A brief question,

I've been looking over Talhoffer's work and noticed that many of his moves involve grasping the opponents blade, or even (in the case of the murder stroke) one's own blade. His illustrations show this being done with the bare hand...

It occurs to me that:

The blades used in the fencing schools were blunts, and one would use some sort of protection (gauntlets?) with the real thing.

-- or --

As the the point of the long sword was the most important part at this time, the edges were simply not as keen as they had been at other times and one could perform these feats bare-handed.

I note the illustrations show many of these attacks resulting in fatalities, which suggests it is not meant to be representative of training with blunts... but then it might not be good to push the illustrations to far.

All I know is I wouldn't want to use the murder stroke if my blade was sharp and my hands were bare! Can anyone offer any input on either of these points (Blade sharpness or period appropriate hand protection)?

Thanks,

David

Well, I feel a hell of a lot more *comfortable* with gloves, but I've done the murderstroke without gloves with a sharp... it's not a foregone conclusion that you'll cut yourself. Keep your grip tight enough and you ought to be fine.

David,
It may be that the illustrations were done without armour for the purpose of more adequately showing how to perform the move. I don't think I would grab my blade without some sort of gloves on. You may win the fight , but severing a tendon would be a good way to end a career.
The plate also could be of a blunt training blade. Who knows. I'm interested in seeing what others have to say.

Ben
_____________________
Your Sword Is Your Shield
- Christian Henry Tobler

There're a couple of things with grasping a blade. First, they definately are showing unarmored techniques: Armored techniques look very different (plus Talhoffer already has a separate section showing armored combatants).

Technically, you can grab a sharp blade safely. The pressure of your hands will be more along the flats, and as long as you have a firm grip on the blade and do not allow your hands to slide. That said, there may be more going on here than is readily apparent.

The combatants illustrated are not supposed to be students in training, they are supposed to be fighters in a judicial duel, hell bent on killing the other guy. So the swords were definately sharps. But if you look at the blades, you can see they tend to sharply taper, much like an Oakeshott XVa or XVII, swords that are not fully cut-oriented. Some experts believe that these are swords that, while sharp, are not exactly razors, allowing half-swording to be done more easily. I recently owned an Albion Landgraf, and found it was not hard at all to perform half-swording techniques due to it's blade geometry.

Another possibility is that the swords may be sharper towards the tip than the base. The 15th century Italian master Filippo Vadi recommended having a sword that was only sharpened near the tip (he has a specific length of sharpness, and I can't remember what it is off the top of my head... will check and get back to you).

Another possibility is that the combatants may actually have worn gloves: In the 1467 Talhoffer fechtbuch, plate 44 reads "Ain hefften In Hentschuch." Mark Rector's translation interprets this to be a strike to the hands, but someone pointed out to me that this translates to meaning a strike to the glove. Depending on how you interpret this, it is possible that there is some artistic license here in showing bare hands (though other manuals, such as Codex Wallerstein, also show bare hands as well).

Bill thanks for the great info. I was going to say this before but I hesitated. I had the pleasure of sitting in on a murder trial when I was interning at the prosecutor's office in Detroit. In that case one man stabed another with a steak knife. To make an awful story short, the murderer's hand slipped off the handle of the knife and he cut his hand severely while stabbing his victim. If a simple steak knife can really cut to the bone while stabing a real live person, a sword would have to react somewhat similarly. Right?

Ben
___________________________
I hope you get a sword for Christmas

Don't underestimate the effect of blade geometry on cutting ability. I was given a rude shock when I ried to cut with a type XV :mad:
I wouldn't think twice about gripping such a blade, even to squeeze as hard as I could. As long as my hand doesn't slip, I'm safe.

Hi all,

Thanks for your responses (and Bill-- your knowledge of the Fechtbuchs is most impressive)!

I haven't yet held a Type XV so I'll take your word for it that it's possible to grasp the blade with bare hands without injuring oneself, but... I have no experience with the murderstroke whatsoever, so please take this next sentence as a question and not as argument...

I can imagine holding the blade tightly and swinging without harm being done to the hands, but wouldn't a forceful impact (such as is the intent with the murder stroke) drive the blade quite deeply into one's own hands? Also, with regard to grasping your opponent's blade, you'll likely be grabbing hold of it while it is in motion-- which also seems a bit dodgy for someone wanting to keep the use of his fingers.

Again, the points that have been raised so far hint towards different possibilities.

1. The blade may be slightly duller until you reach "four fingers from the tip".

2. The blade geometry alone may offer the protection required.

3. As the scenes illustrate judicial duels, perhaps the combatants are accepting some damage to their hands in return for a certain victory (a la the rapier grasping scene in "Rob Roy"). These are, after all, duels to the death, and the loser doesn't just die-- his loss brands him a criminal. The weakness in this last point is that no victory is certain until the opponent is down. Would one risk the full use of one or both hands?

