Though it should go without saying, swords today are hardly made in the manner they once were. The difference is not one of just using modern technology and machinery, nor even a matter of exact forging and tempering methods. No, it is a problem much deeper and far more profound than this.

During ages past where warriors relied on their swords almost daily and were near the top of the social pyramid, continual communication between warrior and sword-maker would insure the best design for the job (if not the best quality individual sword). There was obviously a constant feedback from those who created the weapons and those who used them, and whose lives thereby depended on them. This symbiosis between the two artists, warrior and craftsman, produced a sort of natural selection that for the most part could insure a minimum expected quality in a given sword. If a sword­maker gave out or sold an inferior sword, the warrior might just come back to get even ­provided he survived the weapon's failure.

Over hundreds of years, tens of thousands of young men used real swords for real life and death fighting. Their swordsmiths came up with practical and beautiful styles and stuck with them while ever experimenting with newer ones. These warriors knew what swords forms worked and why, and they also knew how to handle them. In a process of deadly natural selection they tried and discarded those that were inferior and inadequate. They followed the fundamentals of what made a comfortable, balanced, and functionally sound blade or hilt. As a result, thousands of examples have survived for us in museums and private collections that represent effective designs for defeating a variety of different opponents and armors.

It has been said that once real swordsmen in either the West or the East stop doing real sword combat and earnest practice, it is no surprise that sword-makers then stop making real blades. The vital historical cycle of feedback from skilled users to skilled makers ended with the changing technology of war. Unfortunately, for sword enthusiasts and students now this is as true today as it was centuries ago when it first began to change.

Gone for the most part is the ancient relationship whereby skilled warrior swordsmen provided to sword-makers the crucial feedback on sword handling characteristics and performance. Today we instead have virtually the opposite of the old cycle. In a perverse reversal of the ancient pattern, when we now obtain swords it is often the sword-makers themselves who will tell customers what a sword should be able to do and how it should respond when doing it! Most often they even do this by just the act of writing vague, inaccurate ad copy for their catalogs and brochures!

When their swords (those few that are capable) end up being used by performers of stage­combat and jousting shows, the claim is then made that they are "real" and "battle­tested". This is rarely the case. The limitations and artificial premises of staged fighting and theatrical combat routines with their special requirements are a far cry from really wielding a sword to cut or to kill or just to train realistically today. Swordsmanship is not about banging blades around endless edge­on­edge as is common practice in most movies, television shows, and theatrical performances (based upon theories of stage-combat).

There are currently available far more varieties of swords that are make­believe or historically fake than there are those that are replica of actual historical pieces. But, the more modern reproduction sword­makers become set in their ways of producing inferior weapons that sell to consumers who merely wear them with a costume or hang them on the wall, the harder it is to demand better products of them. After all, who is there with the authority to tell them? Who among them would listen anyway? They focus on the science and art of their craft (metallurgy, forging, and tempering, and marketing!) as opposed to whether or not a sword is truly functionally sound and battle ready. Western sword-makers today can label their work as "historical" or "historically accurate" based on their own subjective criteria.

When there are no real swordsman testing their blades in expert hands, then swordmakers have no one to turn to except themselves. The sword makers are therefore skeptical, reluctant, and even hostile to the opinion of those who would demand better quality and accuracy (after all, an auto-mechanic is not a professional racecar driver anymore than an aeronautical-engineer is a fighter pilot). Yet, no offense to the considerable talents of professional swordsmiths (heck, they can do things I have no clue about), but spending 20 or 30 years in front of a forge and grinder making blades is not equivalent to years and years of intense training, sparring, drilling, and practice cutting using them.

Thus, O' gentle student of the sword, let me now tell you that we have been mislead, misinformed and even outright deceived by those who do not seek to educate and share, but only to protect their limited opinions from the informed scrutiny of their peers. The more we study the works of the real historical European masters and the more we practice with real weapons (accurate replicas), the less important and the less satisfying pretend fantasy playing becomes. What replaces it is a true martial-spirit that consists of an appreciation for the history and legitimacy of our Western martial heritage. This cannot but cause us to demand a sword of only the highest quality blade with the most accurate and sturdy hilt. Should it be any other way?

