to change facing in seconds, and they liked to charge pikes levelled at near running speed. Many a condottiere got their last surprise when they were at the last stretch of their charge against an exposed flank or rear of a swiss block, and suddenly all the pikes rise, everyone turns, all the pikes come down again, and the swiss start charging the would-be attackers like madmen.
While I'm sure your knowledge is aggregated over many sources, are there any particularly excellent sources (books, documentaries, etc) on the history of military tactics?
Based on the description of effects I believe "cutting" would be a sliding motion meant to leave a long, shallow cut while "slashing" would be more of a chopping motion with the blade side.
Swords are sidearms, designed for self-defense, duels, and as last resort. They were very rarely used as main battlefield weapons between the fall of Rome and the widespread use of firearms. In general, people on foot in this period fought with some kind of polearms, from spears to dane axes to bardiches to pollaxes to pikes. Same goes for Japan, btw -- the fetishization of katanas happened after samurais stopped being soldiers and became bureaucrats. On the actual battlefield a samurai was most likely to hold a long spear or a bow.
And in Roman formations they were used in much the same way later and earlier combatants used spears: tightly locked ranks of shields, with the sword as a thrusting weapon.
I want to point out that the system that HEMA teaches (all though done usually by teaching longsword first) is a multi-weapon + unarmed system. A given technique that you can do with a longsword can also be done with a pole-axe. A pole-axe us better suited for armored combat (Harnischfechten) and a sword is better suited for unarmored combat (Blossfechten).
Although its worth pointing out, there are Harnischfechten techniques for longsword commonly referred to as half-swording (and you almost NEVER see these in movies). Btw, the unarmed component is called Ringen.
P.S. There are two similar schools for HEMA, the German and Italian school, my terms used above are the German terms. Most of the difference is either style, terminology or quite subtle.
There are also a lot of other non-HEMA historical european martial arts groups and less historical EuroMA. For instance you can find stick fighting most palces, Jogo Do Pau is Portuguese stick/staff fighting, Savate is French kickboxing usually with cane and maybe some sailor stuff, Zipota is similar, but from Basque Spain. Lots of herding cultures kept this stuff alive and whether it is MMA or something else they seem to be getting more attention.
just echoing what termain said. Going back to at least the Greek Phalanx and up to even quite a while after the introduction of gunpowder, massed warfare typically involved long weapons like spears or pikes.
A reasonably good depiction is the Phalanx shown in the movie "300". The history of warfare is generally about increasing the standoff distance between two militaries. The side with longer spears generally did better, then the side with the better archers.
Even after gunpowder was introduced, the reload time was so long that after getting a shot off, armies would switch to pikes.
The "wall of men in formation" you see in the Napoleonic wars and the American Revolutionary and Civil wars was sort of the last use of that kind of traditional formation and movement. The widespread use of heavy artillery put an end to it much like the airplane put an end to trench warfare.
Yeah, listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History[1] series, which is currently covering WWI, this is very apparent. Airplanes seem to have been used for reconnaissance more than anything. That makes sense when the artillery brought to bear was so concentrated is literally reduced forests to fields of churned up earth with splinters.
Still a sword, but not the same kind of sword most people think of:
For much of their history, the Roman Legions used a kind of short, broad-bladed sword called the gladius. There were various types across the centuries, but generally they were quite a bit shorter than the swords we see in the movies, sometimes as short as 18 inches from guard to point. This was not a great one-on-one weapon; all other things being equal, a warrior with a traditional long-bladed sword would usually beat a shorter one.
But the Legions didn't fight one-on-one. They fought shoulder-to-shoulder, leading with big rectangular shields, and thrusting around the side, top, or bottom with the gladius. Quite a few of their of their enemies came from traditions that emphasized personal glory and used big, long swords that needed room to swing. These men had to space themselves out further to avoid hitting their fellows, and so each one would find himself facing two Legionnaires shoulder-to-shoulder. A bigger sword doesn't help much against odds like that.
(I am not an expert and I have probably got some details wrong; feel free to correct me.)
I would say, rather, that the sword was used as a sidearm rather than a primary weapon. Most soldiers would have been armed with a spear, lance, or other polearm -- weapons with greater reach and ability to penetrate armor.
But many of those soldiers would also have carried a sword as a backup weapon and for use at closer range.
There is only a little bit of crossover. The focus of HEMA groups is to approach medieval sword fighting like a modern sport or martial arts (e.g, much like Karate, Judo or Kempo). That's why you see modern sports equiptment.
