Axiom: Systemization

[Jeffrey Hull]

Axiom: European combat was not systemized until the advent of fight-books.

If true, false, balance of both, or indeterminate -- then why?

[Jaron Bernstein]

I would say insuffient evidence to say either way. Until we can raise the dead and ask them about their training programs.... <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Just a quick note here. Or, an ContraQuestion.
How could it be otherwise? Thousands and thousands were given knowledge about arms and battle. How could you lead an army that has tenthousand people thinking different about inner / outer circle fighting, grappling, etc? Or, payed armies, like the Black Army of Mathias Corvinus. It HAS to have some general concept about fighting, no? That there were teachers who taught in courts and in the street about swordsmanship after the 14th century, is truly something to think about. But just look at Hanko, talking about Leichmeistere (besides, after talking to lot of germans and thinking about it, we are most certain that the word means Someone who is respinsible for the corpses, ie., a "Corpse Creator").
I think, and this is just a theory, that kings payed masters or a guild of masters to train their army, or to create a training program. And i also think, that Masters teaching in the streets like Talhoffer could have a different point of view in Training, or deeper insight, or whatever.

yours,

Szabolcs

[Jaron Bernstein]

Actually, disregard my last. If someone is going to run a fighting school (as there is ample evidence was the case) for a long time, they must have had some systematized curriculum for it.

[Mike_McGurk]

I think the real question here is what do you mean by systemised? Do you mean to say that perhaps it was of less worth or that those who employed were less formidable before it was put to paper than after? To draw an analogy, the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, was passed down through oral tradition for over a millenium, so could it be said that it was any less organized during that period than after it was finally recorded? Returning to the sword, take the Vikings, who were obviously formidable warriors, and who we are also told trained their youths to fight, but this culture's system of writing (runes) was designed for inscriptions and not for paper. A fight-book was not really an option for them, yet their fighting system was still organised enough to be taught. I contend that their masters were no less knowledgeable of their own system than Talhoffer was of his, Talhoffer was simply able to write it down. The reason: they had to be, otherwise they would have been able to pass their knowledge and mastery of the sword on to the next generation.

[Rod-Thornton]

Jeff:

Just my interpretation from reading through such works as Doebringer, etc......

However, it appears as though the approach was systemized, as several introductory passages state clearly "...it was devised and thought out hundreds of years ago...."

(source: http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Dobringer_A5_sidebyside.pdf Cod.HS.3227a as translated, David Lindholm &amp; Friends, accessed 10.31.05)

Read 13V (first pages)

Perhaps a more relevant question might be to consider just how systemized the art was before being better DOCUMENTED in the fechtbuchs of the period(s) we study. To my mind, better documentation was not so much an impact of the evolution of a fighting system (which was likely always evolving as military sciences do) as much as an evolution of an economy, a renaissance of learning, and the enabling technology (printing presses, literacy, etc.).

[Mike_McGurk]

I agree, because how can you teach something as complex as a martial art if it isn't systemised? Everything that we learn becomes, in a way, organised in our minds and the more complex, the more organised. So by nature we as humans like to systemise things rather than have them be chaotic. I don't believe that they were rationalised in the way geometry was up until Vadi's time, but they were systemised.

[Gene Tausk]

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[philippewillaume]

Hello jeff
I do not think it is really linked to fight book.
You can fight successfully using Ringeck technique and Ringeck technique only. (Replace ringeck by fiore, VD, speyer, vadi and so on). I.e. you do not need anything else than what is in the manual.
Even though they are fight books, they are not especially didactic to the modern eye. So you can reasonably wonder where the system is. And may be there is none, may be it is just a collection of techniques. So early fight books may not be a system at all and may be you need to systematize them together. There is enough leeway in the technical description to supports both approaches.

As you other have pointed out, the lichty tradition is coming from an oral tradition hence it existed as such before the paper version. Even before fight book, that we have texts praising the Swabian mercenaries for being good swordfighter on foot or as said text about how the Viking or the francs were good fighter. i.e. they notably and recurringly (sorry for the neologism) survived fight,
So we can be certain that whatever the texbook are derived from existed before fight book in themselves. But that does not tell us if it is a system or not.

All the purpose of fighting method whatever the period or the place is created reproducibility of effects. In our case killing our opponent without being killed or maimed.
Reproducibility does imply that you have some form of cognition as to the relation between a given effect and its cause.
At a very basic level if he does that then we do that. And that is a very crude form of systemization.

The oral tradition (like the merkverse) is a representation of that system, not so different of the fight books.
So I would say that we can be pretty sure that the content of the fight book existed before the textbook but we can argue until the world&amp;#8217;s end on how to what extend that content is systematized

phil