Interestingly enough, over the last five years there has been a grassroots groundswell that has already begun to affect the quality of replica swords available. This is due almost entirely to the vast numbers of "Highlander" fans who have purchase more and more swords. In their attempts to emulate the exploits of their fictional heroes and to pursue something of the art they have had a noticeable impact on the output of sword manufacturers and distributors. As the multitudes of "Highlander" aficionados tried out the various wall-hangers and costume swords they had enthusiastically purchased, often the results were invariably snapped tangs and handles, collapsed hilts, and bent or broken blades. Shocked and disappointed their waves of numerous complaints have given pause to many manufacturers who have rethought their product lines and quality. More and more blades are becoming available that, while not all historically accurate or truly "battle ready", are at least much more than the familiar stainless steel wall­hangers and usual clumsy theatrical props. Hopefully this change in the marketplace is just the beginning. In the future, sword manufactures will continue to respond to the demands of an increasingly informed and discriminating consumer. Perhaps eventually they will even begin to heed the advice of more knowledgeable practitioners.

The lunge which is familiar today developed over a period of time and cannot be claimed to have been invented by any one person. The advent of printing technology, with manuals published as early as 1410 by the Italian Fiore del Liberi, allow us to see the development in fight techniques and weapon technology. At this period basic attacks were executed with a footwork movement known as the 'pass', where one foot passes the next, almost like a walking gait. This is observed in the well-known German manual by Talhoffer (1468), cuts are delivered as well as thrusts.

The Age of the Rapier
With the dawn of the Sixteenth century Italy was to become the Mecca and most influential centre for fencing theory. One of the most important early exponents of fence theory in Italy was Achille Marozzo who published his work, the Opera Nova in 1536. Marozzo basically advocated a system which he found by experience to be the most successful, emphasising the cut rather than the thrust. The latter being incorporated into his system as the punta lunga which was basically an extension of the sword arm combined with a further movement of the right foot after the pass had been executed (assuming a right handed fencer). Weapons of Marozzo's time, and earlier, tended, to a certain extent, to be blade heavy, ideal for an efficient cutting/wounding action. With this weapon, partly due to its weight, little emphasis was placed on parrying with the sword (far too slow) therefore a secondary weapon was held in the opposite hand for this purpose. Although the secondary weapon could also, of course, be used for offensive purposes. Examples of secondary weapons being: dagger, buckler, target, cloak, or even the hand.

With this system of weapons the fencer's body adopted a more frontal appearance employing the natural skeletal protection of the upper body. Not until later in the sixteenth century when sword design underwent subtle changes was more emphasis placed on the thrust as a mode of attack, it being seen then as a more efficient form of attack. An important exponent of this (and contemporary of Marozzo) was another Italian by the name of Agrippa who published his work in 1568. Agrippa advocated the thrust as being equal to the cut. Agrippa's ideas were further developed by other masters; di Grassi (1570) and Viggiani (1575). Viggiani insisted on the superiority of the thrust and classified thrusts in a similar way to that in which Marozzo classified cuts. An important step with Viggiani was his employment of guards in which the right foot was in front of the left, with the body adopting more of a sideways stance. This marked the beginning of the process of discarding the use of a secondary weapon. It was from this position that Viggiani described his thrusting attack, the punta sopramano, a development of Marozzo's punta lunga. This is described as advancing the right foot with the sword arm fully extended, at the same time lowering the left arm as a counter-balance. Even as late as the Eighteenth century this movement hadn't progressed beyond this point.

Another important exponent of the thrust at this period was an Italian master residing in England, Saviolo Who published, 'His Practise' in 1595. Saviolo classifies thrusts in the following terms: stocattas, imbrocatas, and punta riversas (thrusts over and under the sword hand, thrust to the left side). Although derided by certain English masters, (for example, George Silver in his Paradoxes of Defence 1599), by the close of the sixteenth century Italian theories of fence were regarded as the most efficient. At the beginning of the Seventeenth century Italy was to play an important part in fencing development, principally in regards to the lunge as a mode of attack (although the centre of influence was soon to become France). Three important Italian masters of this period had a great influence: Salvator Fabris, Nicoletto Giganti, and Ridolfo Capo Ferro (who refined Viggiano's work on the thrust and who is incorrectly credited by some to be the inventor of the lunge). All of these masters are insistent on the thrust as being primarily the most efficient method of attack because it takes less time to execute than the cut. The cut being considered riskier than the thrust because of the fencer having to move closer to his opponent in order to deliver it, thereby increasing the likelihood of a counter-thrust.

