Jakob Sutor 1612
Sutor's 'Neu Kunftliches Fechtbuch' was originally written in Frankfurt in 1612 and then republished by Wilhelm Hoffman in Stuttgart in 1849. He begins his work with 16 pages covering the lemgen schwerdt or long sword. These include the classic guards and a few pages devoted to grappling techniques. He follows this with coverage of the dusaken or dusack. A dusack is essentially, a large, elongated meat cleaver, one sharp edge, slightly curved blade with an integral hand grip. It has a certain...
Attributes of a Provost
demonstrates teaching skill in both individually-oriented training and group-oriented training sessions possesses a solid analytical understanding of the historical treatises possesses a high degree of skill in multiple weapons in no less than four 4 types demonstrates skill at handling multiple opponents has succeeded in obtaining the prize of provost through no less than six 6 challenges rank of provost granted by the Academy's governing body
Underarm Gravity Throw LR
facing your opponent, grasp the left wrist with your right hand and raise his arm upwards at the same time, lower yourself using your legs only and while still gripping the arm, walk under the arm and wrap your arms around the opponent's waist or lower chest place your head against either his side or back twist your torso towards the right and at the same time, kick out your left leg back and away from your opponent and leveraging gravity, fall on your opponent such that he lands on his face...
Anatomy of the Sword
The student must become familiar with all aspects of the sword, its construction, the material and the components. The first thing the student must learn is that there are two edges to the sword. The true edge and the false edge. The true edge is the edge that is facing and which will strike your opponent. The false edge is facing you. If the sword is flipped, the false edge will now become the true edge and the true edge becomes the false edge. The figure below illustrates the components that...
Fiore dei Liberi 1410
Fiore dei Liberi of Cividal d'ostria was born sometime between 1340 and 1350 born in Cividale del Friuli, a small town on the river Natisone in Italy. Given that he had written the treatise Flos Duallatorum between the years of1409 and 1410, and that according to the information in the prologue of the manuscript, he had been practicing the art of swordsmanship for 50 years at the time of his writing, the birth year is an estimate. With the exception of what is written in the prologue of this...
George Silver 1599
George Silver, 1599, Paradoxes of Defense. Silver spends a fair amount of time frothing at the mouth about the folly of the new fangled Italian rapier play, as opposed to the English sword. He provides some interesting discussion on the proper use of sword and buckler, two-handed sword, dagger, various pole-arms, and pike. Core principles of the true fight are presented in the manuscript including the infamous 4 governors, true and false timing and the 4 grounds. More on this is can be found in...
Armour Nomenclature
The figure below is a useful tool to illustrate the various components of a complete suit of plate armour. The names are accompanied with Italian names. The following includes a description of the components as they are illustrated. open-faced helmet with a globular or conical skull enclosing the sides of the face and neck. Usually worn with an aventail, and occasionaly a visor. Vervelles staples attached to the base of a basinet for securing the aventail. Aventail a curtain of mail attached by...
Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts Copyright 2001
Notice This material remains the property of the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts. It is freely distributed to practitioners of medieval martial arts and offers no restrictions to the copying and re-distribution ofthe material in an un-altered form, however, this material is not for re-sale. AEMMA will graciously accept financial gifts to support AEMMA's further development in the resurrection and reconstruction of medieval martial arts and future publications. Re-production of this...
Center of Percussion
The center of percussion or COP of the sword is also known as the sweet spot of the blade. This is the point on the blade, which experiences the minimum vibration as a result of the blade being struck or striking another blade or target. When the blade comes into contact with a target, a shockwave passes through the blade. The blade possesses a natural harmonic balance in which the blade will experience areas of maximum vibration and minimum vibrations. The points of maximum vibration are the...
Mess H Angelo and Son 1790
The Hungarian amp Highland Broad Sword is a beautifully illustrated manuscript containing very little text but includes 24 black and white plates depicting mounted guards, and cuts and thrust forms utilizing the Hungarian broad sword. This sword is very similar to the sabre in general shape, except that the broad sword appears to be a more hefty weapon than the sabre. The plates were originally designed and etched by T. Rowlandson, under the direction of Mess. H.Angelo and Son. Mess. Angelo and...
