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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 9:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
I personally find it utterly astounding how persistent this type of thinking is.


Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.

Quote:
Many people want to think that life in medieval times was orderly and peaceful, and swordsmen were polite, chivalrous gentlemen who abhorred violence - because that is what they can relate to best.


Who said that?

Quote:
Many people in fact seem to want to separate the violence from fencing entirely, as if it weren't there.


I don't recall that ever being said in this thread. Because if someone here stated that fencing was divorced from violence, I'd tell them they were very misinformed.

Quote:
Some of the same people in many cases who for example believe it is best to learn to fight without ever sparring.


I don't recall anyone in this thread ever mentioning sparring... I know I certainly am not one of these people you mention. Still, I have to wonder why you want to take a passive aggressive jab at people not participating in this thread...?

Quote:
cough.


Jean, can we please drop the condescending sarcasm?

Quote:
It's revealing that you equate "our ancestors" with those who ruled.


When on earth did I say that? And I don't know what's "revealing" about it.

Jean, I don't know what's getting you so riled up, but you seem to be the only one on this thread who's got a personal problem with my post. I don't even know you, so I can't imagine that you have a personal problem with me. I don't mind if you disagree, but there's no need to get so defensive about it. No one else seems to be.

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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 9:44 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
Coming back with some (hopefully) relevant stats about duels and violence in Renaissance France... *snip*


Hi Vincent,
Very nice post. I'm actually very much in agreement with your major points. And I *do* think the rapier's devolpment did have a strong influence with its role as a duelling weapon. It would be ignorant of me not to think this, considering its widespread use in duelling, and the fact that so many rapier masters discussed its use in duels.

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"For practice is better than artfulness. Your exercise can do well without artfulness, but artfulness is not much good without the exercise.” -anonymous 15th century fencing master, MS 3227a
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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 9:55 pm    Post subject: Re: A wee dram of Hobbes if you please         Reply with quote

Jonathan Eells wrote:
This is a great thread. It needs only a little Hobbes from the year 1651 to put the argument into its deservingly proper frame. To wit:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

This was a world (in 1651) rife with rapiers, no?


But I could make that same argument about modern times with just about any randomly selected Metallica song. Wink I could also quote a love poem by Christopher Marlowe and claim that it proved men never committed adultry, but I think that we all know that isn't true!

Either way, that quote is taken out of context... it has nothing to do with rapiers other than it happens to exist during a time when rapiers also happened to exist. I could just as easily say this quote exists in a world that was ripe with cannons. That doesn't mean cannons were invented for street brawling. Or daggers, or quarterstaves, or halberds, or eating utensils, etc.

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"For practice is better than artfulness. Your exercise can do well without artfulness, but artfulness is not much good without the exercise.” -anonymous 15th century fencing master, MS 3227a
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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 10:02 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Michael,

Michael Eging wrote:
Nothern Italy was the violent playground of Empires through much of the Renaissance. We have to be very careful about our broad brushes as Bill rightfully points out, but martial intent and the use of these skills for violent purposes (whether lethal or non lethal) was clearly a major part of the program in some of the regions burned over by military action both on and off the battlefield. And in areas where there were higher levels of stability there was also inconsistent application of law, graft, theft and murder. Jean also pointed out other areas of conflict that were running sores of violence.


I want to clarfiy again that I am *not* saying that violence didn't exist, nor am I saying that there were time periods and areas that didn't have higher levels of violence.

Quote:
All of Europe lawless? No. I agree. But a violent time? Fortified manors. Walled towns (built during the Renaissance). Regions of constant warfare between France, Italian city states and the Holy Roman Empire. Tension and conflict in between Austria and the Ottomans. Banditry. Armies that looted when they won. Armies that looted as they lost and disintegrated into lawless bands.


But if you change a few names in that summary, you're describing most of the modern world. Happy

Quote:
The fencing art came out of this age.


I have to disagree. I'd say it developed long before the Renaissance and Middle Ages, and it certainly was localized to Europe.

Quote:
Chivalric elements. Those were very likely to have been the ideal. However, as we all know, the ideal and the practical/or real application are oft two different things.


Absolutely agreed, just as today. That doesn't mean we should blow it off as irrelevant, either.

I don't think we're really disagreeing very much. Most of what you said, I'm on the same page with. My only concern is the degree with which I see people taking these things (just like when people several years ago would trash Japanese swords, which were supposedly junk compared to the "superior" European swords).