By 1640 the sword (rapier) had become much lighter than in Marozzo's day, leading to the gradual replacement of the left hand, dagger, buckler, and cloak as means of defence with the sword itself. And, importantly, shifting the fencer's body position to a more sideways stance. As we have seen, the Italian masters regarded the thrust as superior to the cut but did not entirely discard the latter. The sword (rapier) of this period was a weapon that could still take an edge on both sides for cutting purposes, as well as a point. Italian theory had now reached its high water mark and it is to France that we must look next.

The French, by disregarding the cut altogether, left the way open for a different style of fence and weapon. The superiority of French technique over Italian theory was exemplified by the work of Besnard in 1653. The weapon Besnard had in mind was what is called a transition rapier, a weapon that had a semblance of an edge but can be regarded as exclusively a thrusting weapon. This is the beginning of the small sword practise which dominated Europe during the Eighteenth century. The lunge developed by the Italian masters was refined into the exclusive mode of attack by such French masters as Besnard and his contemporaries Liancour and Labat.

The fencer of this period had now adopted a sideways stance with the lunge being his form of attack, although passing was still employed. With the lightening of the sword the establishment of the parry is seen, with the secondary weapon now being made redundant, although left hand parries were still executed (in all personal combat a fighter will employ all available means to defend himself). By the middle of the Eighteenth century, development of theory had reached its pinnacle, with the lunge becoming the principal form of attack.

In summary, we have seen that the lunge was developed over a period of time, influenced partly by Italian fencing theory and partly by that of the French. In this discussion it has been the intention to show the development of the lunge in combination with the thrust. As has been seen, the cut had not been totally discarded and during the Eighteenth century military weapons employed a cutting type of play in combination with the thrust, the fencer still adopting the classic sideways stance when using a sword such as the spadroon or backsword (the sabre being almost exclusively a cavalry weapon). Baden Favill

ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN MARTIAL ARTS
English, and indeed Western martial arts in general have a much longer pedigree than most people realise. For example legislation aimed at banning martial arts schools (Scholes of Fence) in London proves that martial arts schools existed in England at least as early as 1180 AD. While the famous British Antiquary Leland made the point that king Alfred the Great (871- 899AD) had his warriors trained in unarmed combat as well as weaponed fighting, a wise move given that he was up against the formidable Vikings. Either of these dates - bearing in mind that they do not necessarily represent the starting point of systematic martial arts training - makes English martial arts older than the vast majority of present day Oriental systems. In addition it is clear that what we know today as katas or forms were utilised by our European ancestors many centuries ago. For example, there is in existence an English manuscript, dating from the 1400’s, (Harl.ms.3542) that contains both forms and individual techniques for the two-hand sword. While from 16th century Italy comes a four-man sword form. (source: Opera Nova 1536 by Marozzo). An even earlier Italian form designed to practise seven major sword cuts is contained in Flosduellatorum (1410) by Fiore dei liberi.

One of the best descriptions of martial expertise comes to us courtesy of the sixth century narrator Procopius who was a member of a Byzantium army (led by General Narses) which was about to do battle with the forces of Totila, king of the Ostrogoths (a Germanic tribe which conquered Rome):-

"But Totila now went alone into the space between the armies, not to engage in single combat but to prevent his opponents from using the present opportunity. For he had learned that the two thousand Goths who had been missing were now drawing near, and so he sought to put off the engagement until their arrival by doing as follows. First of all, he was not at all reluctant to make an exhibition to the enemy of what manner of man he was. For the armor in which he was clad was abundantly plated with gold and the ample adornments which hung from his cheek-plates as well as from his helmet and spear were not only of purple but in other respects befitting a king, marvellous in their abundance. And he himself, sitting upon a very large horse, began to perform the dance under arms skilfully between the armies. For he wheeled his horse round in a circle and then turned him again to the other side and so made him run round and round. And as he rode he hurled his javelin into the air and caught it again as it quivered above him, then passed it rapidly from hand to hand, shifting it with consummate skill, and he gloried in his practice in such matters, falling back on his shoulders, spreading his legs and leaning from side to side, like one who has been instructed with precision in the art of dancing from childhood. By these tactics he wore away the whole early part of the day."

