A Brief Look at European Masters of Defence

By John Clements

The idea of a "martial arts master" is something typically associated almost exclusively with Asian fighting arts.  However, this is not the case. This is no surprise since popular media and Hollywood are notorious for misrepresenting Medieval and Renaissance fighting.  The vast number of modern books on Medieval and Renaissance military history or warfare also give little attention to the martial skills of the time.   The Medieval warrior’s craft is often reduced to the notion that combatants merely bludgeoned one another or hacked and slashed savagely, while Renaissance arts are presented strictly as "musketeers" theatrically fencing.  Each is a myth unsupported by either historical information, archeological and iconographic evidence, or modern reconstruction. From Ancient times to the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, all the way to the 19^th century substantial European martial arts flourished.  A multitude of martial art styles were developed and practiced from the Greek Peninsula, to Spain, the British Isles, Germany and Scandinavia, to Russia, the Baltics and Turkey.

There are considerable historical sources for European martial arts masters and their methods.  Numerous rare Medieval and Renaissance fighting manuals produced by martial masters of the age have survived.  These manuals show a range of both rudimentary and advanced techniques.  These works, along with literary descriptions of battles at the time and depictions of fighting in books and artwork, provide a firm foundation on which to understand the skills of Medieval masters-at-arms and Renaissance fencing masters.  Outside of historical-fencing enthusiasts, some re-creational or living-history societies, and literary academics, few people are aware of the multitude of European fighting experts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, or Masters of Defence, as they were known.  Few know of their diverse fighting styles, and their many surviving instructional manuals. 

These Masters of Defence recognized that armed and unarmed fighting were only facets of over personal combat and taught an integrated art accordingly.  Their many manuscripts and printed books surviving describe sophisticated and effective techniques for swords, shields, spears, staffs, poleaxes, daggers, as well as grappling, throws, takedowns, holds, and ground-fighting skills.   They were expert warriors and teachers and a far cry from any of today’s modern Western boxing and wrestling coaches or mere sport fencing experts. In 1614, the English gentleman George Hale wrote a short critical booklet on the English masters and gave his own recommendations for the use of the rapier and quarterstaff.  Hale is critical of sporting notions and public performances interfering with sincere martial knowledge.   In his, 1617 "The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence", Sir Joseph Swetnam wrote: "Then he is not worthy to be called a Master of Defence, which cannot defend himself at all weapons,…and therefore greatly wronged are they which will call such a one a Fencer, for the difference between a Master of Defence and a Fencer, is as much as between a Musician and a Fiddler, or betwixt a Merchant and a Peddler;…".  In 1599, English master George Silver wrote "A swordsman should not be so interested in the destruction of his opponent that he disregards his own defence.  A Master of Defence is he who can take to the field and know that he shall not come to any harm." Even then they recognized the differences between true masters and mere theatrical performers or commercial stunt fighters (what the Germans called leichmeistere or "dance-masters" and klopffechter or "clown-fighters"). 

From the 1200’s through the 1600’s, Masters of Defence produced over a hundred detailed, often well-illustrated, technical manuals on their fighting methods.  These texts, produced by hand in the 1300s and 1400’s or printed and published in the 1500’s and 1600s, are invaluable resources on all but lost Western martial arts.  These many works were produced by professional swordsmen, weapon experts, knights, and cavaliers who fought and killed in countless battles and duels.   Their manuals present us with a portrait of then highly developed and innovative martial arts and reveal European fighting skills at the time to be systematic and highly dynamic.  These experts developed and taught a craft which had been learned through life and death encounters and cultivated over generations.  Their invaluable works reveal a variety of weapon skills and unarmed techniques as well as showing the trend from brutal Medieval battlefield skills to Renaissance civilian street-fighting styles.  The Germans and Italians were particularly industrious in teaching fighting arts during the mid 1300’s to early 1500’s as well as in producing books on their skills and techniques. Yet, most if not all of these Masters are generally unfamiliar, their texts are not commonly available, and their knowledge unappreciated. 

