Fencing and Historical Recreation

Introduction
On the weapons themselves
On the manner of using them
On the times and places for their use:

The duel
The fencing school
The prize fight
The quarrel in street
The battlefield

A special note on women

As a historical recreation group, what is the SCA trying to recreate with regard to fencing? The answer to this question varies from kingdom to kingdom and individual to individual, and makes for a great drawing room conversation (with duellists, this can be interesting!) In the East Kingdom particularly, with our tradition of enlightened anarchy, there could be no single vision. However, there are historical models that we can examine, and we can think about how they relate to what we are (and are not) doing. 

For the sake of safety and convenience, we use modern foils and epées to ty to recreate Renaissance fencing styles. We know that rapiers were generally longer, thicker, and heavier than modern fencing weapons. As the research on examples in the Tower of London shows, a typical rapier of 1600 was about 48.6" long and weighed 2.6 pounds. They may have got lighter and thinner over time, but their distinguishing trait was always their inordinate length. In Elizabethan London, there was an ordinance against carrying a blade longer than 3 feet. In the reign of Louis XIV, the smallsword or court sword appeared -- it resembles the modern epée blade with a shell guard and knuckle bow. It was light enough and short enough that you could dance with it without harming your partner, and then go take care of that affair d'honneur immediately afterwards. 

The schlaeger (theatrical rapier), especially a longer ons, may be close to a seventeenth century rapier, but is probably still lighter than the real thing. Weight, length, and the basic physics of inertia make a big difference in how the weapons can be used. Groups like the Accademia della Scherma try to study the moves in period manuals using authentic bated weapons. 

Fencing in the SCA differs from modern fencing by being fought in the round and using the off-hand to parry, hold a defensive object, or another weapon. The forms we use --single rapier, dagger, buckler (or rigid parry object), cloak (or non-rigid parry object), and case of rapier (a rapier in each hand) -- are all well-documented in the fencing manuals of the time. We use a whole body target area, which would certainly be the case in real combat, although probably not necessarily in practice (remember the fencing mask hadn't been invented yet). 

These differences from modern practice attempt to approximate the swordplay of the Rennaissance, but the weight and length of the weapons we use introduce an admitted difficulty. Modern fencing style evolved to optimize the light 18th century court sword. Many good foil moves are impossible with a rapier, and many rapier moves described in old manuals make no sense with a fast, light weapon. Nevertheless, a good grounding in "classic" fencing technique can be an asset. 

Approximating an period style is an issue that won't be easily solved, but it is not anabsolute. Our reconstructions are somewhat tenuous in any case, and there are precedents for many "modern" moves. Capo Ferro has a decidedly modern fencing sensibility, so it isn't out of place to use the lunge or the parry/riposte in two times in our Renaissance context. The use of schlaeger as a "demonstration" form (not for competition) gives us even more opportunity to get closer to the real thing. 

Just as interesting as the technical issues, if not more so, is trying to recreate the cultural context in which fencing or rapier combat took place. What exists to be recreated is fairly narrow: the duel, the masters's guild, the sport, and the brawl. In the East we haven't picked one as the goal of our recreation, so in a way, all are open to us. 

For most gentlemen, some skill in fencing is a necessary accomplishment, like dancing or riding. The medieval definition of the nobility was "valor in arms," and although the functions of that class had changed a great deal by the 16th century, the right to bear arms and use them was still essential to a gentleman's self-concept. 

In the 16th century there are plenty of commoners who serve as foot soldiers in the armies and as such bear arms also, but this is a different role -- the rapier is not particularly their weapon, they have no personal honor to defend, and their rights to engage in violence are limited to (and legitimated by) their service. It is not a right that they have intriniscally in their person, by right of their social class. When demobilized from the army, they were likely to become the brigands and outlaws -- the sort of person a noble might encounter on the road or in a dark alley, and who would be likely to hang if caught in the act while the noble could not be accused of any crime. 

A gentleman needs to be ready and able to defend his own honor. This honor became an increasing touchy matter as the 16th century wore on. Like fencing itself, the French picked up the concept of the "point of honor" and the code of the duello from the Italians in the early 16th century and proceded to make it a national obsession. In no other European country were so many noblemen killed over so many trivial insults. 

The chief offense to honor is being "given the lie." It is hard for a literate society like our own to understand the importance of the "word of honor" to men of the Renaissance, but to accuse a gentleman of lying is a stain on his name that needed to be eradicated with blood. Although it was widely believed that God's justice would naturally determine the proper outcome, it did not escape the notice of contemporaries that some perfect scoundrels managed to emerge victorious from a great many duels. Even in its heydey, there were cynics who felt duelling to be a self-indulgent waste of time. 

The duel is usually something conducted in private -- much passing of notes between intermediaries, secret meetings in out-of-the-way places, etc. The conduct of "une affair d'honneur" is remarkably like "une affaire du coeur". It was often technically illegal in many times and places, and just as often it was winked at. There were some notorios duels fought in Henri III's reign that were fairly public, but for a lot of people this was just another sign of how decadent that court was. For Frenchmen, the law is nothing to worry about until after 1600, when Henri IV decided that the peace he brought to France was causing the noblesse to start killing themselves off in duels. But then, being a soft touch, he was always handing out pardons and offered to be a second himself for one of his ministers. 

