When I first got into reading about WMA, I began a bit with the longsword. I changed over to I.33 form not too long after as I found bucklers neat, and have considered giving longsword another look as there seems to be so much written on it.

As one step towards knowing more, I'd like to ask what the difference in the schools of longswordsmanship are. That is, what makes Johannes Liechtenauer's (German) work "different" from Sir Fior Furlan de Civida d'Austria dei Liberi da Premariacco's work (Italian, and why would anyone name themselves that), "different" from Sigmund Ringeck (Another German), "different" from Hans Tallhoffer (another German!) and "different" from George Silver's work (Englishman)? What generally makes the German, English, and Italian schools distinctive from each other, outside of differences between individual members of their school? What other schools existed other than German, Italian, and English?

M.

That's a huge question. What's the difference between Jujitsu and Aikijitsu? What's the difference between Yang Taijiquan and Shaolin Gong Fu? There are a lot of differences between the arts, and there are a lot of similarities.

I'll tell you this, though: The largest difference between schools is the terminology. The second largest difference are certain tactical approaches. For example, the Liechtenauer tradition tends to have a preferences for stepping out from an attack when countering, while Fiore seems to have a stronger preference for stepping into an attack to "smother" it when countering. Both have many of the same plays, or remarkably similar ones, but the way they lay the plays out and the way they present their material differs in many ways.

I don't study Silver, but I suspect he may be a little different than the above due to the fact that he lived a couple hundred years later. Overall, though, I doubt even his style is drastically different other than in philosophy.

There are presumably hundreds of styles, though you can likely lump many together as regional variants. Out of the medieval styles, we have the most documentation of the Liechtenauer tradition and of Fiore's school. There is some work left over from what the English were doing, but not a lot.

And on a similar note, it isn't so much "longsword styles" as it is "martial arts styles". The longsword is just one weapon within these systems. It happens to have a strong focus because it encapsulates the variaous subtlties of the art, and if you understand its use, then you understand the basics of other weapons, but it still is only a fraction of the whole.

Liechtenauer, Ringeck and Talhoffer is progress in the same system of fighting.

To understand Ringeck you have to understand Liechtenauer, to understand Talhoffer you have to understand Ringeck.

Liechtenauer is the base that Ringeck and Talhoffer builds their fighting on.

Bill has said some good things. One difference is the changing emphasis and teaching style of different authors. Some treatises contain things meant to show off or impress a crowd, others concentrate on hostile combat. Some of the German treatises concentrate on judicial duelling there, and its rules and choices of weapons. Some rely on words, others use illustrations a lot. And so on ...

We really don't know about schools outside of Germany and Italy due to the lack of sources. There would have been a slightly-different school for each master, just like there was in Italy or Germany, but none of them wrote a lengthy treatise which has survived to today (with the exception of some English texts which are full of undefined jargon).

There are literally hundreds of fight manuals (the Kelvingrove has quite a selection in store), but very few have been studied.

The good thing about the German system is that it's rather well understood at this point. Some make the same arguement for the Italian system, but when you have many authors writting on the same techique, you can cross reference them to get their meaning, whereas with the Italian system, you only have two (early period) sources.

Within the German system, what advances distinguish the major masters from each other?

M.