Skilled martial experts were never unfamiliar in the West.  Since ancient times in the West, the Greeks were known to have their professional Hoplomashi weapon instructors and for the Romans senior veteran soldiers essentially acted as "drill sergeants" for the training of their juniors in the skills and handling of weapons for combat.  The later Roman gladiator schools too had their "Lanistae" or fight-coaches.  Into the Dark Ages (c. 400-900 AD), the Germanic tribes as well as Celts and Vikings were known to have their most skillful veterans placed in charge of teaching youth the ways of war.  The Vikings recognized a number of specific war skills preserved by special teachers.  By an order of the Spanish royal court special categories of fencing masters, Tenientes Examinadores de la destreza de las armes (or roughly "individual’s weapon ability examining lieutenants") were organized in 1478.  Warrior kings too were something quite real in Europe, including such notables ranging from Charlegmagne and Barbarossa, to Richard the Lionheart and Henry V.  King Alfonso el Sabio of Castille himself wrote a text book on warfare in 1260 and in the 1400’s Duarte, King of Portugal produced a manual on fighting skills.

But it was not until the Middle Ages in Europe that true experts of martial arts began to teach in manners we would associate with martial mastery.  Throughout the Medieval period, training in arms was a requirement among most all Northern peoples, for the sons of knights and other nobility, and also for foot soldiers and even the common folk.  Much of what warriors learned was individually passed down person-to-person between household, clan, or father and son. These were not skills just for use in the local village or back wood paths, but intended for the battlefield complexities encountered with whole armies at war.  It is not difficult to imagine that as is the method in most cultures these skills were taught within the same household and among relatives. 

Training for war and tournament was an everyday fact of life for knights especially.  For the chivalric warrior class there was the always idea of Preudome, or being a "man of prowess" skilled in military arts.  Prowess in arms was itself one of the fundamental tenets of chivalry.  Medieval texts even describe young knights training with weapons of double weight in order to develop strength.  Early Knightly tournaments were intended very much to train men in the use of their arms between wars and were much more martial, brutal and with far less pageantry than later ones.  The earliest were conducted as "grand melees" in a large field.  Later on there were informal challenges issued such as the "pas d’armes" or "passage of arms" where in a group of knights might invite all others to meet them in honorable combat at a at a specific place and time.  Although not generally to the death, some of these became quite bloody.  It is also known that there was at one time a distinction made by knights between forms of combat conducted a’ plaisance, or with blunts for practice, and that which was a’outrance, with sharps or to the death. 

Yet, despite being ill armed the common folk always had need to protect themselves if called upon even to defend the kingdom from invasion. Professional masters and teachers of swordsmanship and weaponry were not uncommon.  German and English histories indicate clearly that the profession existed at least from the late 12th or early 13th century.  The professional man-at-arms must have been an invaluable source of passed-on knowledge.  By the late Middle Ages there were sword-masters and fighting experts both teaching and fighting for pay, yet they themselves were typically commoners.  Many of the instructors of various fencing guilds, especially in Italy and Germany, tutored the nobility in fighting.  In Germany, there were long-lived Fechtschulen (fight-schools), a collection of guilds run by common citizens and soldiers.  There were fighting guilds such as the Marxbrüder (Brotherhood of St.  Mark), Luxbrueder (Company of St.  Luke), and the Federfechter, which specialized in many weapons including two-handed swords and later, rapiers.   The English too had their own Schooles of Defence that survived well into the Renaissance.   They continued for some time to teach the older Medieval swords and weaponry.  There were also teachers of clandestine schools of arms and even traveling professional fighters who, for money would act as "stand-ins" during trial-by-combat. In 1286, Edward II ordered fencing schools teaching Eskirmer au Buckler are banned from the City of London --ostensibly to "control villainy" and "prevent criminal mischief" said to be associated with such activities.  In 1310 one Master Roger, "Le Skirmisour" was even charged and found guilty of running a fencing school in London.

