Greetings everyone!

Well, I've been lucky for Christmas... I received a facsimile of Girard Thibault's Académie de l'espée, the Kubik new edition :cool: :D

This really is a most impressive book. I know it has been dismissed in the past as a monumental dead-end, but still... From what little I've already read, it seems to be written in a clear and logical fashion. It is well structured, organised in chapters, each containing a plate and focusing on a specific aspect (cuts, drawing the sword, etc... I will make a list of those, in order to be able to find my way back and forth). It is far easier to read than the other French manual I have, the Traicté contenant les secrets du premier livre sur l'espée seule, by Henri de Saint-Didier. Maybe that's because it was written later, also. Anyway, as a French native speaker, I enjoy this book immensely, as it gives me a direct contact with a manual, without the need for a translation. It's always funnier to build your own interpretation and then to compare with what others said :)

There is a specific point that I was not aware of, and that I'd like to discuss here. Thibault very specifically advocates an original way of gripping the sword. I saw the plates already, but I thought it was just a stylistic difference (the grip I'm talking about can be seen here. Look at how the swords are held at the bottom). In fact Thibault insists heavily that swords are held in that way and not any other, straight from the beginning. He also says that other ways of holding the sword are discussed later, to show that they are not convenient for the techniques he exposes, but I haven't come across those passages yet.

This has raised my curiosity :) The grip he advocates is special in two different ways. First, the index is wrapped around the false edge quillon, such that the hand is in fact on the opposite side when compared with a more usual grip. The back of the hand is thus on the inner side, under the counter guard. Second, the thumb is not opposed to the index, but instead it is placed on the ricasso, under the counter guard.

The first specificity, I think, could be a result of the way Thibault draws his sword. From looking at the plates, it seems that at the beginning of the draw, he grips the sword with the palm on the outside, a bit as it is done in iaido. I have yet to study the details of the draw, this is just what it looks like on the plate. It's not something that has a big impact on handling anyway, I believe, since the quillons, handle, and blade are all symmetrical
The position of the thumb, however, has a far greater impact. I did some experimentation with my Milanese rapier (not really the kind of sword appropriate for Thibault, I know). I found that it gives a better feel of the tip action, an overall greater precision and versatility changing lines and angles. The quillons are also way easier to control. They feel stronger, able to redirect and set aside the opponent's blade if need be. I think this is exactly the reason Thibault is so fond of this grip. He explicitly mentions that

Quote:

of this sole position depends the certainty of a good part of all the operations, and are founded the most noble deeds of thrusts in attack or defence; and this is made sure by the situation of the cross, and by the strength of the blade, held in such manner.

(sloppy translation by me ;) )

Why am I focusing on this, you could ask? The thing is, I don't have a rapier appropriate for Thibault's style. So I'm probably going to buy one. But I'm not sure I want it to be specifically what Thibault advocates, it's likely that I will look at other styles too. So I was wondering about what form of hilt I should choose. I believe I will go with Darkwood Armory, which proposes plenty of choices, with good quality from what I heard. What Thibault recommends looks like this half-hilt. However, my personal tastes drives me more towards a swept hilt such as this or this. What I would like to know is whether the grip proposed by Thibault would work on a swept hilt or not. I'm especially worried by the knuckle guard...

I suppose it should work, because the swept hilt was very common by Thibault's time, and so he must have tried that. However, I'd be very grateful if someone owning a swept hilt could try out this special grip, just to be sure it is possible and not dangerous or awkward due to the extra bars... I'm also interested in any extra advice or impressions about this grip or the more general subject of choosing a rapier :)


Thanks in advance!

It appears to me that the grip Thibault talks about essentially rotates the sword 90 degrees in the hand compared to the conventional way, ie. places the knucklebow towards the palm rather than in line with the knuckles. This means that when you extend your hand with the palm down, a very natural and comfortable position, the outside guards face outwards, the knucklebow down, and the counterguards inside; this, to me, feels like a very secure and, again, natural arrangement. If you lower your hand, or raise it above the shoulder, keeping the wrist in the same position but rotating the arm as feels natural, the quillons now automatically point out to the sides , providing solid defense, whereas with the conventional grip (with true edge aligned with the knuckles) you have to twist your wrist in order to bring the edge to bear for a parry.