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"For practice is better than artfulness. Your exercise can do well without artfulness, but artfulness is not much good without the exercise.” -anonymous 15th century fencing master, MS 3227a
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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 10:33 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Fabrice Cognot wrote:
Nice post, Vincent.

Add to that the countless fights that were not recorded, or those who took place between commoners.


Uh yeah, I think people love to concentrate on the formal duels of the nobility but the common rabble were hard at it too. Think for example, of the bridge fights in Italy.



http://www.thehaca.com/essays/BridgeWars.htm

Similar events took place routinely in towns all over Europe, and in many rural areas. Hurling in Ireland was a game which was essentially a sportified war. Whole villages would fight for up to three days for one goal as a means of settling disputes, with dozens injured, and deaths were not uncommon. Compensation for victims of such 'judicial' hurling matches was laid out in the Brehon laws.

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/633637

I hope I will be forgiven for being frank, but I believe there is a strong tendency among those of us who want to identify with the past, to try to make it more familiar than it is. You see something you can relate to strongly, you try to make the rest fit into place. As someone who grew up with a certain amount of violence in a poor area, I can really clearly see how many people with more genteel backgrounds don't seem to understand the reality of life in a violent era. It doesn't mean people couldn't function, it just means people were more on their toes and chaos did come in and out of life, death in many forms was a reality on a personal as well as societal level.

Thats why you see death depicted so much, over and over and over again in Renaissance and medieval art.



Only in recent centuries have relatively large masses of people lived for long periods of prosperity and public order sufficient to allow them to forget what violence actually is.

I look to the past, like many of us, and see a lot that I prefer about those days than what I see around me today, but I'm under no illusions that I really understand life without toilet paper or running water.

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 10:48 pm    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

Bill Grandy wrote:
Jean, I don't know what's getting you so riled up, but you seem to be the only one on this thread who's got a personal problem with my post. I don't even know you, so I can't imagine that you have a personal problem with me. I don't mind if you disagree, but there's no need to get so defensive about it. No one else seems to be.


I dont' have a personal problem with you Bill, I have had encounters with this attitude in HEMA which were unpleasant, thats not your fault. I apologize if I was rude.

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 10:49 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Michael Eging wrote:

As to pilgrimages being a sign of certain levels of safety, I read an article lately about tourism in Iraq being completely dead, except for the religious pilgrims who consider this act of pilgrimage to be sacred and well worth the cost of a martyrs death if violence occurs. Pilgrims through the ages brave challenges, including violence. In the late Middle Ages and Rennaisance I would not view the fact that they went as a sign denoting an absence of violence.


No doubt, but most people did not expect to be knifed on their walk to work. Travel was undeniably dangerous, but there is a difference between that and town life.

\quote]
Nothern Italy was the violent playground of Empires through much of the Renaissance.[/quote]

And how! But there is a difference between violence via warfare and the sack of a besieged city, and what Bill is talking about, which is random violence in the street.

The Italian cities were also some of the most legislated, the hardest to arrange judicial duels, and the best suited for bringing felons to justice. Not that this stopped people from "getting themselves corpsified", but it did make it harder.
Giovanni de Medici, the one Medici to serve as a condottiero, challenged and defeated a local fencing master when he was a youth (he was around 13). The fight was illicit, and Giovanni found himself exiled from Florence.

Now, on the one hand, the fight happened (it began as a throw down fencing exhibition). On the other, an adolescent, favored son of the family controlling Florence wasn't able to just brush it under the table.

I don't think that anyone is saying that there wasn't violence, or that it wasn't a more violent world than our own. (Although frankly, 18th and early 19th century London seem a lot more dangerous than their medieval counterpart ever was.) But, I believe that Bill is referring to *spontaneous* violence - the idea that you might be called upon ti draw your sword at a moment's notice, which is what I believe the video he mentions implies. I just don't see any data to suggest that urban life of the 14th - 16th century was like a wandering samurai movie or "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly", either. I can think of 12th century law codes that call drawing more than two fingers of blade to be assault. (As I recall, this also comes up in the Song of Roland.)