The focus of the SCA is more on reliving medieval times. They wear medieval clothing and armour for example, they hold medieval banquets, practice dancing, etc. As for fighting style, I don't think medieval swordsmanship skills will get you very far on an SCA battlefield. Maybe in one-on-one tournaments though.
That's interesting. I'm a fencer and it's interesting to see how quickly even sword fighting changed (and armor wearing in public and duels). Every time the swordsman in the video put the sword above his head all I could think was: free points! Just about any ranked fencer would have popped the guy in the chest and moved back before he could do a counter attack. Foil and sabre are pretty wussy (light) compared to their real world equivalents but an epee is quite close to a rapier or dueling sword.
Just about any ranked fencer would have popped the guy in the chest and moved back before he could do a counter attack.
This has long been my dissatisfaction with fencing. The type of strike you describe (a glancing touch at maximum extension of one's body, arm, and fingertips) is unlikely to disable any opponent wearing so much as a leather vest. Not to mention the fact that a sword and arm extended thus are highly likely to be mangled or removed by an overhead slash by a heavier sword from the position you describe.
Of course, this is a matter of taste. Since few of us will ever find ourselves fighting for keeps, we can play in whatever sword discipline we prefer.
Fencing models modern" dueling, typically a contest that ends with first blood. From that perspective it does apretty good job of staying close to its roots. That said, i prefer epee for just that reason.
That technique doesn't work well in HEMA combat. It's not hard to parry a thrust like that from a high, open guard and it leaves the attacker completely open to strikes on the hands, arms and head.
There's also a difference in scoring with regards to defense. In my HEMA group if opponent A strikes B, but B strikes back in the same motion (roughly 0.5 seconds, but basically the same "move") then it's a double-hit. Often counted as 0 points for either side but on some tournaments even counted as -1 for both sides.
In modern foil fencing, a riposte (B in your example) gets the point. Also, the only way to get a hit is by thrusts to the torso. No other body parts count, and no slashing or cutting.
It's very interesting that modern fencing is so "ritualistic" and far removed from actual sword combat. I wonder how that happened?
I think that other weapons and combat forms pushed the sword to be limited to duels and mainly duels of honor. Fencing came from training to duel. The foil is a learning weapon and even though the entire torso is a target, most attacks ideally aim for the heart. Epee you really see the dueling roots. In epee many points are scored off your hand or foot. Duels of honor were commonly fought to first blood rather than death. First blood was typically a wound to the hand or other body part close to the action.
An epee is close to a dueling sword, but still pretty far from a rapier. I imagine you know this, but a rapier is not the ultra fast moving sword most people think it is due to movies and the like. They are actually pretty heavy (1.7-2.2 lbs).
I was really surprised to see people wearing fencing masks to do this. These masks are not designed to stand up to the kind of blows that are shown on this video, if I were doing it I would be inclined to wear a keno mask instead.
A modern soldier is probably running in bursts and often firing from a crouched or prone position. I imagine someone fighting in armour with a swung weapon is going to feel the weight from the ongoing movement?
>It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.
I recently saw a full-armor longsword fight. It was fast as hell. I'm talking leather, chainmail, chest plates and metal helmets. I could barely follow the action.
It was pretty awesome and that one live match turned me from skeptic into fan.
Both SCA "heavy" fighting and HMB, as in the "Battle of Nations" are full-contact so tend to use armour similar to historical. Very different spins again on the whole topic, but worth looking into.
> It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.
Others have commented on the heft of modern equipment relative to medieval equivalents, but it bears mentioning that the plate armor of the period was exceptionally well made. Not just light weight, but form fitted for the wearer. It's been said that fighters in good plate could do cartwheels, due to the exceptional balance of the armor; it was like a second skin.
This video shows how people fought in full body plate armour using some 15-th century techniques, it's really surprising how flexible it is, you can even jump and do body rolls in it. It's definitely not as stiff as I always thought it was.
The short of it being that armor wasn't particularly heavy, especially when compared to the modern combat load, and that it affords quite a bit of mobility.
If this interests you, the entire lecture is worth your time.
I think it's very similar to kendo, the Japanese equivalent of fencing (sort of). Since kendo dates back to the 1800s or so, the sword is a bamboo stick, but like in HEMA points are awarded based on a couple of criteria: the strike has to be to one of the designated target zones, the strike has to be an intentional attack (that is, flailing wildly won't score you a point), and something called zanshin which is basically the same as what they call control in the video; does the attacker control the situation after a successful strike?
