Specialized Training Swords in Renaissance Fencing
Part I - Longswords

By J. Clements

How to deal with the problem of sufficiently preparing an individual for the rigors of real combat situations has long been the eternal question in all martial arts and military sciences. One way in which it was addressed by Renaissance fencers was by teaching exchanges of attacks and defense movements and having two-person perform them repeatedly.  Another means of preparation and learning was mock-combat.  The historical evidence for mock-combat practice involving actual contact hits exchanged between unarmored or armored fencers during the renaissance is as considerable as it is diverse.  While that remains a subject for another time, suffice to say that among 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th century warriors, it was standard practice to train in a manner that involved some degree of free-play or what we would now call “sparring”.  Whether an exchange of techniques or mock-combat play was the objective, the element of sufficiency of blows in these activities was surely a concern. 

One way of addressing the need for learning how to deliver strong cuts and effective thrusts in combat training –absent serious injury or actual bodily penetration of your partner by a weapon and without causing any misunderstanding of the dynamics of lethal fencing –was to use a safe tool that allowed sufficient contact in a realistic yet safe manner. While a blunt weapon or wooden substitute was evidently fine for general exercise and drilling of techniques, they could be quite dangerous if used with too much force. There apparently was an effort to produce specifically designed training blades that permitted greater freedom on the part of the fencer when employing actions at more realistic speed and range.  These swords have thick edges and exaggeratedly slender blades (that typically also exaggerate their flared ricasso) and sometimes even spatulated points.

The design of such practice blades makes sense when we understand that they are narrow and lack sharp edges so as to be able to safely make contact with a partner’s body or limbs during training.  Such narrow practice longswords appear in several historical fighting manuals and today more than one arms museum now has examples in their collections.  Samples of skinny bladed great-swords called Federn ("feathers") with, thick blunt edges, flattened points, and flared ricassos appear in many German fencing texts starting at least by the 15th century and samples survive in the Swiss Landesmuseum. Such weapons with hollow-ground blades are actually depicted in detail within the 1630, Academie De L'Espee, of Girard Thibault d'Anvers. There are also surviving basket-hilt and swept-hilt practice swords from 17th century Germany with thick-edges and blunt, rounded points.

It is generally known that blunt or “foyled” weapons were used in knightly tournaments or whenever non-lethal intent was called for. By the 1300s some tournaments specifically called for safe blunted swords without sharp points or edges and sometimes of a specified minimum width.  In the mid 1400s Olivier de la Marche (echoing Christine de Pisan) wrote for instance that, “arms of plaisance [i.e., for pleasure or mock combat] are performed in order to practice the use of weapons and to perpetuate the profession of arms, to train the body, and to learn how to assert oneself for defense of the public as weal.” [1]  

Tournament swords with a minimum width and thickness are cited in King René d’Anjou 15^th century tournament book while other events utilized club-like swords or weapons of whale bone.  But it is less well known that specially designed practice weapons were evidently in use from at least as early as the 1200s. The term "foyle", later applied to rapiers and then smallswords, is mentioned in reference to sword and buckler fencing as early as the 1200s. (Ashdown, p. 317). The word, from the Old French fouler or refouler, meaning to turn back, originally meant in English any blunted practice weapon, but especially swords. (Castle, p. 139). The 16th century Italians refer to Spada da gioco or practice swords (also called a spade da marra), as opposed to sharp or edged blades (spade da filo). The Spanish similarly had their Spada di marra or Spada near, un-tipped practice rapiers known in Italian as smarra and fioretto (i.e., foil). By the 15th century special narrow and thick practice blades were being produced in Western Europe specifically for longsword fencing practice.

Many depictions of longswords wielded by fighters in various 15^th and 16^th century fencing manuals are actually representative of this kind of training tool. In the work of Peter von Danzig from the 1440s his portrait illustrates what appears to be a blunt practice sword similar to surviving specimens.  It is a long, straight blade with a wide flared ricasso. The thickness of the edge of the ricasso appears to run the entire length of the blade all the way to a noticeably rounded point. In woodcut illustrations from the c. 1515 Freydal of Emperor Maximilian I, a range of apparently blunted practice weapons are depicted for armored tournament fighting.These include single and double hand swords, bastard-swords, falchions, and Dusacken as well as more slender, straight blades.

An image of two parading foot soldiers by Hans Burgkmair (c.1512-1519) from the Triumphzug shows them holding what appear to be blunt two-handed training swords. They have clearly rounded points and thick, blunt edges running their length. In two different editions of the compendium of Paulus Hector Mair, c.1540, the fencers also employ what seem to be narrow, thick-edged longsword blades. Yet oddly, Mair’s work also illustrates such a weapon being employed to stab violently into an opponent’s torso complete with splattering blood spray.  The anonymous Codex Guelf 83.4 similarly shows in full color one of these weapons cracking open a head with a blow in the same manner. The detailed watercolor illustrations of longswords in the 1560 Fechtbüch by Joachim Meyer depict blades that are fairly wide but clearly have thick, blunt edges and round points. The long swords shown in the detailed woodcuts from Meyer’s 1570 treatise are also not very narrow and may reflect these same types of practice weapons, as they too appear to have thick edges and are not nearly as wide as typical blades of this kind.

