Byzantine martial arts

[Benjamin Parker]

Can anybody tell me what sort of martial arts the medieval and renaissance byzantines used?, and how they used their weapons?, and their weapons techniques?. Please go into detail.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

There's simply not much that we know about this subject--at least not in terms of direct evidence from fighting manuals. Of course, there's a significant number of Byzantine military manuals (check the Wikipedia page on them), but they mostly deal with large-scale tactical and strategic combinations and say little about individual fighting techniques. Maybe the best way to go if you want to get some idea of the actual techniques employed is by reading the primary source annals and chronicles. Procopius, for example, mentions that the horse archers of Belisarius's 6th-century army could not match their Persian counterparts in rapidity of shooting, but made up for it with stronger and better-aimed shots, which some people have taken as evidence that the Romans/Byzantines at that time had not adopted Persian shower-shooting methods; but the Strategikon, written not long afterwards, emphasizes fast shooting and may indicate that the Byzantines finally did adopt shower-shooting after all.

[Benjamin Parker]

I know that, what I'm talking about is how they used their weapons and their unarmed comabat techniques and their techniques for fighting in armor and with weapons and hands and feetand wrestling and grappling.

[Mike Cartier]

well thats a mystery really but we can get some hints

as far as general unarmed defense arts the Byzantines drew from the extensive Greco-Roman Pankration and heavy athletics of ancient greece (boxing wrestling and pankration)

there is a few mentions of people in Byzantine times represnting the living lineage of Greek wrestling (submission wrestling)

the Byzantines are responsible (at leats the emporer Theodosius for killing of the heavy athletics with edicts against pagan temples which the Paleastra housed several elements geared towards worship of the patron gods of athletics (Ares, Athena, Apollo, Herakles, etc)

As far as military weaponry i would say the Byzantines straddled east and west more perfectly than any culture ever had and so there arts of war would refflect that, they were firmly rooted in the classical age with the other foot soaking up the stuff around them from the east. regardless they were very effective for a while.

There is a some Byzantine literature concerning army preparation i think, i'll try to find it.

Incidently the Byzantines also created the most complete union of of Religion and Govt which had alot of effect on thier preparation for war in both positive and negative ways.

[Benjamin Parker]

Thanks man I appreciate your help

[Mike West]

Speaking of the Byzantines, does anyone have an recomendations for good books on the Byzantines and, their history?

I have two Osprey titles, but they're about the military.

[Joel Norman]

Ummm, I can recommend a couple of books for military history from Dr. David Nicolle which show arms and armor during the crusading era; it has a lot of pictures of period equipment all over Europe and the Middle East, including Byzantine stuff if I remember correctly. In at least one of his books, Dr. Nicolle makes mention of weaponry and armor being traded back and forth between Europeans and the near-East, and so probably at least some of the Byzantine fighting arts were similar to western European ones, if only for the similar equipment. (Alot of the pictures of weapons from eastern europe look just like the ones in western europe, etc.)

[Keith Culbertson]

here are a few major ones from my thesis research:

Byron, Robert, The Byzantine Achievement—An Historical Perspective A.D. 330-1453, Russel& Russel Inc., NYC, 1964.

Fine, John V. A., Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans, Michigan University Press, Ann Arbor, 1983.

Guerdan, Rene, Byzantium—It’s Triumphs and Tragedy, trans. D. L. B. Hartley, Capricorn Books, NYC, 1957.

Hussey, J. M., The Byzantine World, Hutchinson University Library, London, 1967.

Lindner, Rudi Paul, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia, Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, Volume 144, Research Institute for Inner Asiatic Studies, Bloomington, 1983.

Lock, Peter, The Franks in the Aegean—1204-1500, Longman, London, 1995.

Miller, William, Trebizond—The Last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era—1204-1461, Argonaut Inc. Publishers, Chicago, 1969.

Nicol, Donald M., The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261-1453, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Obolensky, Dimitri, The Byzantine Commonwealth, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Creswood, NY, 1971.

Ostrogorsky, George, History of the Byzantine State, Rutgers University Press, 1969.

Phillipides, Marios, Emperors, Patriarchs and Sultans of Constantinople 1373-1513, Hellenic College Press, Brookline Massachusetts, 1990.

Vassiliev, A. A., History of the Byzantine Empire, Volumes I & II, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1964.

Vryonis, Speros, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the 11th through the 15th Century, University of California Press, Berkley, 1971.

Ostrogorsky, Vassiliev, Vryonis and Nicol would be chief canon.

enjoy!