myArmoury.com - Saracen Archery

Posts: 4 Location: Poland

Tue 29 Jun, 2004 5:31 am

Saracen Archery

Hello,
I'm looking for the book by W.F. Paterson "Saracen Archery". I can realize that the book is out of print but I hope that somebody can help me.

Best wishes

Darek

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Alina Boyden

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Posts: 383

Tue 29 Jun, 2004 7:16 pm

Re: Saracen Archery

Dariusz Wojtasz wrote:

Hello,
I'm looking for the book by W.F. Paterson "Saracen Archery". I can realize that the book is out of print but I hope that somebody can help me.

Best wishes

Darek

I've been working a lot lately on finding period manuscripts from Medieval Islam dealing mostly with swordsmanship but I think I might be able to help you.

http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/ottomanwarfare.htm

That link gives you a website with a whole host of bibliographical information. It also excerpts part of a Mamluk military manual dealing with archery that I believe was the basis for the book "Saracen Archery"

In additon there are plenty of actual Islamic texts to look for. Nihayat al-su'l wa al-umniyah fi ta'lim a'mal al-furusiyah is one of the crucial works of this period. It deals with horsemanship, swordsmanship, archery, etc.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36070 That's a link to a thread on swordforum.com that discusses a lot of this. Mostly it deals with swords but it still gives good places to look.

Hope that helps a bit even if I can't point you to the book itself,

Alina

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Robert Zamoida

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Posts: 228 Location: Davis Monthan AFB, AZ

Tue 29 Jun, 2004 7:32 pm

Re: Saracen Archery

Alina Boyden wrote:

In additon there are plenty of actual Islamic texts to look for. Nihayat al-su'l wa al-umniyah fi ta'lim a'mal al-furusiyah is one of the crucial works of this period. It deals with horsemanship, swordsmanship, archery, etc.
Alina

Oh wow! Where can it be found?

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Alina Boyden

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Posts: 383

Tue 29 Jun, 2004 8:03 pm

Re: Saracen Archery

Robert Zamoida wrote:

Alina Boyden wrote:

In additon there are plenty of actual Islamic texts to look for. Nihayat al-su'l wa al-umniyah fi ta'lim a'mal al-furusiyah is one of the crucial works of this period. It deals with horsemanship, swordsmanship, archery, etc.
Alina

Oh wow! Where can it be found?

Well that is the question now isn't it lol. I haven't been able to find it. If you go to Schola Gladitoria they have a couple of leaves of manuscript dealing with Mamluk swordsmanship and jousting. Mark Carter from Swordforum translated the two leaves from the arabic. I myself dug up a translation of an arabic military manual but it was all strategy and no fighting. Hopefully after a few arabic classes at my university this fall and with the help of my professors I can dig more up. The Middle Eastern edged weapons forum at swordforum.com is pretty active lately. Keep checking around there and one of us might find something new.

Alina

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Alina Boyden

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Posts: 383

Mon 05 Jul, 2004 10:14 pm

Just an update on this. I've got two copies of the manual "Munyatu'L-Guzat" coming my way on interlibrary loan from UCLA and UC Berkeley. Both copies are translations. One is a book published by Harvard University Press, the other is a UCLA Grad Student's PHD thesis I believe. It includes horsemanship, lance, sword, archery, and polo. So hopefully in the next week or so I'll be able to post either the relevant portions of the archery sections or a synopsis of the archery section for everyone to look at. Oh...and maybe the sword stuff if anybody here likes swords... ;)

Alina

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Felix Wang

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Posts: 394 Location: Fresno, CA

Tue 06 Jul, 2004 2:05 pm

That sounds very promising, Alina! If I may suggest something, the section (if it exists) which might be of greatest importance is sword + shield. That was the dominant mode of close combat in the West until the 14th century, and until the 19th century in much of the Middle East and Asia, and it is the area which is the least well documented.

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Alina Boyden

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Posts: 383

Tue 06 Jul, 2004 2:18 pm

Felix Wang wrote:

That sounds very promising, Alina! If I may suggest something, the section (if it exists) which might be of greatest importance is sword + shield. That was the dominant mode of close combat in the West until the 14th century, and until the 19th century in much of the Middle East and Asia, and it is the area which is the least well documented.

That's a very good point. If I remember correctly one of the members on SwordForum who hasn't posted since the dawn of time owns a copy of this manual. I feel completely justified in photocopying it lol. So I'll have to see if it does describe sword and shield combat in any detail. I'll make sure to post whatever information I can find. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up more and more of the islamic military manuals as my skills in Arabic and my status in the Academy improve.

Alina

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