Has anyone been able to handle historical examples of these blades? It would be interesting to know if there are hints to be found there.

Thanks,

David

The most imprtant aspect of grabbing a shap blade is constantly overlooked in these discussions:
The type of blade used in a very narrow one.
They use type XVa swords or a very narrow version of XVIIIb swords. As a rule the edges taper straight to an awl shaped point.
The blade width at the middle is about one inch or less.

To get an idea off what this means compare the "Landgraf", "Sempach" or "Castellan" with the "Regent" or "Viceroy" in the NG line, for example.
The first three can be used very effectively in halfswording, while the last two are less well suited for such techniques.
The coming XVa blade used in the "Agincourt" and "Talhoffer" is specifically made with halfswording in mind.

The type of blade many practitioners of WMA favors today has a thin, flexible XVIIIb type of blade: one that is well suited for quick and exact cutting delivered with little effort. A beautifull type of sword, but it is not the one that is usually depicted in the manuals. Those swords are more narrow and much more pointy. This means they are also pretty thick and stiff.
A narrow, stiff and fairly thick blade can be grasped even if it is sharp. It is much less a question of sharpness than blade shape and sectional geometry.

This fact is as a rule overlooked whenever this question is discussed and much confusion comes from this.
Do not expect to use halfswording techniques with thin flexible and medium wide blades. They are not well suited for such work.

Bill Grandy wrote:

Quote:

The murder stroke is a funny little guy. It's actually a pretty rare strike, though it's shown a lot in Talhoffer. Then again, Talhoffer is known for showing a lot of "tricks" of fighting, almost as an advertisement to prospective students at what he'd teach them. It's actually a little misunderstood, and receives a lot of attention probably for that reason. It's basically done after one has half-sworded and feinted with a thrust. As the opponent pushes the tip aside, you "go with the flow", so to speak (a familiar concept in martial arts) and allow the tip to be pushed aside as you bring the hilt around to strike.

Thanks, Bill-- I have to admit I was wondering when the murder stroke would actually come into play. It seems like all the advantages lie in using the pointy end rather than the hilt/cross, but it wouldn't be in the fechtbuchs unless it was a workable attack. Your example helps alot.

David

Peter Johnsson wrote:

Quote:

The most imprtant aspect of grabbing a shap blade is constantly overlooked in these discussions...

Thanks Peter-- I was hoping you'd join us as the "Talhoffer NG" was what sent me back to Talhoffer himself :)

Part of the problem for me is I have never handled one of these types of blades, so the details regarding the XVa's geometry didn't immediately occur to me. (I very gingerly tried grasping my Baron by the blade, holding it as tightly as I dared... needless to say, it didn't lend itself to being used in the ways described above :) ).

Cheers everyone-- I have been learning lots!

David

Thanks for chiming in, Peter!

I'm glad to hear I'm not pulling this theory of the blade type used out of nowhere. :) I agree with you that it is often overlooked, which is why it's so important to look at many factors and sources when studying these manuscripts (and studying anything, really). Thanks for your input!

Peter: I used to. I'll have to take a few more. It's the Armart S-6, if you're familiar with that line, a one-handed example of either a type XV with an unusualy rounded point, or an XVIII with an unusualy narrow blade, with a rather stout flattened diamond (not hollow-ground) cross-section and an (I think) underweight pommel for the weight of the blade.

I've tried experementing with the murder stroke -hitting soft targets, picking up weights to see how much force I could stand in hooking something, and I feel relatively safe picking up as much as twenty pounds with the cross, but not much more! Enough to hook a blade, or catch someone by the ear and turn their head around quite handily, but not much beyond than that.

This can be done on sharp swords with bare hands. Both swords shown in the photos were fully sharpened and had been used in test cutting. The katana was cold steel, the longsword was German Bastard Sword from Arms and Armors. And I was grabbing the part of the blade that is used for cutting, so it's fully sharpened. Morever, I was holding the whole sword's weight with just the grip on the blade. So you can see this can actually be done without causing injury (you just have to grip tight and be careful. :)

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Hi Lancelot,

I'd agree with Alexi. My question wasn't so much whether one can hold a sharp blade, but how one could grasp a sharp blade in ones hands and then smash someone in the head with the hilt and not lose fingers. Alternatively how could you grasp an opponents blade-- and I imagine he will be doing his utmost to yank it free-- without doing yourself great harm?

With the Baron I could land soft blows on the mattress of my bed, but I could feel that sensation that tells you your skin is close to breaking. I couldn't imagine really trying to hammer someone this way (well... I could, but I'd rather not :) ).

As mentioned by others, it seems certain swords are suited to half-swording/murder strokes/grasping enemy blades; others are not. The XIIa is not (and I suspect the katana isn't either, but then I'm not that familiar with Japanese blades).

Cheers,

David