But just like here, it's more a sport than faithful recreation of sword fighting since a) you're not gonna die if an attack fails and b) this is not battlefield conditions.
> It must have been a lot slower fighting in leather, chainmail or plate armor than in this ultra light modern equipment.
One thing that nobody has mentioned so far is (I believe) people were much more fit in those days. Today we have a very sedentary lifestyle. Not so much in those days, people were much more active. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2614780/How-F...
What data? The average hunter-gatherer was fitter, better nourished and less diseased than the average peasant after the dawn of agriculture (and the population was overwhelmingly peasants) but there was always a warrior class and they ate well and trained hard.
Agriculture did have a noticeable impact. People who have a longer evolutionary history of grain monocultures are shorter on average than those whose ancestors adopted agriculture later but the difference isn't that big. Humans have only gotten about 5
cm shorter since the dawn of agriculture.
I'm aware of no evidence on speed or strength but the thing is that most people were not near the limits of human performance, ever.
It's almost certain that modern humanity is the fittest that it's been since the dawn of agriculture. Most hunter-gatherer skeletons are fit and strong because of low disease burden but mostly because in famine times they just died. Farmers OTOH survived, stunted, diseased and with deficiencies in vitamins, minerals and just not enough food.
But the warrior class always ate fine. Even as late as WW1, the average member of the House of Lords was a foot taller than the equivalent Member of Parliament.
Yes, it's true that the data I see is not an actual historical measurement of physical strength, and so quantification of strength is only inferred. Thanks for calling me out on that. But basically, it seems to me that society in general was more active back then, whether you were a hunter-gatherer or a farmer, and that this decreased as more and more modern amenities came about (and truly accelerated after the Industrial Revolution). Here's a great summary: http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/history.html
When you have an entire society living that lifestyle due to circumstances, not by choice, you'll also have a much larger sample pool from which to draw exceptional warriors. That is my argument. And the farther you go back, the larger the source pool will be, simply due to the circumstances of how the world lived.
It is interesting that the History of Fitness article guys claim that a society becoming lazy in general contributed to a loss in their overall fighting power. Can we prove it? OK, maybe we can't. But I'd posit that we can't say there is NO data out there to create better theories, as long as we acknowledge the possibility that we could be wrong.
I've seen a video of a big Polish swordfighting battle (you can probably find it on google), people in full armor and swords. What I could spot is that swords are completely ineffective against armor; swords glance off, are unable to penetrate armor, and just bend. I'd use a mace or club and beat people's head in. Which is probably why those weren't used in that one.
It's the disadvantage of recreating historical martial arts in a realistic way; if you actually did it completely realistic, you need to figure out what to do with all the bodies.
That can't be completely true - historical soldiers still needed to train. So, in theory, we can still recreate their training with historical accuracy. And I imagine their training still had the concept of winners and losers, even though both people walked away to train another day. I imagine their training would look a lot like the sport fighting in the linked video.
Yes, they trained, but their training wasn't realistic combat. They used blunt, often wooden swords, for example, or practiced stuff in slow motion. And we do the same, but it's not the same as actual combat, because in actual combat, people get hurt. You can get a perfect simulation of that without people getting hurt.
In Germany around the 16th century, people fought unarmored with blunted swords, and the winner was the first guy to cause a bleeding wound on his opponent's scalp.
We certainly could reproduce that today, but I don't think most people would want to. :)
Swiss pikemen and (briefly) spanish swordsmen aside, foot soldiers were either horse or archer fodder.
The implicit contract for military support between the King and the areas he ruled changed in the Dark Ages: instead of providing many men, you provided few mounted men (a requirement that led directly to the feudal system).
So many other people here are correct in pointing out that these sword skills weren't the most relevant thing to the conducting of all-out war.
Nonetheless, europe was pretty martial, and there were a lot of martial contexts besides massed combat.
The book illustration/art history blog BibliOdyssey has some great scans of a 16th century German longsword fighting manual called Der Fechtbuch that features some of the moves seen in this video. As well as some that really surprised me, like the opening illustration of two combatants fighting with reversed swords (hilt to hilt rather than blade to blade) which was apparently an actual technique used for bludgeoning.
I remember an old post on /r/askhistorians about medieval fighting, and this article was referenced. There was even a video of two re-enactors emulating the style. It was vastly different than everything I'd come to expect from films, but it makes more sense when you think about it. Armor could be extremely effective for taking a direct sword hit, so the strategy was to almost wrestle your opponent up close and wedge the blade in between the plates, using both hands as leverage to slice.
