The Fencing Hindquarters

There are two principal aspects to assessing a fencing action - the quantitative (was a hit made) and the qualitative (was the hit good?).

It is a matter of ongoing grief for many fencers when their hits are not recognised on the opponent. Many believe more “objective” measures, such as applying chalk to the blade to leave a mark on the opponent when they are struck, or electric scoring methods, would relieve this problem.

We need to develop beyond the mentality that the physical occurence of a touch is the most useful thing in determining the outcome of a fencing exchange. To this end, more “objective” measures of the touch might prove extremely successful - finally people will stop arguing over what they believe they saw, and the focus can rest where it should be… On the decision making which lead to that point.

A fencing match is not a simulation of a real fight. It is an assessment of the decision making capabilities of a fencer. For example, in the chaos of a real fight, deliberately making a “double-hit” can very well be a risk which pays off for an individual. Objectively, we may well have survived an impalement and gained the advantage of cleaving the opponent’s head in half. But it is not a very intelligent decision to make, so we never reward that decision in a fencing match.

And that is what intent really is - decision making. It’s not often that we explain this - it is usually learned by example, with a junior referee observing a poor strike, hearing the senior referee call the action lacking in intent, and wrongly learn that the strike was not “hard” enough.

We ought to look to reward intentional actions. If a fencer #1 scores a thrust in opposition on her opponent, and the opponent #2’s blade slumps down on the fencer’s hands, this action lacks intentionality. It isn’t the point that the strike wasn’t “hard” enough - it’s that the action of #2 was not intentional. The thrust in opposition may not have been made perfectly - which is something a ruleset or training paradigm may or may not choose to recognise, but this was certainly not due to the actions of fencer #2, whos decision making was barely evident.

A strike landing stoutly can be indicative of intent, but it is certainly not the same thing as intent. To determine the intent of an attack, we would be better off asking the question: What was the fencer trying to do, and did they achieve this? If a fencer blindly undulates their weapon out in front of them, there is a decent chance it might touch part of their opponent. However, we should not reward it as an achievement on the part of that fencer.

Above: with my hard earned Dutch shiny!

Yes, I’m so behind with updates! Mea culpa mea culpa, I’ll do better… ;)

Moving on, the curse on my latest HEMA trips continues, this time with a mysteriously missed Flixbus connection in Frankfurt with the consequence of my trip being prolonged by many hours when it was already many hours long to begin with. But fear not, I still managed to arrive in Utrecht at a decent time for a good night sleep before tournament day and I had a great time at a truly great event.

Well organised by Zwaard & Steen, professional, and very well attended, in its third edition Dutch Lions Cup has already established itself as a European high level Longsword must do.

Since it wasn’t possible to sign up for both open and women’s longsword and I’ve entered many opens in Italy lately, I went for the latter and really wanted to do well. With three pools, it was a good size tournament and a really tough one. There were a good number of known top fencers in it but also some really talented less known, less experienced women. More and more, it becomes apparent to me how HEMA instructors are getting better at their job and I love that the scene is growing enough in Europe that I knew only one person in my pool, a first.

It’s on! Photo by Manuela Beltrami

I started off a bit tensed, relaxing and focusing as the pool went on. This was my biggest and toughest international tournament this year and I had two goals: in term of results, I wanted to medal and in terms of fencing, I wanted to keep my head well on my shoulders and never give in to rash moves and costly mistakes. I achieved the former winning bronze and I’m happy about how I managed the latter goal too. I felt like I was fencing with my head more than usual and I know I could keep the score against dangerous opponent under control thanks to that. I won all my bouts up to the semi final, where I met the amazing Carla Huvermann from Germany. She’s such a good fencer and I didn’t manage to find the right strategy against her. I could keep the score close but it’s Carla who won and proceeded to the final, eventually taking gold against another excellent fencer that I knew only by reputation but I had never seen in action before, Jane Johnston from Canada.

DLC 2018 Women’s longsword podium 

It was a pleasure to watch these two fencers in the final and it surely inspired me to work harder in the hope to meet either or both of them at Swordfish.

Semis and finals were livestreamed so I was happy my homies could watch and cheer. I enjoyed my bronze match, where I fenced Tosca Beuming, who had had excellent pool and elims and had won the semi final against me at Albion Cup in the UK earlier in the Summer. I was determined not to make the same mistakes I made there and I’m glad it worked.

I had been so busy with my tournament that I could see too little of the Open and I’m still catching up online with it. 

In the end, Zwaard & Steen Dutch champion Michel Rensen won the open for the second consecutive year in a final against Joris Jacobs from Belgium, and Sander van Eijk won against Stefan Brunner, in a whole Dutch bronze final.