"Masters of fencing" are mentioned in Italy in the 1300’s as offering advice and exercises for fighting.  In the 1400’s well established fencing academies were known in Milan, Venice, and Verona and then later Bologna.  German sword masters are first mentioned as early 1259 and in Italy a master swordsman by the name of Goffredo taught the youth of Civildale in 1259. In the 1200’s there are references in France to royal privileges of a group of Paris Masters. There are also references in Italy during the 1400’s to the "trial for status" of a master of "Ars Palistrinae".  The Bolognese school in Italy existed since the early 1200’s under instructors in the 1300’s such as Master Rosolino, Master Francesco, and Master Nerio.   In the 1400’s, Master Filippo di Bartolomeo Dardi, an Astrologer, Matematician and Professor in Bologna University also kept a school there.  An Italian fencing master from the late 1600’s also stated that a "Corporation of Fencing Masters" existed in Spain "From the Middle Ages" headquartered in Madrid.  There are numerous references to Esgrimidors, or fencing masters in Portuguese civil documents from the late 1400’s.

The people of the Germanic states were the most prolific of European martial artists.  Hans Liechtenauer (or Johannes Lichtenawer) is considered the grand Fechtmeister (fight-master) of the German schools of fighting and swordplay.  A whole series of fencing manuals or Fechterbuecher (fight books) are based on his work.  One of the earliest fechtbuch of his is from 1389 was compiled by Hanko Doebringer.  Doebringer was a priest who at one time appears to have studied fighting under this grandmaster and to have later compiled his teachings.  It is one of the earliest European works on technique of fighting.  As was common practice at the time, his verses are written in rhyme.  In order to conceal his teachings from other masters he also hid his knowledge in highly cryptic phrasing.  Lichtenawer himself appears to have studied under several earlier unknown masters with names such as Lamprecht from Bohemia, Virgily from Krakow, and Liegnitzer in Silesia.  His influential teachings, reflecting fighting methods developed over a century earlier, cover a variety of weapons from sword and shield to long-sword, dagger, staff, plus a range of wrestling, grappling, and unarmed fighting techniques.

Other major German masters include Joerg Wilhalm who’s text of 1523 survives, as well as Hans Lebkommer who in 1530 put his methods to paper in two separate books.  Lebkommer’s fechtbuch was actually the compilation of Christian Egenolph and as with many of the others, includes materials from earlier works such as those by Andre Pauerfeindts of 1516, and the student of Liechtenauer, Fechtmeister Sigmund Ringeck of c. 1440.  Ringeck’s material includes the use of sword, the scimitar-like falchion and other weapons.  As with many later German masters, Ringeck interpreted Hans Liechtenauer’s earlier verses and added them to his own method. 

Another major Master of Defence from the Middle Ages is the more widely known Hans Talhoffer.  His fechtbuch from 1443 was reprinted many times during the 1400’s but now only consists of various editions from the 16th and 17th centuries.   Talhoffer, likely a student of Liechtenauer, reveals an array of great-sword and two-handed sword techniques, sword and buckler moves, dagger fighting, seizures and disarms, grappling techniques, and the Austrian wrestling of Ott the Jew.   His work also describes methods of judicial duels and fighting against pole weapons arms.  Like many other fechtmiesters, Talhoffer’s manual includes fighting with swords while unarmored and in full plate armor.  Talhoffer also covered material relating to dueling and was again for security was greatly concerned with secrecy in both the teaching and learning of his skills. 

There are more than a dozen other significant German masters whose works on fighting still survive.  Many of their methods and techniques show apparent influence from one another.  Paulus Kal was a fencing master in the service of a Bavarian duke between 1450 and 1460 who also wrote a treatise on the style of his fechtschule or fight-school.   Master Peter von Danzig produced a book on the long-sword in 1452 while Johannes Leckuechner published a fechtbuch around 1482.   Leckuechner added the traditional German messer, a machete-like weapon, into his teaching.  Another German fechtmeister, Peter Falkner produced his fechtbuch in 1490, while H. von Speyer offered one a year later in 1491.  In the early 1500's the Augsburg master Gregor Erhart wrote a work on great-sword, falchion, spear, and dagger.  Erhart advocated a method called Ernst fechten, or fighting in earnest, which dismissed with any concerns other than battle field effectiveness.