*Sword* fights are just not what we see in most of the recording of spontaneous, violent crimes. It is usually knives or improvised weapons. Duels are a rarity in the Late Middle Ages, judicial or otherwise, and some have linked that change to the growing fad for wearing sword about town. As Vincent points out, France was famed for the sheer number of *illicit* duels that occurred during the 16th century. But even so, these duels may have been illicit, but they were rarely unplanned street fights. Yes, the seconds might be drawn into the affair, as in the famed Les Mignons duel, but the very presence on seconds shows that the duel was orchestrated.

Again, no one is saying swords weren't drawn and people cut down - we know they were. But even in places were people today openly wear or conceal firearms, most people are not expecting to be in a fast-draw gunfight, and statistics suggest that they are right. By the same token, to paraphrase from Jean Henri, medieval Cologne wasn't a city in World of Warcraft - the average burgher did not expect his life to be endangered every time he left the house, and if it was, it was far more likely that it would be knives in play than swords.

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 11:09 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:
to paraphrase from Jean Henri, medieval Cologne wasn't a city in World of Warcraft - the average burgher did not expect his life to be endangered every time he left the house, and if it was, it was far more likely that it would be knives in play than swords.


You may want to look closely at the history of Cologne, Greg.

In addition to formal duels, you had:

1) Countless unending political / factional disputes which frequently broke into open warfare, (such as took place between numerous parties within Cologne both before and after they forcibly evicted the Archbishop), but also in nearly every other city in Europe, such as the very well known Guelph / Guibelline rivalry in Italy. Again, some of these flared up into wars, but usually simmered as knifings, lynchings, beatings, defenestrations etc. for long periods between.
2) Religious disputes, purges and persecutions ranging from minor local crackdowns through to major events such as the forcible suppression (or attempted suppression) of heretics such as the famous Albigensien Crusades through the Hussites wars. Many if not most of these started off with escalating incidents of personal violence.
3) Major family feuds which tied closely into 1 and 2 above
4) Neighborhood and county rivalries (especially bitter in Italy) like the bridge fights i mentioned already (ties with 1,2 and 3)
5) Surprise attacks or raids from bandits and pirates, from the Saracens who captured towns in the Cote D'Azur during the Medieval period to Barbary slavers which raided Cornwall to Robber Knights all over Europe in places like Brittany and Croatia, to heavily entrenched pirate enclaves within Europe like the Frisian "Victual Brothers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers
6) Social wars like the Peasant Rebellion in Germany, Wat Tylers Rebellion in England and the Jacquerie in France (which ended up wars but often started out in escalating incidents) or the various wars between classes in Cologne until they finally established their multi tiered assembly, usually followed by years of bloody reprisals and continued tension which could flare up at any time.
7) Bands of Mercenaries, Condottieri etc. roaming the countryside sometimes for years, foraging, semi-disbanded or disbanded... not to mention regular armies foraging during times of war. This was famously a major problem in France after the 100 years war as we know
8) General drunken rowdiness as has already been mentioned, in many areas such as (famously) in the district surrounding the University of Paris going back to it's founding
9) Ordinary crime in a time of severe hardship and almost no social welfare and...
10) Even Medieval serial killers like stubbe peter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stumpp
11) plus dangerous wild animals like the wolves of Paris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_of_paris or the Wolf of Ansebach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_of_Ansbach

You could really just do a microcosm of any one district (of your choice) in Italy and find all of these in spades, plenty of reason to carry a weapon and for a fact, armor especially if traveling in the countryside.

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 11:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think the life of Cervantes illustrates what I mean pretty well about modern perceptions of the ancient world. We know Cervantes for his great literary work, his voice reminds us of that of many educated gentleman authors of today. A lot of people don't know that as a soldier he was horribly wounded in combat and was later in life (as a civilian) captured by Barbary Corsairs and made into a galley slave for five years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervantes#Soldier_and_captive

Read about the lives of guys like Dante or Macchiavelli if you haven't already, it puts things into perspective a bit..

J

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PostPosted: Wed 30 Jul, 2008 11:24 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:

Again, no one is saying swords weren't drawn and people cut down - we know they were. But even in places were people today openly wear or conceal firearms, most people are not expecting to be in a fast-draw gunfight, and statistics suggest that they are right. By the same token, to paraphrase from Jean Henri, medieval Cologne wasn't a city in World of Warcraft - the average burgher did not expect his life to be endangered every time he left the house, and if it was, it was far more likely that it would be knives in play than swords.


