[Michael Brudon]

gents, do we have any professional historians/academics enjoying arms and armour here. As a layman I have been wondering about the ratio and relationship between aficianados and academics on the subjects we discuss. Also whether historical groups have any influence or basically get respect from top end academics or institutions?

Two things stimulated me to wondering this in particular. One is the discussions and interpretations on fight manuals, and fighting styles. Who is the cutting edge on this? The hobbyist or some professor at a prestigious university? And if the hobbyist would universities even care about the subject.

Another is when I see the site 'think tank' a particular issue, like a request trying to find a particular reference to a weapon, or a historical picture or museum example and we get heaps of examples being posted. As a source of general information, is myArmoury 'up there' so to speak, or is there another level which has access to information and artefacts we do not?

Layman questions as you can tell, hopefully someone knows what I am trying to ask

[Mark T]

Hi Michael,

As an initial response, I'll kick off by offering:

- Yes, there are few academics here. I'll let them self-nominate!

- And others who, while they may not participate here, have been very influential on HEMA - and have been actively engaged with HEMA events and practitioners (such as Jeffrey Forgeng).

- There are also people here who currently work, or who have worked in the past, in museums, such as Toby and Randall.

- There are also a couple of people in the wider community who've completed in-depth study - for example, to PhD level - specifically in arms and armour, the fechtbucher, and/or period languages (such as Fabrice Cognot, Matthias Goll, Keith Alderson, and others). And there are many more who, if their work were to be documented within academic contexts, would have been awarded similar recognition a long time ago. I wonder if it's only a matter of time before we see some honorary degrees bestowed on people who have done a lot of research?

- Some HEMA instructors also teach at university level.

As for myArmoury, I personally think the discussion here is about as good as it gets on a publicly-accessed forum. There can sometimes be more 'high end' discussion at the Arms and Armour Forum (not to be confused with The Armour Archive ... although there's occasionally some gems there) ... but then the amount of traffic on AAF is far less, and some topics may languish.

One of the real strengths, I think, about myArmoury is the wide variety of members of this community, who can really bring wide, diverse, and obscure knowledge - irrespective of formal, recognised academic attainment - to bear on topics they're passionate about.

Another is that, for the most part, people don't guess or throw out wild theories - at least, without naming them as such. Some might still slip into discussions, but I reckon Nathan has done a great job of both encouraging discussion and debate, while also promoting rigour and evidence.

Just my buck o' five!