This was never meant to be an article and just started as a short response to a sports fencer who is looking into the history of the foil. I copied my response and added some images and a bit more text, but it isn't as strict as I normally try to keep my articles. So take it for what it is. Should interest some of you still. :)

http://www.hroarr.com/brief-description-on-tr...n-history/

Thank you!

Interesting, thanks for posting. I was not aware that longsword was practiced that far into the 18th century.

Glad you liked it. I suspect longsword and dusack would still have been in use for learning fencing if that damn Napoleon hadn't messed things up... :)

I'll make it easy for myself. :)

Quote:

In 1726, Gottfired Rudolf Pommer auf Bugenhagen mentions in his publication "Sammlung von Merktwurdigkeiten"[11] (collection of oddities) the use of long swords at the time in fencing schools of the Marxbrüder and Federfechter. Most fencers of the 18th century viewed long sword fencing as a curious thing and it was probably only taught in the few remaining fencing schools of the Marxbrüder and Federfechter and some stage fencing schools.[12][13] The very last practitioners of long sword fencing may be slowly extinct with the dissolution of the Marxbrüder and Federfechter around the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century.[14][15] The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung mentioned on 16. April 1862 the death of an unnamed, 76 year old (former) member the Marksbrüder (who was a practitioner of fencing in his teenage years in the early 1800s, and was born 1786), which was possibly the very last living member until then.[16][17]

http://fechtschule.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/last-fechtschule/

http://talhoffer.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/174...frankfurt/

We have at least three contemporary 18th cent illustrations showing fencing with longswords, dusack, staff, rapier and halberd.[/quote]