The major distinction of specialized practice swords is their shape. These training tools had essentially the same mass and balance as real combat blades but their different shapes made them safe to practice with, especially in delivery of cutting and slicing blows. The very reason that narrow rectangular but thick-edged training blades were employed in place of ordinary blunt-edge swords must surely have been for purposes of making contact during practice. An ordinary weapon, even without a sharp edge, still possesses considerable danger and simply rounding the point while adding a thicker-edge would significantly alter its performance characteristics –thereby defeating the very purpose of training realistically. It is only by entirely re-shaping its cross-section to produce a much thicker (and safer) edge that it then results in a tool that will no longer easily cause injury when employed against a partner in practice – and thus providing more realistic combat training. 

Modern swordsmith Peter Johnson in Sweden has noted the rational for the design of special training blades was to get the same mass (and thus action) as real swords, while incorporating safe edges for non-injurious contact.  This result cannot be achieved by simply taking an ordinary blade and thickening the edge or leaving it blunt, as this would alter the blade’s mass and balance, thereby significantly changing its handling characteristics.  Johnson observes that since the mass distribution is very different between the two, a blunt training weapon with a thick edge cannot really ever handle in the same way as a sharp weapon with its unique edge bevel and dynamic centers of balance.  The answer then to retaining the necessary same blade play of a real weapon in something safe for impact was to develop practice swords.  By their shape, slender blades with extra-thick edges imitated the handling of actual sharp weapons by resembling their balance and weight. Yet with their wide edges they allowed for greater impact than could be safely achieved with blunted blades.  Longswords of this form appear to have developed in German speaking regions by the middle decades of the 15th century.

Yet, such specialized training weapons were evidently not in universal use among early schools and instructors of fencing. It would seem that ordinary blunted weapons were primarily used for teaching, which would certainly be logical, since a fighter would still need considerable experience in handling them against one another. A question arises as to whether or not many of the images of swords in 15^th and 16^th century source manuals represent simply normal types of swords with flared ricassos and rounded points or else are attempts to illustrate slender forms of thick-bladed practice blades?  While some treatises show distinctly pointed and, presumably, sharp edge swords being used, for purposes of instruction these may represent idealized examples of real combat.

There are also other examples of swords drawn with much wider blades but obviously thick edges. However, in these cases we cannot determine at all what kind of cross-sectional shape the blades have nor do we know the true weight and balance of such fencing weapons.  Additionally, despite clear examples in the source literature of what are ostensibly training blades, in some instances there appears to be little differences between the manners in which training blades are illustrated in comparison to combat weapons being employed in real fighting. There is thus some question therefore as to just what some of these weapons are: specialized training blades or merely unique sword forms?  For example, are the extremely narrow two-handed swords shown in the 1580 treatise of Giovanni Antonio Lovino merely stylistically illustrated training blades or are they actual fighting weapons, perhaps even two-handed rapiers?  What are we to make from the wide blade seemingly warping upon impact from one mid 16^th century German Fechtschulen display?

In 1531 Di Antonio Manciolino essentially advised that realistic practice with blunt swords was better than unrealistic practice with sharp ones. He stated: “He who learns how to ferire [attack] with a blunted weapon will then be all the more able to do so with a sharp sword.  Besides, it would not be onesto [fair] for inexperienced beginners to be taught with sharp weapons; not even for the reason of forcing them to learn to defend out of fear of getting hurt with such [sharp] tools.” ^[2]  Whether Manciolino meant a special practice weapon or just a blunt sword is not clear. Both the Italian fencing masters Angelo Viggiani in 1551 and Camillo Palladini in the late 1500s referenced the use of practice swords, such as the spade da marra and spade da gioco, as opposed to sharp or edged swords (spade da filo).  Whether these were merely blunted steel blades, special thick and narrow ones, or wooden swords is not determinable.  Indeed, there is no actual proof that the word waster in the source literature meant exclusively a “wooden” sword, and may very well have also referred to the thick and narrow steel training blades.

Oddly enough, Viggianni explicitly advocated sharp steel cut-and-thrust blades for practicing, even with a partner, otherwise the student would not learn to respect the weapon.  He disputed the use of rebated practice swords arguing that with such weapons proper attitude or the “psychology of combat” was learned imperfectly, which certainly says a great deal about the entire premise of contact in foyning swordplay and fencing practice. (Lo schermo, Angelo Viggiani, Venice, 1575, fols 52^v-53^r).  Similarly, rather than using a heavy practice sword to develop strength, Giacomo Di Grassi in 1570 felt it was best a fencer start to “handle a verie light sword, & such a one, that he maie most nimblie move.”  After building up strength and learning proper movement in this way, heavier blades are then used to develop greater strength. If we assume that a practice weapon has the same weight and balance as a real one then Di Grassi was not referring to these kinds of special training tools. After all, the term “waster” need not necessarily always refer exclusively to wooden swords.

There is no question that the less your training tool handles like the historical models, the more distortion will creep into your understanding of the historical ways of fighting with it. The tools you use will influence the perceptions you have about the proper handling and function of real weapons in real combat. This in turn will reflect on your assumptions about historical fencing, which will then affect your interpretation of the source manuals –what could and could not be done with such a bladed weapon in real combat, and what should and should be done in practice today.  In the end, accurate interpretation and reconstruction of Renaissance fencing skills depends upon using realistic tools in a realistic manner. Such training tools as described here, if made correctly and reflecting historical designs and materials, and if used within their proper context, would be a useful addition to the equipment of the modern student of Renaissance swordplay.

An 1893 display of historical fencing using "feders"

Coming Next: Part 2 - Foyled Rapiers