medieval-european-martial-arts

http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2011/06/medieval-european-martial-arts.html

Stages of Pell Work

Pell work is significant throughout medieval sword fighting with frequent reference:

Of fight the disciplyne and exercise,
Was this. To have a pale or pile upright
Of mannys light, thus writeth old and wise,
Therewith a bacheler, or a yong knyght,
Shal first be taught to stonde and lerne to fight
And fanne of double wight tak him his shelde'
Of double wight a mace of tre to welde.

This fanne and mace whiche either double wight
Of shelde, and swayed in conflicte, or bataile,
Shal exercise as well swordmen, as knyghtes,
And noe man, as they sayn, is seyn prevaile,
In field, or in castell, though he assayle,
That with the pile, nethe first grete exercise,
thus writeth werrouris olde and wyse.

Have eche his pile or pale upfixed fast
And as it were uppon his mortal foe:
With mightyness and weapon most be cast
To fight stronge, that he ne skape him fro.
On hym with shelde, and sword avised so,
That thou be cloos, and Preste thy foe to smyte,
Lest of thyne own dethe thou be wite.

Empeche his head, his face, have at his gorge,
Beare at the brest, or sperne him on the side,
With myghte knyghtly poost ene as Seynt George,
lepe o thy foe, look if he dare abide;
Will he not flee? Wounde him, make his wounds wide,
Hew of his honde, his legge, his theys, his armys,
Is this the Turk, though he be sleyn, noon harm is.

Cotton library: Titus A, xxiii fol 6 and 7 (early 15th century.)

To this end I have begun using my own pell (simply made from treated pine post, i'll blog it shortly). While reference to why a pell is useful less content is available for exactly what work should be conducted on the pell.

Assumed Armour

As far as I can see, there are several distinct classes of armour worn throughout history that are designed to protect the wearer from sword attacks:

• unarmoured / soft leather
• chainmail
• plate mail

There are a few different kinds of attacks with a sword

• cutting - running the edge along the target
• bashing - hitting the target with the edge
• thrusting - penetrating the target with the point

Now it may seem obvious, but the different armour types protect against the different attacks to varying degrees.

Unarmoured or soft leather gives virtually no protection, and arguably thrusting is the most effective attack.

Chainmail mostly provides protection from cutting, some from bashing; but little from thrusting.

Plate mail provides total protection from cutting, good from bashing, and good from thrusting (except in the gaps, obviously). These are clearly over simplifications, but they can help to think of the optimal attack strategy.

Different sword fighting schools assume differently armoured targets. In competition, people generally wear more armour than the "assumed armour" for safety and (in sca heavy) looking better. Here's some examples of the assumed armour of different schools.

• modern fencing - unarmoured
• sca fencing - unarmoured
• eskrima - unarmoured
• kendo - unarmoured

• sca heavy - chainmail and helm 

• half-swording - plate mail

I couldn't find any groups that compete with full plate assumed armour, but I'm sure they exist. The difficulty would be making it safe. The full plate techniques of aiming for thrusts in the unarmoured parts (groin, eyes, palm, underarm) would pretty much always be dangerous at full speed.

The point is, striking techniques used by different groups must be understood in terms of the armour they are designed to be used against, not necessarily the armour people compete in. It's pointless comparing the slashes of eskrima to the snaps in sca, or the half-sword thrusting technique to thrusting in modern fencing; they were designed to work around different levels of passive defense.

With this in mind, the SCA heavy techniques of "hitting" the target make a lot of sense. Thrusts however, have always been a source of confusion for me. With a two handed weapon, it's easy enough to get a "good" thrust; but with a single handed sword it seems quite difficult. I was always told that it can't be a "push" but must be a strike. After seeing some videos on youtube which showed how easily a broadsword can thrust through chainmail, I've come to think that thrusts should be more effective in sca heavy combat. Maybe all that should be required is a strong "push" with the thrust. I'm pretty certain that the foam/rubber thrusting tips we use, make it difficult to judge a good thrust to begin with. Also I've found it impossible to find a legal thrusting tip that doesn't completely change the weighting of the sword, making it tip heavy; when really it should be lighter at the point. It seems the thrusting tip requirements have been reduced in the last year or so, which is a good thing. I hope at some point we can use a simple leather cap, or just thrust with the rattan; for single handed swords at least.