It is my great pleasure to announce that before the end of this month, Fallen Rook will publish my new book, Lessons on the Thrust. This book presents an English translation of Jéann Daniel L'Ange's German treatise on rapier fencing, originally published 350 years ago, in 1664.

For more information, check:
https://www.facebook.com/LessonsontheThrust
The book will be available here:
http://www.historical-academy.co.uk/publishin...thrust.php
And should also become available through amazon.co.uk


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Over on the Schola Forum, I was asked if this book would be a good introduction for someone interested in starting rapier fencing. Here is my answer:

That is an excellent question, and I will do my best to give a good answer.
I have never looked at L'Ange from the point of view of a non-Rapierist, as I already had several years of rapier done when I first read this work.

That said,

I think that L'Ange could be an excellent treatise to get started on training rapier. He is concise, very clear, gives good descriptions of the actions, which are also illustrated very well, and has a logical structure. He presents his style through well-explained lessons that a beginner could practice to learn the movements and the tactical applications of the various techniques.

This is what Keith Farrell had to say about it:

Quote:

This book provides a fascinating insight into the world of 17th century German rapier. Although I have undertaken very little study into this discipline, I feel that the book has a lot of value to offer me in terms of broadening my understanding of 17th century fencing arts. There are some similarities to other German martial arts that I did not expect to see, which intrigues me greatly. There are pieces of advice for using these skills in real combat situations - and some of them are quite surprising, although supported by L'Ange's personal experience. Reinier's translation has made this book very accessible, even to a longsword practitioner like myself.

Regarding the style of fencing,

L'Ange's treatise was published in 1664, and by then rapier fencing has changed relative to the more commonly studied style of 60 years earlier. The postures are more upright than shown in for instance Fabris, the blades were likely lighter, resulting in more blade actions (most likely contact in the bind, double feints, parry-riposte more prevalent etc), and in my interpretation, the style is strongly based on keep the hilt on, or almost on, the centre line. This allows a very strong minimalisation of movement, especially when compared to the (often very wide) parries etc we see practitioners of for instance Giganti make. So, yes, there are some differences with earlier work here.


All in all, I think this would definitely be a good book for a beginner to get started on, and I would love to see more people work with this later style of rapier fencing.

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I am more than a little proud to announce that it is here. Exactly 350 years after its initial publication in Heidelberg, Germany, Jéann Daniel L'Ange's Deutliche und gründliche Erklärung der adelichen und ritterlichen freyen Fecht-Kunst is now available in English.
The book can now be pre-ordered through the Corsair Ware online shop,

http://www.corsairs-wares.com/martial-arts/in...ts_id=1972