help to interpret this picture.

1) The grip of the thumb over the guard.
Only one way to represent in drawing or something that has to do with a way of fighting.
Maybe, it's a sure grip, for mounted combat? We know that in the sixth century, some people already fought with the index finger over the trigger guard. Does anyone know of thumb? Exists in the fighting techniques of master Italian or German grip as shown in the picture?
2) The guard is strange. Has anyone seen a watch like this?
3) What are the rings on the pommel? what are they?

I hope not too many questions.

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St. Marcurius

That thumb seems abnormally large/long. Humans aren't built that way. :)

Perhaps the artist misunderstood the term "fingering the cross", and subtituted the thumb for the forefinger

It's the forefinger that adds extra controls the blade when fingering the cross... and the reason they added the protective rings to the hilt.

In the German system of sword play, the thumb is used on the flat with some guards and strikes, but it is the thumbs placement on the flat and the angle of the sword in the attack, guard, counter that makes the thumb safe.

I'm 99.99 percent sure it's a artistic mistake. If you take a sword from your collection and thumb the cross, your blade become flat aligned to the target, with the forefinger, edge aligned.

Cheers,

David

This is another painting depicting the saint. Impressive is the similarity of the face.
Here, the thumb is less evident.

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Ok, in that picture the saint is holding the sword in a standard grip, but with the thumb sticking forward instead of curled around the handle.

In sword play I teach my students to hold their hand a bit back from the cross so the angle of a blade strike to the cross won't cause their thumbs or fingers to fall off if the blade was a sharp.

Cheers,

David

If the cross is to be in line with the forearm, I can't get it to work. Maybe my thumb is not long enough...

The technique does seem to work if one intends to strike with the flat, rather than the edge. I know that early 20th C. policemen liked to strike with the flat, but that's a different story, I think...

Another question: which Saint is this and what is written on the blade in the second example?

Both Chad Arnow and Paul Hansen are correct.

It is a feature of Orthodox iconography that deliberately unnatural proportions are always used. Eyes are larger, fingers narrower and longer. It is not an artistic mistake, but a convention of the style.

Further, the majority of icons were written by monks. Not soldiers or swordsmen.

As for the icon in question:

This fresco is from Ohrid, Macedonia, and dates to ca. 1295. It depicts the Great Martyr Saint Mercurius, said to have been a Roman cavalryman from Cappodocia, and in some tellings of the life a cousin of St. George. He was stationed in North Africa and is said to have had a vision of Archangel Michael, who gave him a sword with which he defeated the Berbers who were attacking the Romans. He is know to the Arab Christians as Abu Seifein, a reference to his two swords. (lit. 'Father of Two Swords')

I know the times and approximate areas are different, but the thumb is used a lot in historical Eastern European sabre-play... To the point that they deliberately put rings on the side of the guard to utilise the thumb in controlling the weapon better. It doesn't wrap the guard though, but for lack of a ring the guard would be the next best thing to get a similar effect.

Probably not related, but maybe similar techniques are being used here?

Sure thing, Maurizio.

I'm on my work computer now, so I don't have much here. But I DO have a photo or two of the thumb ring from a famous saber at the museum at Krackow for starters. I have a few photos of this one because I am having a replica made.

And then one other photo showing that this Krackow saber isn't the only one to have a ring... ;)

When I get home I will dig out some book refs for you, ok? I have something somewhere, because I remember reading about it...

Like I said, these sabers are from a different time and place than those swords you were earlier discussing, but the earlier could easily have evolved into the latter.

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Benninson, you are great.
I like this site because as a topic seems to come to an end, there is always some gentlmen which offers its time for us.
We think that the fighting techniques they both Eastern and Western are not born in a short time, but the result of years of evolution. The important thing for me and that there is a fighting technique, I am now more motivated to seek for the period. Thanks.