The above piece is taken from The Secret History of the Sword, by Christoph Amberger. (original source: Procopius, ‘History of the Gothic Wars’)

This wonderful description and the telling phrase, ‘the dance under arms’ is seemingly suggestive of a horse mounted kata or form. Clearly, we Europeans can claim a long and glorious pedigree in martial arts. Not only that but, as befits an area of the world that is responsible for so many scientific and technological advances Europeans invented an incredible array of weapons. Indeed, just to list them would probably take up as much space as this article itself. We already know that our ancestors taught martial arts SYSTEMS and did not rely on Hollywood ‘Hack & Bash’ or unskilled ‘Hit & Hope tactics. So how did they cope with learning the use of such a vast range of weapons? Well, in the English system - which utilised, to name but a few, Broadsword, Bastard sword, Two-hand sword, cudgel, shortstaff (quarterstaff), longstaff, billhook, halbard, battle-axe, threshalls (corn flails), pitchfork, sword and shield, sword and dagger, maul (mallet), case of swords (twin swords) double cudgels, and, unarmed combat, - they used, or were known by the 1500’s to be using a single set of principles which covered all weapons. Once these principles had been mastered the English warrior could, allowing for strength and stature, switch from weapon to weapon with good effect.

So what were these principles? Lets take a brief look at some of them (for fuller details see my book English Martial Arts) There were the Four True Times and The Four False Times which basically told you how to move, and how not to move your body when attacking or defending. There was also True Space and False Space which governed the correct positions and angles in which to hold and manipulate weapons during those attacks and defences. There were also the principles of Wide Space and Narrow Space which appertained to the correct and incorrect relative positions of each opponent’s weapon. As well as general advice about moving the body into certain positions and angles relative to specific movements of the weapon. In other words the knowledge contained in the principles of the True Fight, once mastered, applied to any non-projectile weapon used by the English. Similar principles existed and applied to continental European systems.

Nor were our martial predecessors lacking in moral and philosophical beliefs and guidance. The ethics of English, and indeed European, martial arts masters, or maisters of defence as they were called by the English, would have drawn approving nods from their Oriental counterparts. Let me quote just a few of them from the oaths that English martial arts students were expected to take when they joined, and progressed in, a schole of fence. From the provosts oath (a provost was the equivalent of a black belt) come the following extracts:-

Item 2 You shall be true to the Catholike churche to augment and farther the true faythe of God to your power as all true Christians ought to do.

Item 4 You shallbe true provoste from this daye unto the last daye of your life, to love and serve the trueth and hate falshode…

Item 5 You shall sweare not to teache anny person [such] as a murtherer [murderer], a thefe, a common drunkarde or soch as be common quarellers but to avoyde your hands of them…

Item 9 You shalbe alwayes mercifull and whereas it maye happen you have the upper hande of your enimye, that is to say under your feet [on the ground] or without weapon or some other advantage you shall not kill him…savinge your selfe without danger of deathe or bodily hurte [unless your life is in danger].

From the maisters oath come these examples:

Item 9 …If you hear of anny varyance [arguments] betwyxt maister & maister, or maister and provost, [etc.] you shall do the beste that you can to make them frends and always to kepe the peace if you can.

Item 10 You shall ayde and strengthen to your power [protect and assist] … and help all maisters and provosts of this scienc, all widdowes and fatherles children. And if you knowe anny maister of scienc that is fallen into sicknes being in povertye you shall put the maisters in rememberance [tell them] …that they may see him to have duetye [income].

As well as the ‘formal’ philosophies represented by the above examples maisters were also known to give more general guidance as can be seem from the following representative samples:-

True Honour must be very intimate with honesty.

The deficiency of strength may be greatly supplied by Art; but the want of Art will have but heavy succour from strength.

Killing a man when you are forced upon the defensive, clears you in human laws; but how far you are justified in Christianity the Gospel can best tell you. There is a Consciousness attends all actions, which is the strongest monitor; and that Consciousness will not leave a man undisturbed after his fellow-creature is laid bleeding at his feet, though from the highest provocation, and in his necessary self-defence.