A figure of great significance is the Italian Fiore dei Liberi leading master of the Bolognese school of fighting, and today a primary source for practice of the Medieval Italian long-sword.  Liberi studied swordsmanship for some 50 years but was originally taught by German masters.  His illustrated text on fighting skills, the Flos Duellatorium ("Flower of Battle") was first published in 1410.  This pragmatic work primarily on the use of the long-sword and great-sword offers a contrast to exclusively German systems.  He covers assorted sword and staff weapons as well as unarmed techniques including disarms.  His practical teachings also cover dagger fighting, fighting in heavy armor, and mounted combat.  Die Liberi’s work was also influential for later many of the later Renaissance Italian masters.

Another important Medieval Italian master was Fillipo Vadi of Padua.  Little is known about Vadi except from his treatise on fighting, "De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicand" written between 1480-1487.  He was a master from the town of Pisa who taught among the nobility.  His treatise is in two parts, one text and one mainly pictures with explanatory.  Vadi tried to teach fencing is a "science", not an art and offers something of the ethics of a Master at the time and that a Master only needs teach to knights and noblemen, since they have the role of protecting widows and orphans and weak people, etc.  Like Die Liberi, Vadi displays a wide range of armed and unarmed fighting skills and discusses the important elements of fighting.  The weapons covered are mostly great-sword/long-sword, dagger (including unarmed defense against the dagger), and short pike.  For the long-sword he writes of cuts and thrusts plus footwork and assorted techniques.  The postures and guards he uses often have the same names of the guards of Fiore dei Liberi, but interestingly the position for the same name not always identical.  Obviously many guard names passed from various schools and masters with modifications in name and/or position.  The Spanish master Pietro Monte studied and taught in Italy under the well-established Bolognese tradition and eventually produced his own books on wrestling, health, gymnastics, swordsmanship, poleaxe, and other weapons in the 1480’s and 1490’s.

In the 1300's and 1400's Medieval warfare underwent significant changes and even more occurred in the 1500's.  Individual combat altered with the massed use of long-bow and crossbow plus the development of articulated plate armor and the weapons associated with fighting both in it and against it.  Social and technological forces severely affected the conditions under which combat took place. The old ways of feudal warfare declined and an armed urban middle class arose.  As a result, throughout the following age of renewed civilization and learning that is now called the Renaissance, Masters of Defence began to more systematically study and analyze swordsmanship and fighting.  We know they raised it to likely a higher degree of sophistication and effectiveness than ever before in Europe.  This came about as a result of the convergence of numerous factors.  These include the discarding of heavy armor due primarily to firearms, and the reduced role of an individual warrior's skill in arms on the battlefield, as well as the rise of an armed urban middle-class.

In this environment, Renaissance Masters of Defence began to teach fencing and fighting both publicly and privately.  Specialized civilian fighting guilds and Schooles of Defence began to thrive.  They discerned numerous techniques and principles, which they rigorously studied and practiced. Masters like, Meyer, Koppen, Sainct Didier, Sutor, Fabris, Alfieri, and many, many others became highly regarded experts. The highly regarded masters Carranza and Narvaez taught from the widely respected and influential Spanish Schoole of fence, which included substantial elements of philosophy, mathematics, and geometry.  These experts looked upon their craft seriously, earnestly, and with careful consideration.  These martial arts masters consisted of both gentry and commoner.   Many traveled and tutored widely.  Italian and Spanish instructors of the new rapier were among the most admired.  Geometry, mathematics, and philosophy played major roles in their styles.

