A Medieval fighting manual! Did you know that real medieval
sword fighting did not involve clanking swords together rapidly until one
hacked one’s way through the opponent’s defenses? Did you know that medieval
fighting included smooth, judo-like movements, wrestling and grappling
techniques, and methods of attacking with every part of the sword? Seriously,
there’s a move in this book called the “murder stroke” wherein a combatant grabs
the sword by the blade and swings the pommel of it like a hammer into their
opponent’s face.
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| The aptly named "murder stroke" |
The number of attacks that involve holding the sword at
various points on the blade, and using the pommel as a weapon are astounding.
The fighting methods described in this book often seem more like eastern
martial arts than the repetitive sword-on-shield clashing or the fencing-style
fighting in most movies. A combatant’s entire body becomes a weapon, and the
swords, poleaxes, shields, maces, etc. function as extensions of the body.
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| Smacked with a pommel. |
One of the more interesting parts was the combat with two
shields. Death by shield seems like a bad way to go. The fighting on horseback
with spears and swords was fun. The oddest part of the book was the description
of a judicial duel between a man and a woman. The man was handicapped by being
forced to stand waist-deep in a hole. If the man was pulled from the hole, or
the woman pulled into the hole, the duel was over. This particular duel ended
in the woman’s favor. As the text says, “The woman has the man locked in a hold
by the neck and the groin and pulls him out of the pit.”
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| Death by shield. |
Who would benefit from reading this book? Anyone
choreographing a play or film with medieval fighting would do well to learn
from this book. Anyone interested in historical reenactment should definitely
read it. Writers who wish to write stories set in the middle ages should
benefit from it as well. So, what about someone like me who doesn’t have any of
these excuses? I just enjoyed looking at the reproductions of the illustrations
from this fighting manual of the 1400s and imagining the fights, duels, and
battles being described by them.
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| This is not how I expected this day to end... |
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