I'm not the type to be into this kind of thing but that slow-motion kill was sick! He/She caught their opponent wide open AND had the presence of mind to instantly defend.
That was legit.
That slow-motion was pretty awesome, I agree. You could tell that the fencer had practiced that to where retreating into a defensive guard was likely instinctice. :)
When you look at many of the plates from earlier fencing manuals, such as those of Fabris or Capo Ferro (Italian fencers from the 1600s), many of the prime guards and ways you strike are done so that you are parrying in measure -- your blade and hilt are in a position that prevents the opponent's sword from connecting with your body. Many similar ideas are present in other swordmasters' treatises.
Disclaimer: I'm a terrible fencer, but several of my friends are up to their eyeballs in historican fencing, so when I go home on holiday, I get an earfull of it. ;)
The documentary "Reclaiming the Blade" is about the semi-lost art of medieval and renaissance sword fighting, and is quite good. If this topic is even slightly interesting, you'll probably find the documentary entertaining.
Fascinating to see this matter being discussed on here.
By way of putting my cards on the table, I am a former curator from the Royal Armouries in England (most recently taking care of the RA collection at the Tower of London). I now live in Boston where I founded The School of Mars, teaching arming sword inspired from a variety of early manuals.
A lot of the myths seem to have been adequately busted in this thread, for which I am thankful. But just to recap.
- Actual swordplay, even in armour, was much faster than we tend to give it credit for. The weapons were properly designed (longswords usually no more than 3lbs. and balanced such that the blade's weight was compensated for by a heavy pommel), allowing them to fly in the hands of someone trained to use them. The armour, too, was custom made for each person, fitting them like a second skin, allowing for a wide range of movement and for the weight (usually 45-60lbs for a battle harness) to be spread throughout the whole body rather than being carried in one or two places. Some of our interpreters would demonstrate this by doing somersaults, cartwheels, and even yoga poses in their harness.
- Yes, battlefield combat is a very different game from tournament style 'one on one' combat. Some techniques are more suited to one than the other. However, many of the techniques in the manuals are usable in both situations, and it is more a matter of the mindset and application of the individual. I agree that most of the HEMA community trains for tournament style combat, because this is mainly the way in which techniques are demonstrated and used in competition. It would be very interesting indeed for training regimes to work out systems of teaching how to apply these techniques to a battle environment.
- Categorizing HEMA is going to depend largely on what your intentions are in studying it. If you want to attempt to accurately re-create the style of fighting from a particular master/manual, and restrict your research/practice to just the contents of said manual and any contextualising resources, then you are more in the realm of re-enactment. I am not yet convinced that the full realization of this is possible, given that we are dealing with texts of variable clarity and no living individuals from an unbroken lineage to verify our theories. That is not to say that there isn't a martial/competitive aspect to this particular type of re-enactment, but in this case one is dealing with a fundamentally 'dead' style, with a set end date and a finite number of techniques, unable to change after its period.
- To make it a martial art requires that we allow the style to be organic, to grow with modern practitioners and teachers as everyone discovers variations of the style that suits them (much like the masters did themselves). This is the idea that I am attempting to bring about with School of Mars. The manuals form the foundation of the teachings, but as new insights from modern practitioners, who may have been exposed to other styles etc., the techniques adapt, or have new techniques or applications added on. We today have the benefit of access to a rich martial heritage that spans the globe, which the early masters did not. To some the thought of mingling them could be seen as heresy, but in my opinion doing so is simply part of reviving the martial arts of Europe in a modern setting. I suspect that the early masters would have leapt upon the opportunity to gain inspiration from other martial styles had they the ability.
About the battlefield combat: I'm not sure HEMA can really explore battlefield combat at scale, at least not with very strict minimum requirements on armour.
HEMA tries to follow the authentic fighting styles very closely and therefore places a lot of emphasis on killing/disarming blows, including stabs to the head (at eye level) or throat and slashes at the hands. This works with sufficient protective gear under controlled conditions.
Battlefield scenarios as seen in re-enactment are far more chaotic. It works because the ruleset is the spectral opposite of HEMA: no stabs to the head, no blows to the hands. Basically medieval combat without the "fun parts".
I don't think it'd be possible to create that kind of environment with a HEMA ruleset without making a whole lot more dangerous and accident prone.
OTOH battlefield re-enactment can frequently get away with barely any armour at all (because the rules emphasize safe techniques) while plated gambesons and face guards seem to be the norm in most of HEMA.