The Bolognese master Achille Marozzo, one of the most significant masters of his day was one of the first to focus on the use of the thrust over the cut.   He produced two manuals on fence, the most import being his 1536 Opera Nova ("New Work by Achille Marozzo of Bologna, Master General  of the Art of Arms").  His countryman, Camillo Agrippa was another to focus on the thrust over the cut and in 1553 produced of the earliest rapier manuals, "Treatise on the Science of Arms and a Dialogue on the Same Theme". He too is considered another of the more influential Renaissance masters.  Each of these as well as several other Masters revealed methods which reflected the transition by early Renaissance martial artists to civilian cut and thrust swordsmanship and the emerging emphasis on urban self-defense. 

The history of European arms and armor is one of established continuity marked by sudden developments of necessitated innovation. Renaissance sword blades were generally lighter and the thrust was used to a far greater extent.  The fundamentals that early Renaissance masters built upon at the time were not entirely of their own invention.  Rather, they called upon a long-established foundation from the Medieval fighting methods. Like much of the progress in Renaissance learning and scientific advance, it was based on what had already been commonly established for centuries.  Many Renaissance fighting masters were accomplished scholars and men of learning.  The master Agrippa for example was an engineer, mathematician, and friend of the artist Michelangelo, while the Frenchmen Thibault was a painter, architect and even a physician. The early Renaissance master Monte was a theologian, mathematician, researcher, and even associate of Leonard Da Vinci.  The late 16^th century soldier-fencer Frederico Ghisliero was a mathematician who even knew Galileo.

There is no doubt that the Renaissance Masters systematized and innovated the study of fighting skills, particularly swordsmanship, into sophisticated, versatile, and highly effective martial arts (culminating in the development of the penultimate street-fighting and dueling weapon, the quick and deadly thrusting rapier).   A good deal of the developments in Renaissance fighting methods resulted from the needs of urban encounters and private quarrels as opposed to strictly battlefield conditions.  But they were not able to achieve their advances in a vacuum.  No tradition of fighting or methodology of combat exists by itself.  It comes into being due to environmental pressure as only a processing or refinement of what existed previously.  So it was with Renaissance methods. 

There is an obvious direct and discernible link between the brutal, practical fighting methods of the Middle Ages and the more sophisticated, elegant Renaissance fencing systems.  Differences in regard to the Medieval period lie in the overall attitude toward the study of the craft and the specific techniques developed (e.g., civilian dueling and self-defense as opposed to war, tournament, and trial-by-combat).  There is no doubt there were considerable innovations in the study or fighting and swordsmanship in the Renaissance.  But there should be no doubt either that they built upon what had already been there for some time.  We know the English for example followed some of their old fighting traditions well into the 1700’s and 1800’s, as did the Germans and Spanish.  They did not discard or ignore, but rather used, borrowed, adjusted, adopted and in some cases certainly improved or at least refined what was known and had already been done for centuries.

The various Masters of Defence were not always clear or complete in their ideas, and sometimes even contradict one another.  But their works describe to us well-reasoned and effective fighting arts that were founded upon the experience of their forebears.  Following the older traditions they built upon the legacy of arms and armor and skills of their ancestors.   At the time, they were setting out to provide a coherent body of knowledge for future generations to clearly understand their manner of fighting. European martial culture was varied and diverse but we know that they put considerable effort into the craft to great success.  The chronicler Roger of Howden wrote in the 11th century that, "…without practice the art of war did not come naturally when it was needed".  In the 1200’s the historian Saxo the Learned wrote of a king who deemed his sons "should learn from masters diverse ways of dealing and parrying blows". 

