En Garde!

June 14, 2003 12:14 AM

The Armarium. Online Historical Fencing Manuals & Texts at the Association for the Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).
posted by misteraitch (2 comments total)

The 1598 George Silver book, "Paradoxes of Defence", was on the regular shelves in my uni's library, and I used it in writing a history paper around 1988. The whole book was a long slander against Italians and their fancy-pants duelling style with light rapiers instead of heavy sword slashing:

One valiant man with a sword in his hand, will do better service, than ten Italians, or Italianated with their rapiers.

Unrelated boast: I was an NCAA Western Regional All-Star in epee in 1990. Unfortunately, this was no help in getting girls.
posted by planetkyoto at 2:56 AM on June 14, 2003

What about Florentine style, with two rapiers? Can a rapier parry, say, a claymore?
posted by alumshubby at 7:10 AM on June 14, 2003