This looks so great: I've been looking for a martial art to supplement my daily workout and give me some strength and agility - and some fun - this seems a lot more exciting than the Krav Maga classes I was looking at. Anyone know if there's a good place in the UK to do this?
Cool! I was watching "Big Giant Swords" on the Discovery channel (a fantastic show) and they touched on competitive sword fighting last week. After seeing this, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
Why the downvotes? This is swords and armours, not guns. Strength matters a lot. Since apparently you already live in fantasy land, why don't you try fighting "The Mountain"? Then tell me if size doesn't matter.
Strength matters. But not as much as other factors.
Size can actually be a disadvantage. If you're small, you can cover more of your body with a sword of the same size. If you're bigger, you open up more of your body when you attack.
You have to be strong enough to hold a sword and to move a sword. Despite the unintuitively low weight of a well-balanced sword, that's actually something that takes some training. Not just strength training -- you need to train the actual muscles involved. You're holding weights in unusual positions, not picking up and putting down (or pulling and pushing) heavy things.
But beyond a certain point, strength doesn't matter. Sword fighting is not about jedi-style sword clashes with sparks flying off to the side as you try to wrestle the opponent off balance. Sword fighting is more about evasion and putting your sword where it needs to be at the right moment to hit the other guy.
Actually, aside from the "binding" that is being discussed a lot in the other comments, one of the best techniques is not actually making contact with the other guy's sword at all. If you hit the other guy's sword, your sword is bound as well. If you instead avoid being hit by the other guy's sword as it comes in and sidestep into a counter at the same time, his momentum evaporates as you land your fully controlled hit.
If the other guy has a strength advantage and wants to use it to win by brute force -- just don't play his game. Side-step, evade, move your body out of the way and your sword into him as he attacks.
If it's good enough for Asian martial arts, it works in HEMA too.
Have you actually trained in any of the sword disciplines? If you do, you'll find that technique, speed, grace, and mental toughness are more important than size or strength. Ceteris paribus, of course, size and strength are advantages, but you'll find that ceteris are rarely paribus. Swords are tools, and human beings using tools are capable of surprising things.
I guarantee you, if you've played kendo at any decent dojo, you've had your ass kicked by an unassuming Japanese lady, or possibly her granddaughter. Even if you are like a Mountain, whatever that's supposed to mean.
I don't want to be a dick, but have you actually had a real sword fight? Have you pierced someone's armor and make him bleed? Of course you haven't.
The Mountain is a fictitious character from the popular TV series Game of Thrones. He uses a huge sword that you wouldn't be able to stop the same way you stop your fake swords brandished by girls. And I only dared to use him as an example because all of this is basically just that: a game, a fantasy.
If I had to pick a guardian, I would choose a newbie sword man from the middle ages over your instructor (who has never had a real fight) any day.
If you think Kendo is real, see what the guys from Iaido have to say about them: When they pick a real sword, they simply can't handle the weight, and the ones that can don't know how to actually cut stuff, because all they have learned is to win points in a game similar to tag.
Do me a favor and figure out what you're complaining about. Is it that the interviewed HEMA "girl" enjoys the fact that size is less important in her sport than in some other sports? Is it that her sport is not as "real" as your favorite HBO program? Are you instead complaining about getting downvoted for those obnoxious opinions? Maybe you don't like my opinions about sports I've played? Perhaps you'd like to put some words into my mouth? Oh, now I see, you're an iaido fan. After all the other stuff you've said, that's just cute.
> Is it that the interviewed HEMA "girl" enjoys the fact that size is less important in her sport than in some other sports?
With a very serious face she said exactly this: "It's a serious martial art". Then the narrator says she's already a champion (with just 3 years of training? while studying/working as an engineer? lol) that fights opponents twice her size. And then she goes on with her fantasy: "It's hard for me to fight small people because I'm SO used to fighting with people taller than me or larger than me" (yeah right, that totally makes sense, lol). And then (some context huh?) she says that size shouldn't matter. I have seen this sort of delusion in many activities, including but not limited to religion and "martial arts". And let me tell you, it's all fun and games until someone crashes against reality.
> Is it that her sport is not as "real" as your favorite HBO program?
I specifically said both are fantasy. But it's hilarious that you out of all the people try to mock me for this. By the way, I'm pretty sure the actor who plays the Mountain got more training than you. I would bet my life-savings to him in a fight where he used only armour (no sword) versus you or your "champion" with armour and a real sword. It will probably end like this:
That's not the Mountain by the way. Check him out: http://media.joe.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/gameofthrones... . But don't worry. What does it matter that his arm is the size of your torso? You are very fast and skilled. It's not like he wouldn't cut you in half with a single swing, right? Because size doesn't matter.