By the late 1500’s the vicious new slender civilian thrusting sword, the rapier, became the favored dueling weapon.  It’s deceptive, innovative manner of fighting found numerous Masters advocating its calculated and methodical style of personal fighting. The young Italian Master Frederico Ghisliero described his system of rapier fence that combined Italian and Spanish ideas in a brief illustrated treatise of 1587.  In 1595 Master Vincentio Saviolo wrote one of the first true rapier manuals, "His Practice in Two Books", an influential and today still popular treatise.  Saviolo eventually teach his method in London.  A fellow Italian Master, Giacomo Di Grassi had another major rapier manual, "His True Arte of Defense" translated into English in 1594.   Salvator Fabris was a master from Bologna who in the late 1500’s traveled in Germany, France, and Spain and synthesized the best of many other teachers.  Their methods reflect important changes in the blades, techniques, and attitudes of Western Masters of Defence.  Because firearms had rendered the traditional individual weapons of war less relevant on the battlefield, the focus of masters was now less on weapons of war and unarmed skills, but on personal dueling and swordplay.  Masters now became far less concerned with running schools for common warrior skills than upon teaching the upper classes the newly popular Arte of Defence.   Of these later masters, Ridolfo Capo Ferro, author of the important 1610 "Gran Simulacro" (or "A Complete Representation of the Art and Practice of Fencing"), is considered the great Italian grandmaster of the rapier and father of modern fencing.  He taught a linear style of fence and superiority of the thrust over the cut to utilize the rapier’s advantage of quick, deceptive reach.

Other notable Renaissance Masters and their works include: Vigianni‘s Lo Schermo ("The Shield") text of 1575, the Milanese master G. A. Lovino’s "Traite d’Escrime" of 1580, Jacob Sutor’s 1612 "New Kunstlitches Fectbuch", and Nicoletto Giganti’s work of 1606.  There was also Sir William Hope, a military veteran who taught and between 1691 & 1714 wrote numerous books including, "The Scots Fencing-Master" 1687,  "The Complete Fencing-Master" 1692.  There are many other works, including dozens of those from the late 1600s to the late 1700s on the later use of the slender thrusting small-sword and also numerous works on sabers, cutlasses, spadroons, and assorted cavalry blades.  Space prohibits doing justice to the individual contributions and unique approaches of all these master swordsmen or describing details of their styles.

Germans were also particularly important among Renaissance masters.   Paulus Mair’s an official from the city of Augsburg, compiled three large manuals covering a great variety of swords and weaponry.  Fechtmeister Joachim Meyer wrote his own teachings down in 1570, in his "A Thorough Description of the Free Knightly and Noble Art of Fencing".  Jacob Sutor reinterpreted and described his methods again in 1612.  The English fighting guilds, as did the German ones, resisted for some time the encroaching civilian system of the Hispano-Italian rapier in favor of their traditional militarily-focused methods.  During the 1500's, The Corporation of Maisters of the Noble Science of Defence, or the "London Company of Maisters", was an organized guild offering instruction in the traditional English forms of self-defense.  Training consisted of swords, staffs, pole-arms and other weapons.  It also included wrestling, pugilism, and grappling and disarming techniques.  In keeping with the Renaissance spirit of the times, the English Masters of Defence rigorously studied their craft and openly plied their trade.  Centered around London, the English guilds essentially followed in the centuries old practices of the traditional Medieval master-at-arms, but adapted to the changed times.  

Each public school or "Company" had special regulations and codes that were strictly upheld.  No student could fight for real with another student or harm a Maister.  No Maister could challenge another.  No Maister could open a school within seven miles of another or without prior permission from an "Ancient Maister" (senior faculty).  No student was to raise his weapon in anger, be a drunkard, criminal, or a traitor.  As well, no one could reveal the secret teachings of the school.  Most of the rules were to preserve the school's status, prestige, and economic monopoly on the trade.  Similar conditions existed in later 18th century small-sword salons and even still among contemporary sport fencing halls today.

The English fighting guilds, following the format of scholarly colleges of the age, had four levels of student: Scholar, Free-Scholar, Provost, and Maister.  Only four Ancient Maisters were allowed at any one school.  New students were recruited, paid a tuition, and apprenticed themselves before being graduated.  There was also a system of fines and penalties for violations of regulations and custom.  Unlike his continental peers of the age, the essentially "blue-collar" English Master-at-Arms had to earn his title through rigorous public trial of his skill.  For the advancements of students the schools of defence held public tests called Playing the Prize.  When time came to test their skill and advance to the next grade (after years of apprenticeship) the student, depending on level would have to fight a series of test bouts with blunt weapons against a number of senior students (usually with long-sword, back-sword, quarterstaff, and sword-and-buckler).