Hans Talhoffer 1467
Talhoffer'sfechtbuchs or Fight Books survive in at least 3 editions 1443, 1459 and 1467. This manual is based principally on Talhoffer's fechtbuch of 1467. Talhoffer's 'Fechtbuch aus dem Jahre 1467' or 'Fencing Book of the Year 1467' was re-printed in Prague, 1887 by an officer in the Austria-Hungarian Empire by the name of Gustave Hergsell. Although little is known about the man, we do know that Hans Talhoffer was born in Swabia, a relatively small area of Southern Germany which now lies...
Tactical Basics
When you are closing to an opponent, do not watch his blows and do not wait for what he might use against you. Because all fencers, who just wait for their opponents blows and do not do anything else than warding them off, do not succeed very often. They are defeated very often. Note Always fence using all of your strength When you're close, strike at his head and at his body, so he may not be able to change through Durchwechseln in front of your point. After the blow, from the bind, strike...
Folgen Sword Drills
The term folgen is a German term that means following. It adequately describes the aspect of training comprised of sword drills. The term folge is more of a singular term, that means follow. The purpose of the folgen is to introduce the student into structured contact drills. This will begin the process of striking an opponent with the sword, and to receive strikes in which the student invokes an appropriate defensive form. The practice drills in this level provide the student the opportunity...
Training Program Structure
This first book will provide the student with the fundamentals of defense and offense, an understanding of the underlying physics of the longsword, the anatomy of the longsword and an introduction to training drills that are critical to developing skill and competency. This book introduces the student to the historical sources that were used in the development of this training system. AEMMA's training system is the result of the research conducted on the historical sources identified in this...
Training Overview
The objective of this manual is to provide the student with a structured and detailed guide to follow for the purpose of training in the historical medieval martial arts and to prepare the student for the challenge for the prize of scholler. This manual is not intended to replace the principle historical sources, but is intended to augment them. The medieval longsword, langeschwert, or spada longa, was a specialized form of the knightly cruciform sword that developed in the early 13th century....
Abrazare Techniques 121 Four Guards quattro posta
The student is introduced to the specifics of wrestling or abrazare and grappling as described by Fiore dei Liberi. This covers the four fundamental guards that form the basis of all skills developed in later units. In Liberi's manuscript, each section begins with crowned masters magistro that illustrate the posta or stances. In addition to the masters that introduce the fundamental postas in the beginning of each section, other masters are included that introduce sub-sections. This will be...
Abrazare Master 1 wrestling techniques
shoulder hook agent boar's tooth counter The agent9 grasps the patient agent's10 shoulder with his left hand, and attempts to grab the patient's left hip. The patient agent thrusts his left hand forward to grip the elbow upper right arm of the agent, and deploy the boar's tooth denti di zenchiar with the right arm while stepping through the hold - the patient agent must not bend down or over while deploying this hold . shoulder hook agent boar's tooth failure long guard with leg grab counter...
General Grappling Fundamentals
We begin this training with the four 4 fundamental grappling holds. These form the basis on which more sophisticated knife and longsword disarming techniques will be introduced in later skill levels training. These are forms to familiarize students with fundamentals of fighting and are taught foremost as combat techniques. A short description of each hold follows. The illustrations depict the holds from above in order to provide a visual clarification of the holds described. Another concept is...
Book 1 Recruit Physical Training Program
This section introduces the students to the history of European medieval martial arts, historical background on the evolution of the longsword, various stages of armour development, and an introduction to the fundamentals of medieval swordsmanship. A student entering the world of medieval martial arts will typically begin with the training presented in this book and who will incur a duration of three 3 - six 6 months depending upon commitment and time devoted to practice.
Forward
The purpose of this first book of a four book series is to train the student in the methods, principles and techniques of European Medieval Martial Arts, focusing on dagger, grappling and the longsword. This work was originally created to form the basis of the recruit training program for the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts or AEMMA. References for this work include but are not limited to historical documents and treatises such as Fiore dei Liberi, 1410, Flos Duellatorum, Hans...