I also find pointing the true edge up or down, left or right easier than with the traditional grip.

It's kind of a transitional gripping method between rapiers and smallswords, if you get my meaning (and assuming I'm not completely off the track), retaining the finger hooked around the quillon and through the ring like with the rapier, but with the thumb pinching the ricasso as with the smallsword. A lot like gripping a parrying dagger with the thumb on the flat of the blade, in fact.

The only thing it requires of the hilt, as far as I can tell, is that the inside guards not extend so far above the cross as to hinder your wrist. Any swept, cup, ring or whatever hilt with unobtrusive knucklebow and additional bars (if any) should be perfectly fine.

Thibault's book is simply very amazing in it's clarity. We just finished the release party and seminar in conjunction with John Michael Greer's translation here in November. After about 10 years it is finally available from Chiv. Bookshelf.

Regarding the grip. Hold your rapier in the typical manner with one finger over the quillon and below the recaso. Extend your arm straight out and turn the rapier into a seconda position. Now take your thumb and move it up so that the tip of the pad of your thumb rests on the quillon. Now the quillons are horizontal to the floor and both the thumb and the index finger are on top of the quillons. The thumb pressing down on the quillon to the left and the index finger wrapped over the quillon to the right. (This places any knucklebow to your right) Hope that helps. Secondarily you should note the grip change that Thibault advocates, you should be able to drop the thumb transfering back to the traditional grip for cutting purposes. It is important when you consider this not to get your thumb too far over the quillon or you wont be able to transition quickly and smoothly.

As far as a swept hilt goes.... I think it would be fine ultimately. Proveded the sweeps to the knuckle bow aren't going to interfere with your hand/wrist in Thibault's grip. The real kicker is that Thibault's techniques rely heavily on those straight quillons.

FYI - there is evidence to support that Thibault's grip may be influenced by a method used in Amsterdam and Leiden by Peter Bailley and Ludolf Von Cullen. (sp)

There is a discussion group at distreza@yahoogroups.com which has some of the leading researchers on Thibault on it in the English speaking world including John Michael Greer and Mathew Howden. It's a good place to ask questions on the subject. I am unaware of what might be going on in the French Speaking circles besides the Girard Six publication of the facsimile.

Vincent, it appears from that plate you linked to that you are absolutely correct in the fact that the index finger is looped over the false edge and not the true! I know little of Thibault, but that illustration clearly shows the index finger over the false edge instead of the true, where it normally is in the rapier grip. Very interesting indeed.... thanks for pointing that out.

Well,

I looked at the other plates, and it appears that Thibault's opponent sometimes uses the "traditional" grip, with rapier and dagger for example. So the fingering of the false edge quillon is really something intentional, and not an error in the drawings (unlikely given the quality of the plates, but...).

I'm increasingly convinced also, without being able to back it up with solid proofs yet, that the swords found in Thibault were just some sort of training implements, thus the hilt reduced to its simplest form. Would be coherent with the representations of the longswords in book II, which look like training longswords or greatswords to me.

This would mean that one should not necessarily be obsessed with getting the exact right blade length recommended by Thibault, nor the exact same hilt. The principles hold true and do not depend on the absence of knuckle bow or a few inches of blade length. This is however less explicit than when Thibault writes about his circle, saying essentially that complete understanding of the geometry and faithful respect of proportions is not paramount. The circle is a training tool, and he says that it should be built around the proportions of an average person, describing how someone taller or smaller should adapt the steps.

So, I think I will stick with a swept hilt. Now I just have to choose which style of swept hilt ;)

Thanks to everyone for the great input!

Greetings Vincent, et all;

If I might, I'd like to take a moment to chime in on this conversation. It's good to see more folks interested in Thibault's system. I, myself have been researching and practicing his methods since around 1998 and have loved every minute of it.

