ARMA has just made public a new and exciting web video series. The official description:

Renaissance Martial Arts - the Web Documentary:
Explore the little known history and heritage of Medieval and Renaissance
Fighting and Fencing skills of European Martial Arts in this unique 10 part
documentary.

You can find the videos through this link. There are 10 videos currently.
http://mefeedia.com/tags/swordsmanship/

p.s.: video named X of 10 is actually part 6.

I'm wondering if that bit of the verbiage in the clip wasn't intended as sarcasm? No-one I know considers the rapier primitive in any way although many portrayals of it's use in films arguably does seem primitive compared to the reality of the calculated manner of historiclly-accurate foyning fence. :confused:

I believe the entire sentence in question was "... the uninformed modern myths of untutored knights in heavy armor clumsily swinging weighty swords, and swashbuckling rogues crudely slashing their primitive rapiers, are shattered by the true history."

When looking at the entire line, I feel pretty comfortable with what they're saying.

note: edited because I DID leave out "primitive". :p

I have just watched through part 6 and am impressed. It seems like the folks at ARMA have put together a well done overview of the western martial tradition.

Ken

Nicely informative and entertaining. Only thing is that some of the narrative seems to lumber along at times. Sometimes brevity can make a point better and be more effective than a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long statement that loses the listener.

Informative, entertaining and a pleasure to watch (althought it gets a bit repetitive towards the last three parts). The music featured was very nice as well

There are some wonderful, rarely seen, images on the videos. Great music choice. Clearly a lot of work was put into producing this.

On the downside, it's too long, and repeats itself. Part 10 is less about revival, than it is about "why 19th c fencing isn't 16th c fencing." And that's fine, but we heard that already. I'm about as big a WMA geek as you'll find, and I thought it was a least two parts too long. I realize that the narrator is not a WMA person, and she is pronouncing words in foreign languages, so I can deal with the turning of Fabris into a Frenchman, and the mangling of the various German names. (Although hearing the word "rapier", repeatedly mispronounced the way the late Ewart Oakshott suggested it *might* have been pronounced in period started to grate. But that's me.) But fact-checking is another matter. Fiore dei Liberi is not "da Malipiero" - Massimo Malipiero is the name of a modern researcher who produced some videos and an Italian edition of the Getty Ms! Nor is Monte the first text focused on wrestling, nor did Carranza come after Fabris. Those are errors that a survey of secondary literature should have corrected.

Memes like the "rapier as a street-fighting weapon" that rose to gentleman's weapon is not substantiated by scholars. Nor is it substantiated by the masters. Quite the contrary in fact, with the lower classes carrying swords and bucklers and long knives in an era when fencing schools were already focusing on the rapier. While the entire "street brawling" angle is over-done to death, most accounts of sudden violence from this period - as we can see in coroner's reports - come from knives/daggers, and improvised weapons. Swords appear, but they are the minority weapon.

The "all-out" fighting comment and the idea that the masters knew there was no place for mercy or chivalric conduct, is also an exaggeration, that ignores the fact that medieval battlefields were not modern ones, nor were everyone practicing these arts professional fighting men. It is quite clear that many burghers joined the fencing guilds for the same reasons people join a tae kwon dojo today - exercise, a little self-defense and fun. It is also incorrect that the judicial duel had no rules or regulations. While they were grim affairs, and often lethal, they were heavily legislated in different times and places, up to and including who must strike first. And of course, the importance of capture and ransom in medieval combat makes the idea of "all-in fighting" a stretch. Indeed, even in the 16th century, Italian writers like Machiavelli were complaining that the condottieri were entirely too chivalric in their conduct - playing elaborate games of capture and ransom - and that this was causing warfare between the city-states to go on with no conclusion.

So, enjoyable and a generally nice ovreview. But I'd rather not trade one set of myths for another.

Hi all,
Would anyone be able to point out where the following image was sourced from?

Thanks!

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Thanks very much Brian!

I tend to have just a touch of motion sickness, so unfortunately, I was unable to watch this video more than a couple of minutes before I began to get sick to my stomach. I agree with the previous poster who suggested fewer shots and slower panning. (I can't watch Battlestar Galactica for the same reason, shakey camera makes me ill.)

Jess

I concur that some arguments were a bit long, we kind of get the idea that HEMA were effective after 2 or 3 videos. And also the fact that living stick traditions were brushed off as being "folks arts" in a phrase or two, when we know they have a much richer history than this and have plenty in common with tthe treaties.

Anyway I'm impatient to see reclaiming the blade :D.