> Oh, now I see, you're an iaido fan.
No, you don't see ;), because I'm not a Iaido fan. In fact I've never even tried it.
> After all the other stuff you've said, that's just cute.
Is it. I think you are cute.
If it was seen just as a sport or a game, kind of like cosplay, I wouldn't mind. But the girl in the video truly believes she's a warrior and that can't end well.
> But the girl in the video truly believes she's a warrior and that can't end well.
Does she? For all one can tell she seems to believe she knows what she's doing when she's using a sword in HEMA. Does an experienced kendo, aikido, taekwondo, <insert established MA here> fighter think of himself as a "warrior"?
I'd sure hope not. In fact I'd hope nobody today really thinks of himself as a "warrior". A soldier maybe, but even then it seems a bit antiquated and out of place. And worrying, if they would carry that notion over into their civil life.
If you're trained to disarm actual attackers in actual violent conflicts in actual life-or-death scenarios (not staged fights where both fighters use a formal style and fight with any kind of ruleset), maybe it's somewhat understandable you'd think of yourself as a warrior. But that is no more applicable to her than it is to a participant in any other martial art.
You seem to project some kind of anachronistic grandeur onto the notion of being a real "warrior". It's a sport. Like the vast majority of martial arts today already are.
You're right, an HEMA "world champion" (or whatever) likely couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag in a realistic life-or-death situation. But that holds true for any martial art taught as a sport.
And unless your day job (or geographical circumstance) involves an extremely high chance of getting into those situations, there's no reason this should matter. And if you do have a high chance of getting in those situations, why the fuck would you care about what kinds of martial arts are performed as a sport?
Aside: in any HEMA fight I would rather bet my money on the one with the better reflexes and legwork. And although I've seen big guys with almost feline grace, generally big blokes tend to overvalue their size/strength advantage and underestimate the importance of speed and balance. And I'm not sure I'd ever bet any amount of money on a paid actor who has been taught what kind of moves look good to a television audience. We're talking about free fighting, not choreography here.
If you think your "leg work" can save you from someone who can lift 400+ Kg, you live in fantasy land. Unless you mean you will run like hell.
There is a reason why contact sports like Box or MMA have weight categories. Size matters! And swords aren't such good weapons that they remove the strength factor. If we were talking about guns, or even bows, then sure, dexterity beats everything else. But in close combat you don't want to fight someone who can literally crush your body with his bare hands.
> If you think Kendo is real, see what the guys from Iaido have to say about them...
Wikipedia has some interesting reading on this:
> Iaido encompasses hundreds of styles of swordsmanship, all of which subscribe to non-combative aims and purposes.
Well, that's a not a good start at all, is it?
> Iaidoka are regularly prescribed to practice kendo to safeguard that battling feel; it is normal for high positioning kendoka to hold high rank in iaido and the other way around.
Oh dear... They not only allow, but maybe even encourage them do both?! What is this world coming to?
I never said they were good fighters, just that they practice with real swords, while in Kendo they don't. But of course they fight even less than the guys from Kendo, because nobody wants to get a scratch nowadays. So people only have two options: "fight" with fake swords, or learn to use real swords but without fighting. I'd take the second option, but I think both are pretty much useless.
Someone should use their clout within the sci-fi and geek worlds to run a kickstarter for a video game based on realistic sword fighting, then completely drop the ball!
...and it's a video. I look to the NYT for words on a page...I wish they wouldn't waste resources on stuff like this just for the "oh, it's cool" factor.
It may be a serious, and quite cool, sport. But i don't think something that has zero real world practicability or application falls under the banner of a "martial art".
A lot of martial arts are wildly impractical in 99.99% of everyday circumstances. The list includes almost all martial arts involving bladed weaponry, most martial arts involving canes or blunt instruments, and most of the classical, unarmed arts that a layperson would recognize.
This is one of the major reasons why "practical" martial arts, such as Krav Maga, have become so popular in recent years. It doesn't mean the less practical arts are not "arts," or are somehow not "martial." The history of martial arts is a history of the militaries, weapons, circumstances, etc., that have given rise to the need for formalized combat styles throughout the world. In feudal Japan, for instance, it was probably a very helpful and practical thing to be well-versed in the art of the samurai sword. In present-day Japan, a bit less so.