Duelling is a treatise all in itself, but the key point here is that duelling isn't a competitive sport. Throughout the 16th century, duels were to the death or at least until it was impossible for one of the parties to continue, in which case septic infection would usually take care of the situation later :-). You were likely to fence a duel in your shirt -- it gave you greater freedom of mobility and ensured to your opponent that you weren't hiding a mail shirt under your doublet. (That would be an assassin's trick.) The duel to "first blood" is a nicety that seems to have become common in the reign of Louis XV in the early 18th century. For the rough and ready Renaissance noble (especially a French one), the idea would be silly. 

More likely than not, a gentleman would learn this necessary art from a middle-class fencing master. Such a person might be a member of a guild (like the London Masters of Defense or the Parisian equivalent). For the fencing master, the teaching of fence is a trade and subject to many of the same kinds of regulations as other trade guilds (ranks and privileges, examinations for advancement, etc.) A fencing master might set up a school in his own house, or might possibly travel, residing for a time on a noble's estate while training the young gentlemen of the house. In these guilds, we have a good model for fencing practice, schools, "fighting the prize", and even putting on exhibitions. When one is learning a dangerous art some precautions are necessary, so bated blades and padded fencing doublets are a normal part of this experience. 

That the fencing school is largely a preparation for the duel cannot be doubted. It is odd to us that a huge portion of period manuals has nothing to do with the techniques of fencing, but is devoted to discussing how and when and for what reason to pick a quarrel. Joseph Swetnam spends 84 pages advising that, basically, one should generally avoid the company of thugs and murderers. The 16th century was an age of how-to manuals, and even honor itself needed teaching.
 

Some professional fencers made a living at prize-fighting. This was very much like the modern boxing circuit or maybe even the WWF, with much color and entertainment value. These fencers travelled and put on shows and therefore represented a fairly low level of life form -- laws regulating them usually lump actors, fencers, and charletans into the same category. Professionals like this certainly didn't fight to the death, or even to serious maiming, since many of them stayed on the circuit for years. This gives us the closest model to a sport, which is in fact what we practice in the SCA. 

And then, there's the street brawl. Familiar to us from historic romances and movies, this is a good excuse for a fencing mêlée. Then, as now, gangs of armed young men roamed the streets of the major cities of Europe. No rules apply here, and there's more than one reason why a nobleman never went anywhere alone or unarmed. It is was part of the social role to be attended by servants and hangers-on, and they came in handy in a tough spot. 

There is also the grey zone of the professional duellist. This person is an assassin for all intents and purposes. There isn't much information about this type of person, but there are hints that case, for example, was an assassin's favored weapon form. 
 

Rapier fighting is not a combat art form -- it's an art of personal defense, so there isn't any war-like model. Warfare in the sixteenth century is in a state of transition. The development of gunpowder technology means that a typical army has infantry carrying pikes and arquebuses, heavy cavalry armed with the 18 foot lance, light cavalry armed with wheelock pistols, and an artillery train of cannon and the specialists who tended it. For all of these soldiers, the sword is a secondary arm. And the sword used is not the rapier, but a shorter, heavier cut-and-thrust weapon -- the French estoc, the German katzbalger, the Irish backsword. It's still necessary to have one, but war for a French gentleman is a matter of lead shot and powder. 
 

Being in reality a twentieth-century club, there are plenty of women in the SCA who enjoy the combat arts and participate vigorously in them. The East Kingdom fencing marshallate has a long tradition of being a matriarchal institution. :-) However, for women trying to recreate a historically accurate persona, the model gets very much more restricted very quickly. 

I do not think there are any records of women in the fencing guilds. In many other trades, a widow would often take over her husband's business, so even though a guild's masters might be theoretically men, there were often plenty of women in them functioning as "virtual males." I don't think there's a precedent for widows taking over their husbands' fencing schools. 

However, some women did learn to fence. In Spain in the court of Phillip II, there was a noblewoman named Ana Mendoza who lost an eye in a duel. She wore ostentatiously embroidered eye patches for the rest of her life. I suspect such women learned fencing in that backhanded way that many women learned "male" skills -- at home, with their brothers or maybe with an indulgent father. More likely than not, the "learn at home" model would only be possible to noble women. And even if she knew how to fence, a woman's gender role did not call for her to wear or carry a sword in public, while for man it was as necessary a part of his costume as his hat. The role of "lady" meant that women expected to find male champions to defend them and were entitled to get them. 

Moreover, a woman did not have the same type of honor to defend. Although there was a concept of honor that applied to women, it was not her word that defined her integrity, it was her chastity (or at least, her reputation for it). An insult to her honor, as in an accusation of unchastity, was not a matter for her to deal with herself as it was an insult to some man. Plenty of duels were fought by men over women, and it usually started with someone giving someone else the lie... 

When we get into the lower classes, women have some more freedom to mix with scum like professional fencers :-) I am willing to believe that it might be possible for women to be part of a prize-fighting extravaganza, althought there isn't any record of it. This is one of those cases where we have to exercise the "creative" part of "anachronism." It's not totally impossible to have happened. Women certainly went to war, as both camp followers and occasionally soldiers (usually passing for male in order to manage the latter, another story), but "war" is a different cultural milieu than "fencing." "Fencing" has more to do with one's social role in civilian life, and gender is a huge component of social role.