Godfrey.
Self-opinion is often hurtful, yet none at all is much more so.

Lonnergan.
Let every man that is desirous to practise this Art endeavour himself to get strength and agility of body, assuring himself that Judgement without this activity and force availeth little or nothing: Yea, happily giveth occasion of hurt and spoil. For men being blinded in their own judgements, and presuming thereon, because they know how and what they ought to do give many times the onset and enterprise yet never perform it in act.
None can judge of the craft but the craftsman.

Silver.
Courage in a Man is a good property, but Skill with Courage is better.

Blackwell.
These snippets represent only a small part of the tenets of the Maisters of Defence but they are sufficient to show that they held entirely similar beliefs to Eastern masters in regard to the moral, religious, and martial philosophies that they felt necessary to offer their students.

Changing tack slightly it may also interest you to know that European martial artists also took gradings, which the English called prizes. In England these events were held in public to prove that there was no cheating or favouritism. Prizes were incredible feats of courage and endurance that not only tested a man’s technical ability but his mettle as well. Although the edged weapons used in prizing were blunt they were still extremely dangerous and capable of killing or inflicting serious injuries. Any student taking a prize had to publish (at his own cost) Bills of Challenge to inform the public, and other students, of the time, date, and location of his prize-playing. In addition to this, free scholars were expected to pay half of the cost of any answerer ( those who fought him) who lived more than twenty miles from the location of the prize-playing. And, just to ensure that he wasn’t tempted to give himself an easy day, he would be fined 5 shillings ( a lot of money in those days) for every provost he failed to notify.

He would have to fight three bouts apiece with every answerer with each weapon he was prizing at. So, for example, if a scholar (basic rank) was playing his free scholars prize which usually involved two weapons (typically, broadsword and quarterstaff) and ten students turned up to fight him he would have to fight a total of sixty bouts with virtually no respite since the fights were continuous. His opponents, on the other hand, had the benefit of long periods of rest between each three bout session while the other challengers fought their bouts. The greatest number of bouts on record was the 126 bouts fought at two-hand sword and sword and buckler (a type of shield) by Edward Harvye when he played for the rank of free scholar during the late 1500’s. Some students had to fight so many answerers that their prize took two days to complete. Just imagine that, two days of non-stop fighting with the heavy weapons of the day. How many of us today, I wonder, could cope with the enormous physical and mental drain engendered by such a task? It represented, I think you will all agree, a prodigious effort by anyone’s standards.

Apart from prizes, our martial forbears also enjoyed the thrill of competition (you see there’s really nothing new under the Sun). Competitions were known to the English as challenges and were immensely popular, as were prizes, with the public who regarded them as a marvellous, not to mention exciting, form of entertainment. Even royalty loved the thrill of prizes and challenges as we know from the fact that Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I (and her Spanish consort Phillip), Elizabeth I, and James I, all attended such events.

This has been a brief look at English and European martial arts, I hope you have enjoyed it and also that it has alerted you to the fact that the English and Europeans have their own authentic and ancient martial traditions which are, in terms of effectiveness and pedigree, the equal of any in the world.

Terry Brown

Problems occur, however, when each type of researcher dares to leave his field and venture elsewhere. Because they do not have a sufficient background in what a historical source is and how to use one, fighters often make huge generalisations about how weapons were used on the larger scale of military history, and commonly fail to recognise --due not to any fault of reasoning but a simple lack of exposure to a scholars' peers and critics-- the difference between when a scholar makes an assertion out of thin air and when the same author doesn't go into details because the arguments involved are so well-known that repeating them is tedious. When it comes to fighting and describing the how's and why's of fighting, most scholars are simply incompetent. Scholars who do not also fight are infamous for both underestimating the general effectiveness of medieval and renaissance weaponry and for missing textual references to fighting methods that are important for understanding how the weapons are actually used. Since they have no background at all in the FUNCTION of weaponry, they tend to make huge, grandiose theories based on the "evolution" of weapon structure. Scholars generally are also not interested in receiving input from those they deem to be "amateurs," even when those amateurs have some fairly solid historical evidence on their side.