Generally, the profession of private instructor of arms was customarily looked down upon in England and early fencing schools had generally unsavory reputations as hang-outs for ruffians and rogues.  Nonetheless, prize playing was popular with the common folk.  Although Henry the VIII granted charter to an English school of fencing in 1540, the guild's monopoly was not entirely official.  By the end of the 1600's Prize Playing declined and the English School of Defence guilds faded or became mere sporting salons.  However, indigenous English fighting systems are described in various English manuals such as the Pallas Armata of 1639, or those by gentlemen masters such as Joseph Swetnam.  Swetnam taught the use of the new rapier and dagger, along with the traditional English quarterstaff, backsword, long-sword and short-sword.  He declared his teachings were presented in a simple enough fashion that either military man or gentleman could heed his advice.  There is also the well-known "grandmaster" of the English tradition, George Silver ("Paradoxes of Defence", 1598 and "Brief Instructions" 1599).  Silver and his brother, Toby, like many Masters of Defence of the time, also taught wrestling, grappling, disarms, dagger-fighting, use of two-handed swords, staffs, and pole-arms.  Silver taught four "governors" or key principles: judgement, distance, time, and place and stated that, "There is no manner of teaching comparable to the old ancient teaching".  Silver’s governors reiterated the fundamental concepts of fighting that many European masters describe involving perception, psychology, and physical action.

European warrior skills were for the most part the indigenous fighting arts of a wide range of heterogeneous peoples and not specifically limited to the warrior classes (who by far had the better arms and armor).  The familiar principles of timing, distance, technique, and perception, defined in various ways, have been identified and stressed by experts in countless martial arts and were clearly recognized by Western masters of Defence.  The Northern Italian master Fiore dei Liberi himself makes regard to the ideas of audacity, prudence, celerity, and strength.  By this he is acknowledging the concepts of initiative, caution, quickness, and force.   The German Medieval masters expressed the idea as fuehlen (feeling), or the gauging of an opponent's "pressure".  Throughout virtually all the Masters of Defence the teachings and writings there is an unmistakable pragmatism concerned with sheer effectiveness.  Yet, this is always balanced by a strong and clear humanistic philosophy and respect for law and ones fellow man --the very qualities so often associated with the modern idealized practice of popular Asian martial arts today.

Most people hold a great many myths and common misconceptions about historical European fighting skills and arms and armor.  While it’s is easy today to find hundreds of books on virtually any Asian fighting art, it’s almost impossible to locate works or information from the many celebrated Masters of Defence.  While historical Western arts cannot rely on the personal connectivity to the past by traditional transmission from one practitioner to another, they do posses detailed technical manuals.  In the classic Western approach to learning, modern students and practitioners can examine the very methods and techniques of the Masters of Defence from their own authentic words and pictures.

Within the old schools the Noble Science, as the martial art of fencing became known, relied on time-honored lessons of battlefield and street duel.  But due to historical and social forces, chiefly having to do with the introduction of firearms and industrialization, the traditional skills and teachings of European Masters and their arts fell out of common use.  With each generation, fewer students arrived and the old experts died off.  As a fighting tradition in Europe, Renaissance martial-arts which had descended from those of Medieval warriors, became virtually extinct and no direct lineage back to historical teachings or traditional instructors now really exists. Later centuries in Europe saw only limited and narrow application of swords and traditional arms, only some of which survived for a time to become martial sports.  What survives today of the older methods and teachings in the modern poised sport of fencing is not any "evolution" of martial knowledge.  Rather, it is only a shadow decidedly unlike its Renaissance street-fighting predecessor and considerably far removed from its martial origins in the early Middle Ages.  Although, the skills and wisdom of the Masters of Defence have mostly been lost to antiquity and no true schools survive, today many enthusiasts are hard at work reconstructing and replicating these traditions.  Through the efforts of modern practitioners studying the works of the Masters and training with replica weapons, their heritage is slowly being recovered.