I would like to begin by noting that, I believe the difference between what Jeff Richardson and Vincent are describing with regard to the grip is one of practical -vs- typological definition. Specifically, I am referring to the definitions of true -vs- false edge. From the perspective of a sword/hilt typologist, the true edge is always the edge which is oriented in the same direction as the knuckle bow. Thibault grips the sword with the outer guard toward the palm and, since the true edge should be oriented to the left if the outer guard is facing downward, from a typologists perspective, Thibaults finger is over the false edge quillon. From a practical perspective, the true edge is generally considered to be the edge which is oriented in the same direction as the knuckles, while the false edge is oriented toward the thumb. Provided that you are dealing with a dual edged blade this becomes predominantly a distinction of how much strength can be reasonably applied to a technique based on which edge is being used as true edge techniques tend to be stronger than false edge techniques in most applications (superior skeletal alignment, etc).

Second, Vincent, you are absolutely correct in your assesment that the wrist is next to the pommel and not above it. Having a knucklebow on this side of the sword does, in fact force the wrist into an unnatural and misaligned posture, resulting in a host of issues, including decreased elbow mobility, increased shoulder fatigue, and exposure of the low line due to the requisite engagement of muscles which could otherwise be left more relaxed.

Regarding the use of longswords/greatswords, daggers, bucklers, etc, Thibault is using these to demonstrate how the combattant, using only one sword but supported by the true knowledge of his system can defeat these other false weapons. Thibault is very plainly spoken in his derision of any form of sword practice other than that of the single rapier without any companion.

It is, however, correct that Thibault uses two grips. In a number of circumstances, most notably when cutting, Thibault has Alexander lower his thumb below the quillon as described in Chapter Six, Circle 6:
"Alexander continues the operation, continuing to turn his right side forward together with his sword arm, which he frees at the same time ferom beneath the opposing sword with a movement of his wrist, allowing the thumb, which is braced against the inside quillon, to slide under it. He turns the wrist at the same time, and puttin gthe sword on edge, he brings the point up above the opposing sword." - Thibault (trans. John Michael Greer).
At the conclusion of this change of grip, the sword is held in a "standard" grip. If a knucklebow was present on the left side of the guard, it would now be pressed against the wrist and interfering with your ability to bring the sword on edge.

In my experience, without being able to perform the transitions between the two grips one cannot fully implement the full range of techniques which are basic to Thibaults system. I, personally have not found any means of managing both grips satisfactorilly with a sword that has a knucklebow. As such, I would heartily discourage a swept hilt. Your mileage may vary.

Cheers,
Matthew Howden

As you begin to work more into the sections dealing with sentiment and bent-arm techniques, I think you will find that the presence of a knucklebow really gets in the way. This is especially true with the rapier -vs- longsword section.

I would also like to point out that Thibault is somewhat meticulous with regard to his presentation of his art. While Thibault does not directly answer the question of whether or not the sword should have a knuckle-bow, he does give us some clues:
"From these measures it is clear what form the hilt should have. On this subject so many new inventions come forth every day from all sides, and with so little foundation, as though the hilt were made to serve as a simple personal ornament, rather than something useful to have in times of necessity. Some make the quillons hooked or curved ... others make the guards into baskets all around the grip; all to make I don't know what parade of courage, or rather of cowardice.... The form of the hilt that we have given here is simple and honest, even in civil conversation, and does not fail to be entirely sufficient for defense.... " -Thibault (trans by John Michael Greer), Chapter 2.
When turned to the description of specific actions, Thibault's clarity of presentation begins to border on the obsessive and we are, in most cases, left with little or no room for interpretation of precisely the actions he is describing.

Additionally, we know that the engravers Thibault hired were of excellent quality and that Thibault, himself no stranger to art and illustration, worked with them to develop the engravings to his rather exacting specifications (see Verwey, Herman de la Fontaine "Gerard Thibault and his Academy de l'espee"). They would have had no great difficulty in representing at least one of the swords with a swept hilt and, indeed, in many of the plates it would have made no difference whatsoever with regard to the clarity of the figures.