All of this results in a lot of completely unnecessary invective and hard feelings. While it's fairly easy for an academic to get in touch with fighters or people engaging in experimental archaeology, with few exceptions, scholars themselves tend to be a reclusive sort, almost prizing their inability to be contacted from outside of their respective institutions. Fighters in historical martial arts, however, DO need to gain the sort of information they deal in, for example, understanding the difference between how one moves in mid-14th-century armour, with its square shoulder plates, and late 14th, which is much more curved, is important if one is really serious. Therefore, since we can assume that you're busy honing your technique and don't have from two to six years to drop going back to school, let's look at a few of the general errors that fighters can make with scholarly information.

First, of all, the "Authority": I'm going to have to make a digression here, but stay with me, it needs to be said. It is important to realise that one of the reasons that historical martial arts (and their weapons) have been so badly neglected in Europe, America and what is generally called "the West" is that until the mid-19th century or so, nobody was interested in studying medieval things. "Medieval" was more commonly used to mean "primitive, backward, ignorant." "Renaissance" meant the rebirth of learning, which had long been surpassed. The era between 500 and 1500 c.e. was called "medieval" as a way of saying "oh, yes, it was that period 'in the middle' when people didn't bathe, there were huge plagues, and society had lost all of the wisdom of the ancient civilisations." Until the romantic artists and writers started looking to medieval legends and writings for sources, there simply wasn't much interest in things that had long since been cast away in the quest for Progress. The 19th-century historical writers and researchers committed countless errors simply because the people they researched thought in vastly differently ways than they did, and the differences were sometimes so large that they were simply inconceivable until a great deal of painstaking trial and error pointed out that the current way of looking at things simply didn't work for earlier sources. In medieval and renaissance studies, to say that something's "19th-century" is generally a way of saying that something's cute and a really nice try, but completely inaccurate. Nevertheless, the people who did this research were true authorities in their day, in the sense that there simply weren't any other people who knew anything major about the subject at hand. These were the researchers who read thousands of old works and developed the tools that scholars now take for granted when looking at old sources: palaeography (reading old scripts), diplomatics answering questions about manuscripts), archaeology (as distinguished from mere treasure hunting), and all manner of other intellectual tools that didn't exist before.

Now that it's the end of the 20th-century, we're realising that we haven't done that much better a job than our forebears: every twenty years or so in research tends not only to overturn the previous wisdom, but to open up even more ways of looking at the matter at hand. Therefore, to get back to our topic, when one reads a scholar's work, it is important to recognise that, no matter how well-respected he is, it is possible that there are huge holes in his arguments that he has not seen because of the skills with which he approaches his sources -- and that you, as a fighter, are sometimes in a position to recognise those errors. As a member of the lay public, you may also look into odd corners that more focused intellectuals may miss, because they're not understood to be relevant, or because the source in question is written for such a general audience that it's "underneath the radar" of the more serious researcher. However, what tends to happen is that fighters will tend to take a respected person's word as gospel out of respect for that scholar's learning, and when somebody starts blowing huge holes into a scholar's arguments --particularly where that author has pulled some idea out of thin air and used it to justify another idea, the person making the critique is considered "anti-Prof. X." Serious scholars in the fields relevant to us (where there are relatively few questions of prestige or politics compared to, say, modern literature or economics) prefer to have this give and take, and do everything they can to attend conferences so that they can get feedback from their peers. (Only rarely is such a person's work so bad that critiques start to really be levelled at them personally, and probably the best means of gauging the relative influence of a scholar's work is to see how many decades later it takes for the person's ideas to be completely disproven. The really good researchers have ended up being debated furiously for forty or fifty years.)

What this means is simply that one should never accept a scholar's arguments at face value, but instead, assuming one is discussing matters with an open-minded audience, be free to make serious critiques of a person's ideas: if that critique is based on solid information rather than merely a sense of it being off somehow, then everyone benefits. Conversely, when one has access to a person of learning in this field, it's never enough merely to say "what do you think of this person's work?" You must also find out why the person thinks so, and decide whether or not you agree. This sounds like things that everyone should have learned in their basic schooling, but the habit of quoting the Big Ape seems to be with us, and over and over again we see people playing a kind of "follow the leader" when dealing with certain issues rather than actually considering the arguments' and counter-arguments' merits.