As with today time and place makes a big difference how likely one is of having to defend oneself but the possibility was always there . As well, leaving the house without a knife or dagger, would depending on culture, be like going out naked or at least out of fashion.

As can be said today, where it is legal to do so: Better to be armed and not need it than need to be armed and not be. Wink Cool

A polite gentleman, avoiding disreputable parts of town during the night would probably have had a lesser chance of having to defend oneself than a rude and rowdy youth looking for trouble or stupidly provoking violence in a bad part of town.

Oh and no matter how safe a society there are always predators out there. Evil

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Bill Grandy
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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 7:03 am    Post subject: Re: Romanticizing the anti-romantic: views on historical WMA         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
I apologize if I was rude.


No worries. That's just the internet. Happy

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 8:44 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Michael Eging wrote:


As to pilgrimages being a sign of certain levels of safety, I read an article lately about tourism in Iraq being completely dead, except for the religious pilgrims who consider this act of pilgrimage to be sacred and well worth the cost of a martyrs death if violence occurs. Pilgrims through the ages brave challenges, including violence. In the late Middle Ages and Rennaisance I would not view the fact that they went as a sign denoting an absence of violence.


I think you missed what I was trying to say. I wasn't using it as an argument for an absence of violence, but rather as a baseline, if most of the city life "back home" could be considered to be much more free of violent crime than the paths of the pilgrims. I know it was unsafe and that people went anyway. There are volumes of work on the subject, and historical accounts of pilgrims' bones littering the side of the road. My point is that if medieval Europe really was as violent and lawless as many make it out to be, then how much worse would the pilgrimage paths have to be in order for them to have received so much attention for their risk and danger? You'd think the road would be paved with bones.

I could be way off the mark, certainly. Most folks here are far more well read than I am. But I thought this was worth considering.

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 8:54 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Tim May wrote:
Concerning chivalry, there was much written in the middle ages. The French Romances, Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, Gawain and the Green Knight, much of Chaucer, but while so much was written about it this does not necessarily mean it was the truth. Upon examination, many of these texts, especially Gawain and some of Chaucer (these also are the two with which I am most familiar) chivalry is the very impetus of the story. Despite this, more often than not it is the failure of this chivalry, the fragility of it that is of paramount importance.


As others have pointed out, often what is written about is the extraordinary, rather than the ordinary. But I think there's another area that tends to get written about as well, and that's where there's a perceived need for improvement. It's been suggested that many of the virtues of chivalry that were written about were the subject of such writings so frequently simply because there was so much room for improvement. This doesn't imply any sort of extreme of being an unrealized ideal, just as no one expects that it was rigidly adhered to either. But rather, it was important enough that it needed to be continually addressed and worked at. It's hard to know to what degree people fell short of the various chivalric ideals, since the implication is more indicative of the perceived importance, I think.

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 9:26 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Greg Mele wrote:
to paraphrase from Jean Henri, medieval Cologne wasn't a city in World of Warcraft - the average burgher did not expect his life to be endangered every time he left the house, and if it was, it was far more likely that it would be knives in play than swords.


You may want to look closely at the history of Cologne, Greg.



A very nice post, Jean Henri. I understand, but that is also civic strive over a period of three centuries. The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.

Look, let's take a single American city - New York - in the 19th century and talk about the violent crime there involving immigration problems, gang wars, labor riots, arson, smuggling and simple larceny, rape, etc. Or, New Orleans, which you could speak to better than I, but which was famous for its strife. The average medieval city during any one generation didn't have a big edge on these places for violence - and frankly, they all seemed to pale compared to late Republican Rome, which had 1 million people, and no formal police force.

And yet - we don't see evidence that the average person was a highly-trained martial artist, or even a trained one; we don't see that the bulk of the population is carrying swords (indeed the contrary, *particularly* in the Middle Ages), and we don't see runaway murder rates - and murders do get recorded. Was wandering late medieval Venice as safe as wandering the Chicago Loop? No, I rather doubt it. It wasn't Nevernever Land. But it wasn't Deadwood, either. That's all Bill and I are saying.

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 1:53 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:
Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Greg Mele wrote:
to paraphrase from Jean Henri, medieval Cologne wasn't a city in World of Warcraft - the average burgher did not expect his life to be endangered every time he left the house, and if it was, it was far more likely that it would be knives in play than swords.