Some martial arts are practical in 2015. Some martial arts were practical in 1915, and some were practical in 1515. Circumstances change. The stuff people wear, or carry around with them everyday, or bring into a combat zone, change pretty quickly and dramatically. And of course, some martial arts have never really been practical at all, being used mainly for ceremony, discipline, and lifestyle.
"wildly impractical in 99.99% of everyday circumstances"
I would hope so! If an average, everyday person needed to deploy martial in more than 1 out of every 10,000 of their normal, everyday circumstances, it would be a very sad state for humanity :)
Well, of course. :) Putting aside the obvious, though, let's extend that 99.99% of "everyday circumstances" into what we'd call "highly unusual circumstances." A bar fight, for instance, or a mugging at knifepoint, or worse. Obviously, your best move in these circumstances is to avoid the fight altogether. But if you have no choice, then your knowledge of——even mastery of——many of the more prominent martial arts won't help you.
There are many reasons why this is the case. I'll go over two or three of them. First, many of these martial arts were developed a very long while ago, in very different eras, with very different combatants in mind. Second, many of these martial arts are actually "staged" versions of real combat. If you're a karate master, for instance, you are mostly trained on how to fight combatants also using karate, who've been taught the same moves, the same stances, and the same patterns. Or, at least, you assume they've learned similar variants. Now, in a bar fight with a drunk, who's maybe got a few pounds on you, and is going to come out fighting irrationally and unpredictably, all of your karate staging, and your karate timing, and your karate pattern-seeking flies right out the window. Your mind will be addled by adrenaline. Your reflexes will be clumsy and jittery. You won't have time to think. If you've received very formal training, you may well panic and forget it.
Modern arts are a lot less formal, because many of them were designed with modern fights in mind——be it a close grapple with an enemy soldier on a battlefield, or a standoff against an aggressive assailant in a dark alley.
Full disclosure: I'm a 99-pound pencilneck who couldn't take your grandmother in a fist fight. I trained in karate to a fairly high level as a young teenager. To this day, I harbor no illusions that my karate will do anything for me, other than earn the occasional Daniel LaRusso joke.
Ahhh, Krava Maga. You can't even practice it at anywhere near 100% like you an other martial arts. If you can't practice something to the fullest extent you can never perform it that way when the situation is required.
The longsword portion of the martial art may be impractical, but it's not studied in isolation. A good swordsman needs to have a damn good grasp on footwork, grappling, and wrestling. And disarms. All of those come in handy if you're being attacked and you're unarmed. I know a few (other) HEMA practicioners whose training has saved their lives...
A martial art does not have to be directly usable in the real world to still be a martial art. Martial arts are about training the mind and body. Some of them happen to have practical defensive uses, others don't.
Aikido has a handful of moves that are really useful in real life - but its true that most of them are too artsy to work in practice, especially on an opponent bigger than you.
True. As someone who just started aikido last year there are some moves that I would not attempt in a dangerous situation do to lack of mastery. However I have done ikkyo so many times from various starts that it could be used very effectively in a tense situation. Hopefully I never have to find out :)
Yeah, my dad is a black belt in Aikido, and actually used it to make the training program that all New York State court officers go through. Definitely some good techniques in there for fast control.
Aikido has plenty of technique that has practical applicability in a real fight. The basic principles about balance and momentum are widely applicable, and the principle of using joint locks against a stronger or better armoured opponent is tactically sound as well.
The downsides of aikido as a practical style are the same as many of the more intricate/interesting martial arts: they are far from including a complete set of skills for real fights, and it takes much longer to be proficient enough with their intricate techniques to actually use them than it does to get competent in train-by-actually-doing-it styles like boxing, judo, wrestling, etc.
Aikido does have the added disadvantage that being entirely defensive in nature, you only learn to defend against the level of attack you train with. Unsurprisingly, people who train in an entirely defensive style don't attack well without outside influence, which can lead to unfortunate delusions like being able to "catch a punch" that would last approximately one session training with anyone skilled in any decent striking style.
I'm genuinely curious now. Who downvotes a post like that instead of replying, and why? An aikidoka who doesn't like the idea that their art has significant downsides compared to others when it comes to real fights? Or maybe an aikido critic who doesn't like the idea that some of the skills it teaches are practically applicable in a real fight?
Thanks for the laugh. I recall thinking when watching an aikido lesson: okay the teacher (who had 20+ years of aikido and of other martial arts) could use his aikido knowledge in a fight, the other(1) definitely not! And it could even be dangerous if they believed that they could use their aikido knowledge to fight, not that this is unique to aikido..
