Research and Discussion Forums

Hello Jason! I always figured, what if you just don't get hit? In short, so long as you fought well, it doesn't matter at all. In long... I've read through this thread and was a little disturbed at what I saw - apparently some misunderstandings have taken root and gone unchecked. Anyone I've spoken ...

Congratulations on your publication! I'm very interested to see what conclusions you've drawn regarding the similarities between German, Italian, and English styles. I look forward to hearing more about it as progress is made!

Best wishes,

Michael

It's interesting the assumed meaning that gets touted alot for this phrase. I showed it to a German professor (native speaker), who told me that the meaning is not so much 'what hurts, teaches' but rather 'what exerts, teaches.' The prof put it as 'if you are sweaty, then you've learned something.'...

I spoke briefly to Mr. Amberger about this portion of his book, and his response was intriguing. The quote in question is known as a Sprichwort or saying and is basically a proverb or idiom - something like "A rolling stone gathers no moss", "Keep your nose to the grindstone", or...

Hi Marc! Most (if not all) Historical European Martial Arts groups consider the word "longsword" to mean the two-handed sword used primarily from about 1350 to 1550. This comes from the contemporary German term "Langschwert", which directly translates to "longsword". Cr...

Hi Sal,

It would be good if you could post which specific plates you are talking about. I know of only a transcription of one of the Wilhalm MSs.

Are you talking about THIS incident?

I think their wasters look pretty good. New Stirling Arms doesn't really have pictures of their blades either. But the complexity in the craftsmanship matches NSA as does the ergonomics, and their rapier crosses are even narrower than NSA's. The crosses here are no wider than the handle which match...

Might be a tad short, but otherwise look like great entry level wasters to me. That's what I thought, too. Taking a look at longsword wasters from the major manufacturers, a conservative average length is around 47.5 inches. The average length of steel training swords from major manufacturers is ab...

They don't know how to spell rapier (rappier on their site). Hi Benjamin, They explain on the site it is meant to be a training weapon for the 16th century cut and thrust weapon. I assume they mean the weapon shown and named as such in Meyer's 1570 and 1600 works. So the naming convention is defini...

Also of interest regarding the Schrankhut, should one be looking for an earlier source, Cod.HS.3227a (Dobringer) seems to imply the guard can be used to "wait in" as well: One technique is called the fence guard (or barrier guard perhaps) [Schrankhute] and it comes from the point. You shou...

Joachim Meyer's 1570 treatise provides at least a couple of cutting drills. I know his Dussack section has two variants of cuts on the eight lines - one that proceeds all the way through the line and another that stops in the middle (think longpoint) before making the next cut. I haven't looked at t...

I also think that if it was a weapon of the mid-lower classes and very cheap to make it makes sense that there would not be many left--any comments.? You know, another interesting aspect of this is that the Federschwerter (for lack of a better word) used by the fencing schools of 16th century Germa...

An iron Dussack (the only extant metal dussak - and perhaps the only extant dussack?) was found at Nymburg and was dating to c. 1520. It had a curved knuckle guard, but was not "punched", rather the metal seemed to have been split, then twisted and drawn towards the handle unlike in the de...

Hello again! I'm sorry if you perceived insult in my previous message - there was certainly no intent to attack, and Sam was correct concerning my analogy. I'm not going to reply to your last message to me because I don't think it would really go anywhere towards finding a solution for you - I thoug...

Hi Jonathan, As others have said, television is not exactly a very highly respected medium for scholarly understanding - they frequently present misinformation or information that is simply wrong. This has, basically, miseld you to believe a couple of things that are not true. according to modern ma...