You may want to look closely at the history of Cologne, Greg.



A very nice post, Jean Henri. I understand, but that is also civic strive over a period of three centuries. The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.

Look, let's take a single American city - New York - in the 19th century and talk about the violent crime there involving immigration problems, gang wars, labor riots, arson, smuggling and simple larceny, rape, etc. Or, New Orleans, which you could speak to better than I, but which was famous for its strife. The average medieval city during any one generation didn't have a big edge on these places for violence - and frankly, they all seemed to pale compared to late Republican Rome, which had 1 million people, and no formal police force.

And yet - we don't see evidence that the average person was a highly-trained martial artist, or even a trained one; we don't see that the bulk of the population is carrying swords (indeed the contrary, *particularly* in the Middle Ages), and we don't see runaway murder rates - and murders do get recorded. Was wandering late medieval Venice as safe as wandering the Chicago Loop? No, I rather doubt it. It wasn't Nevernever Land. But it wasn't Deadwood, either. That's all Bill and I are saying.


Before I respond to your points Greg, maybe we should seriously take a look at a particular part of the world, or maybe two or three places for comparison. We know something about the stats of England, but Italy or the HRE might be more relevant to the HEMA / sword collecting context. Maybe we should zero in on a particular town over the course of the 15th century say, Venice or Florence or Cologne, or Ulm or Milan or Prague or somewhere and really look at it. Anyone game?

We can look at crime, regulations, all the kinds of events I mentioned, and maybe that will put this in a better context, since we all do know that Europe was and is a big place. Lets compare apples to apples.

Once we've done that I think it might be interesting to compare 19th century Deadwood or Dodge City or New Orleans or New York to some of these towns in early Renaissance Italy or the HRE in the 15th or 16th...

J

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 2:06 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:
The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.


Ever heard of the Marx Bruder or the Federfechter?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federfechter

The latter were believed to be a scribes guild initially which got into fencing. The code monkeys of their day. I personally like their attitude:

"Who despises me and my praiseworthy craft, I'll hit on the head that it resound in his heart."

--Augustin Staidt, Federfechter:

...which sadly today only sees expression among these kinds of workers in the virtual realms of HALO or WoW.

J

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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 2:45 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jean-Henri's post just made me realize I got lost somewhere Wink

Greg Mele wrote:
The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.


Why exactly are we concerned about the average person expectations of violence? Surely, as martial artists we should be looking for the expectations of the people who trained in these arts, no? This is not likely to be a representative of Joe Worker in all periods (perhaps none). It could very well be that the subset of martial arts students expected to face a significantly higher level of violence in daily life. Certainly true of nobles studying rapier in my opinion...

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Vincent
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Greg Mele
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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 2:53 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Greg Mele wrote:
The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.


Ever heard of the Marx Bruder or the Federfechter?


Yes, and most of them trained to fence for recreation and service in a town militia. They weren't wearing their sword around.

Also, we've all agreed that travel was a dangerous activity. But we don't have records of hordes of Marxbruder breaking heads against the ruffians of Munich.

I am more than happy to compare a single locale, but I'm leaving town for a week, so it will have to wait until I get back.

Greg Mele
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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 2:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
Jean-Henri's post just made me realize I got lost somewhere Wink

Greg Mele wrote:
The issue is what is the average person likely to expect on a day-to-day basis. Not soldiers, not nobles, and not scum. Joe Worker. And it ain't a sword-fight.


Why exactly are we concerned about the average person expectations of violence? Surely, as martial artists we should be looking for the expectations of the people who trained in these arts, no? This is not likely to be a representative of Joe Worker in all periods (perhaps none). It could very well be that the subset of martial arts students expected to face a significantly higher level of violence in daily life. Certainly true o
f nobles studying rapier in my opinion...


Yes, it was true in the 16th century, for nobles - but Bill's point was that the videos suggest that this level of violence was true throughout society of the 14th - 17th centuries, and Jean Henri asked him to quit focusing on nobles.

Greg Mele
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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Thu 31 Jul, 2008 3:00 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Greg Mele wrote:
Jean Henri asked him to quit focusing on nobles.


Please don't put words in my mouth Greg, I wasn't asking anyone to do anything, just expanding the data set to make a clearer picture, like a good code-monkey that I am.

J

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