My Italian friends Nicolò Gamba and Luca De Sensi from Sala d'Arme “Aquila Gladiatrix” were fencing in the Open too. Both well-known competitors in Italy, this was their first International tournament, so kudos to them for jumping on the International competition wagon!

Team Italia at DLC: Nicolò, Manuela (who coached me), myself and Luca. Go us!

Having silvered two years ago at DLC, I was hoping to make the gold final again but honestly this bronze’s been so hard earned that I’m happy with it and proud I managed it. Now I have a much clearer idea of what I need to work on in preparation for Swordfish, which I expect to be tough and super exciting.

But first, I have another competition coming up in Italy. TaurHEMAchia in Turin is getting close and I signed up for both the open and the women’s longsword, so training is very much on!

Swords in Germany were incredibly diverse: let’s focus on pre-renaissance swords or else things are going to get out of hand.

Early examples of post-migration swords in Germany are based upon Norman design, in which we get early Arming Swords, a good example being the Albion “Ritter”.

Another example from Maciej of Artofswordmaking, this one being a 13th century example.

The Arming Sword is both THE quintessential ‘knightly’ sword, as well as THE most commonly used sword up until the rise of the rapier. But it’s not the ONLY sword out there, because…

MESSER

There’s no single form of a Messer, just as there is no exactly similar Arming Sword (save for a few examples out there that are mass-issued or otherwise commissioned), but the Messer is a distinctly German weapon. Single edged, it is for all purposes a knife made at sword length. Usually, these are single-handed, though some two-handed versions exist too.Contrary to common belief, they are not made and categorised as knives due to an exposed tang, but due to them usually being made by the cutler’s guilds as opposed to typical sword smiths. Medieval trade wars are serious business.

We then transition from one handed swords to the more famous weapon of German fighting arts: Longsword.

The Longsword becomes most prominent from about 1350 to 1500, but did exist as early as about 1200, though early longswords were basically just ever-so-lightly-longer-bladed arming swords with enough space to be gripped in both hands. Another image and product by Maciej best shows an example of this: note if you will, the very small grip, comparatively?

I believe @pteappic has mentioned that, in fact, modern HEMA longswords are too large for practice in the manner of early German fencing, as Ringeck felt that longswords should easily be held in either one or both hands. Certainly, one will notice that later German longswords (at least from 1450) are occasionally found to be nearly reaching Greatsword length.

After this we get to true greatswords and their transitional period longswords, but that’s outside of medieval context.

For armour, from early to high medieval period, we look above all else at maille. An exemplary image would be that of the Knights Teutonic:

This is a stylised image, but rather a good early Medieval caricature. Maille hauberk, sleeves and mittens, and leggings, over which a tabard or surcoat may be worn. Up until about the late 1400s, this isn’t terribly uncommon, and by the 1400′s you move onto the style of Gothic plate:

In the context of earlier sources like ps-Danzig or Ringeck, the sword used probably a weapon that was worn, which tends to mean something reasonably convenient to have on the body. Surviving artefacts often have hilts of 20cm or less and blades that top out at 90cm or so - a very convenient size to wear on your belt all day. In the roßfechten glosses we see the same sword being used in all three ways: one-handed, two-handed (’long’) and half-sworded (’short’). 

Full size HEMA feders, by contrast, tend to be sized for transport, which makes perfect sense for something that’s only used in class or tournaments. But it does make a sword that’s too large for reasonable one-handed use and hopelessly awkward to wear around. I’ve joked before that we’d see an immediate shift towards shorter feders if competitors were required to complete an obstacle course wearing their feder before fencing.

As an aside on armour development, the addition of some plate components to primarily mail armour is pretty standard by the 1200s. The coat of plates shows up around the late 1200s/early 1300s. That process carries on through the ‘transitional’ armours of the late 1300s, which are basically a full mail shirt plus a load of plate - these are contemporary for Fiore, just about. The Churburg armoury has a lot of surviving examples of these. With the rise of the backplate, we start to see a reduction in mail in the 1400s (to save weight).

This is about where my knowledge of specifically ‘German’ armour styles begins. The full Gothic plate shown is very late - 1480s or so. Before then we have a series of fairly identifiable regional styles, starting with the square kastenbrust of around 1420. This is what Jess Finley wears for armoured combat. From 1440 or so they become rounded and start to acquire fluting, as in this 1440s example from the Kelvingrove in Glasgow shows.

This style is very commonly shown in early Liechtenauer glosses and related material - Talhoffer and Peter von Danzig both have it. Then the breastplate slims down and we get to early Gothic forms ca 1460, and finally we move to the super-fluted late/high Gothic shown already by around 1480.