Regarding the common availability of swept hilt -vs- half hilt rapiers. Thibault was certainly not one to bow to convention or fashion. Quite the opposite. My personal opinion is that he had quite other reasons for his decisions. The primary blade control technique in Thibault's system is subjection (placing ones blade above and across the opponents blade). When attempting to achieve subjection, the underside of the hand tends to be far more threatened and exposed than the top side of the hand. This is especially true when facing other systems which employ lower guards (Capo Ferro or Fabris, for example). Given that the "outer" guard provides the greatest protection against thrusts, it would make sense to place the outer guard on the side of the hand which is most threatened by thrusts. I have experimented with rotating the guard around so that the rings are at the top of the hand and I find that I am much less secure in the techniques and must be considerably more careful due to the increased exposure to the hand in this position. While this issue might have been rather simple to get around by, as you say, using a symmetrical guard, such guards were, as far as I have seen in my admittedly limited researches, quite rare during the time when Thibault was writing.

Cheers,
Matthew[/i]

These are all good points, and I really can't argue given my lack of practical experience. I was under the impression that the hilt described by Thibault was a sort of minimum requirement for his practice. It seemed to me that his contempt for those "new inventions" in the passage you cited was more a sort of moral position, rather than a practical one. He does give practical advice concerning the quillons, and why they should be straight, and concerning the length of the guard that allows to use safely the techniques he describes, but nothing indeed about knucklebows... I also admit I have trouble making out from the illustrations alone whether or not a knucklebow would interfere.

Well at this stage I think I'll contact Darkwood Armory and see what my options are. I still would like to have a swept-hilt if only just to see and experiment by myself. So depending on the ratio of prices for individual components I could go with a swept-hilt rapier alone, or one blade, one grip and one pommel but two guards (swept-hilt and half-hilt) or even two full rapiers with different hilts (depending on shipping costs it could be interesting to get two rapiers straight away rather than deciding later that I'd like to have another blade).

I'm looking forward to discussing further with you about Thibault once I'm a little better equipped ;)

Kindest regards

Im glad to have run into this thread here. I got the Chivalry Bookshelf version of Thibault. The Spanish school was my original academic exposure to Western swordplay, and I have been waiting for better resources.

I will definitely get on that newsgroup. I have spent almost 15 years studying/practicing Hsing-I/Tai Chi/ Bagua, and it is commonly noticed that Bagua walks a circle, and so does Destretza, however after having gone through in some detail about half of Thibault's book, the similiarity is enormous. Granted, Jian and Dao dont operate the same way as a rapier, but about 75 -80% of the drills and circles described by Thibault are nearly identical to exercises/techniques Ive done in Chinese Internal styles, actually more Tai Chi like than Bagua. Many of Thibaults circles are variations depending on how forceful the blade movement of the opponent is, and his language and even technical responses are very, very coherent from the context of the Asian style.

Its fascinating to see how these very esoteric Chinese ideas were grasped at such a high level by the Spanish. I notice at the beginning Thibault talks a bit about Plato, and I think the ideas of Platonic forms and such can put you in the same water as those who were thinking as Taoists.

Picking up two hilts sounds like a good plan. Any of the Darkwood hilts styled after AVB Norman's hilt type 43 should be perfect as far as the half-hilt goes.

One of the fun things about Thibault's treatise is his method of presenting proofs. There are a number of cases where Thibault presents the idea that moral truth and practical truth are intertwined. He makes a number of allusions to the idea that his system works because it is supported by "natural truth" and that the swordsman who would be successfull must not attempt to do so through dishonest means. The idea is that a thing must be morally true in order to be practically true. This is, in fact, quite in keeping with the philosophical environment Thibault would likely have been exposed to during his childhood in Amsterdam. As such, when he makes moral or philosophical judgements about specific things (hilts, for example), we can interpret that as meaning he feels the subject has some bearing on the practical aspects of the fight.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Matthew