When an author makes a statement, whether proven or merely asserted, and is then quoted by somebody else, who is then quoted by a third person, the statement tends to gain a kind of weight and majesty. Very soon it will simply be something that "everybody knows," whether or not it's true. This is called a historical commonplace. Fighters are well aware of some of them, and spend tremendous amounts of effort to eradicate the ones they know about: for example, the myth that the katana is the most metallurgically sophisticated sword ever made, or that a knight in armour would not even be able to stand up if he fell over because of its weight, or that a typical knight's sword weighed around ten pounds. One that is still followed by many is that the English Longbow (originally a Scandinavian weapon) was the most powerful bow ever made, and hastened the downfall of heavy cavalry. Actually, the most powerful bows were from Turkey (or, to be precise, the Ottoman Empire), and, despite their small size, there are instances known of arrows being fired across the breadth of the Bosporus (that's roughly 900 meters!). Meanwhile, heavy cavalry and knights were still being used, and in some cases were critical to success, in battles well into the middle of the sixteenth century, when, if contemporary sources are to be believed, they were finally forced from the field not by a combination of pike, cannon, and longbow, but by other cavalrymen wielding braces of pistols instead of lances.

I shall close by exploding my very own commonplace for you to see, one that has dogged the steps of fighters since the Renaissance itself, and which undoubtedly began as some bright sophomore's practical joke. Which is faster, a blow or a thrust? Since sometime in the Renaissance, it has been written that, and I paraphrase as best as I can:

"the time of the thrust is less than the time of the blow. This is because the thrust passes in a straight line between two points, whereas the blow must travel around the two points' circumference. Therefore, the thrust, passing through the shortest possible distance, arrives at its destination more quickly than the blow."

This theory has been floating around and being quoted and requoted for at least three hundred years, and it's all based on an old joke that any bright, classically-trained renaissance gentleman should have caught the very first time he heard it. And, of course, it's not true. This idea is a way of restating an old philosophical problem-turned joke called Xeno's Paradox. Once upon a time two people were arguing about whether Achilles really could outrun a turtle if the turtle had a head start. One of them replied that if Xeno's Paradox were true, then Achilles could never catch up. What is the paradox? Imagine that you have a bow in hand and that you are shooting at a target on a tree. After walking out a thirty meters or so, you stand, and fire. Now, to hit the target, the arrow must pass through a point exactly halfway between you and the target, say, let's call it point "A". Easy enough. But to do that, the arrow must pass through a point exactly halfway between the shooter and point A (so we'll call that one B). But to pass through point B, it must first pass through a point exactly between point B and the shooter, which we shall then call point C. But to pass through point C you must eventually pass through such an incredible number of points that the arrow will always be passing though the intermediate points, and will never be able to reach the target.

Get the idea? Xeno's Paradox, is simply this: the above model is indeed perfectly accurate in terms of geometry, but leaves out the notion of time. It takes almost no time at all for the arrow to pass between the shooter and the target, and so little time to pass between points Z,Y,Q,R, etc., to point A and all the intermediate points between there and the tree that they really add up to nothing, and you hit your target quite easily. In measuring the time of a blow and the time of the thrust, yes, it is true that the thrust must traverse less space in order to reach the target. However, because our bodies are made to bend and fold into ourselves more easily than they are made to telescope outwards, it is often true that one will actually need more time to cross the shorter distance, whereas the blow will travel through a larger area, but because of the construction of our joints, which are designed for bending in arcs, the blow may travel through that larger space much more quickly. Or put another way, when one thrusts, the hand that holds the weapon must cross the entire space of the thrust, whether the motion comes from the action of the arm, or the action of the body moving. In other words, in order to make a thirty-inch thrust, you must move your hand thirty inches. On the other hand (the one making the blow), the motivating force for a blow comes from the inside of the arc that is made by the actual striking point of the blade. Because it is inside the arc, the circumference of that circle is less. Therefore, a blow which must travel a circumferential distance of sixty inches may be created by a similar movement of the hand that only has to move eight or twelve inches.

Of course, simply because idea A is incorrect, it does not necessarily follow that its opposite, idea A-, is correct, either. So which is faster, the blow or the thrust? I leave it to you: happy practising.

Russell Mitchell
MA Program Assistant
Dept. of Medieval Studies
Central European University
H-1051 Budapest
Nádor u. 9, 4 em.
HUNGARY