The concept of a black belt has been horribly twisted. It really just means some level of mastery of the basic techniques. It's meant to be a beginning, not an end.
It's like saying someone can take a class and earn some networking certificate, and from that point on they are an undeniable expert in networking. Of course that's ridiculous; that certificate is meant to certify a basic level of knowledge that is enhanced through experience, not complete mastery.
I heard that originally, you put on a white belt, and you just bled and sweated on it and got pounded into the dirt with it until it turned black with the accumulated filth of experience. Then you were a black belt.
This comment is so ignorant it makes me sad. What about Sumo and Kendo? (and many others). A quick Wikipedia quote:
"Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practices, which are practiced for a variety of reasons: self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, entertainment, as well as mental, physical, and spiritual development."
I guess it's hard for you to understand the value of physical health, entertainment, mental, physical and spiritual development. This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more, and that can have a huge impact in your life.
Sorry for the long reply, but your comment made me feel sad for you.
I appreciated most comments that replied to my post. I made it clear that "i thought" that way, because i wasn't sure if my thoughts represented facts or not. Most of the other comments take the time to provide helpful information and educate me, which is cool and what i hoped for.
Only you take the time to belittle me based off 2 sentences.
In the same vein as you presume to proscribe to the rest of the board that they need to lead better lives, i ask you to please try and lead a more compassionate life. :)
My comment was -indeed- actually trying to be educative, at least it was my goal.
In my phrase I should have stated that I was referring to many people that spend most of the day in boards like this one, I made a mistake and generalised in my statement.
> "This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more"
should be:
> "This is something that a lot of people in these boards should value a lot more".
Honestly, a complete list of phrases in there that were inappropiate and/or based on assumptions unsupported by my comment is:
"so ignorant it makes me sad" - yes it was ignorant, as i admitted and explained in why i used the wording i did, and certainly not an ignorance i cling to, so the sad part just comes across as a holier-than-thou ad hominem
"I guess it's hard for you to understand" - that phrase in its own is pretty bad
"I guess it's hard for you to understand the value of physical health, entertainment, mental, physical and spiritual development." - i had just come from the gym, don't think i need to say more to that
"This is something that people in these boards should value a lot more" - who says i don't, i didn't even say it was worthless
"sorry ... your comment made me feel sad for you." - both a non-apology and a needless ad hominem
Edit: I love how the downvotes on this only serve to demonstrate how some parts of this community actively loathe discourse in dialogue.
I don't get why you're being downvoted to oblivion. You were perfectly polite. So people disagree with you about the definition of martial art. So what?
Unlike many martial arts practices today, there is a very real chance that most of the techniques in HEMA have been used extensively by real soldiers in real life and death combat. By any reasonable definition that should place it as far under the banner of martial arts as you can get.
As someone who is more than happy to complain about (and flag!) political articles, this seems to qualify as something people just find 'interesting'. It's probably not flame bait, and isn't likely to retread tired old political or economic arguments. I don't happen to find this one particularly interesting, but am happy to just ignore it and vote other stuff up.
Yes, I come here to read up on programming, ICT, and the information society, but one of the things I like most about aggregation-type sites like hackernews, reddit, and slashdot is to be surprised about intriguing thing I had no idea existed.
If I imagine the internet usage of the visitors of hackernews as a enormous Venn diagram with each visitor his own circle, these type of articles allow me to look beyond the border of my own circle into the circles overlapping mine most, allowing me to expand my circle.
I've done European medieval combat re-enactment for a few years, so I'd like to expand on that one fighter's comment on the "thee" and "thou" thing.
Generally, in the re-enactment community, there are three different focusses: one is authenticity, trying to replicate historical costumes, equipment and trades; another is entertainment of an audience that is rarely familiar with the subject matter; the third is combat, both as a martial art and as a form of group sports.
The theatricals that seem to be popular at American "ren faires" and the medieval markets in various parts of Europe are strictly an expression of that second focus. Most re-enactors I've met are either into the first or third one (or a mix thereof).
I see HEMA as a logical evolution of that third focus, though I personally find its emphasis on duelling and professional competitions (with all the restrictions that brings) less intriguing.
I guess my point is that you can have medieval combat without the "thee" and "thou" parts outside of HEMA as well. It's very different from HEMA and certainly attracts a different kind of people, but it's still an alternative even if you couldn't care less about the theatrics.