large round shield fighting.

[Corey Roberts]

Although there are no sources prior to 1295 and MS I:33, There are still fairly universal principles of sword usage which still would have applied to the earlier period for which we have no records. What can we glean from the sources we do have, about the usage of larger round shields and swords in the period of roughly 5th-11th centuries in which they were so common? How, based on our understanding of sword usage can we apply these principles to the usage of the earlier weapons of the dark age period?

[Greg Coffman]

Good question. I find it useful to think in terms of probability or likelihood for this type of interpretation. We can be fairly certain of much of the German longsword material in the Liechtenauer texts because of how they reinforce each other. However, even in the German longsword texts not all the texts agree on every detail. And there are plenty of the other manuals which are more obscure or confusing.

So when we take what we know about 15th-6ht fighting and apply it to earlier sword and shield, I'd say we drop quite a bit in likelihood to actually fighting or training how they fought. The exercise may still be valuable and insightful to our study (renaissance martial arts), but not very historically accurate to the earlier times.

On the other hand, I am impressed upon the similarity of I.33 to Jorg Wilhalm's and Mair's sword & buckler. That runs a gap from 1290's to about 1500 and later. Such continuity is surprising to me and suggest the possibility of other strands of continuity in the fighting arts. Wrestling probably had not changed for a while. And what was codified starting in the late 14th century had to come from somewhere or develop from something. It's just hard to say how much of the earlier arts are preserved in the renaissance fighting arts.

Another point of interest, there were still shields in use in the 15th and 16th centuries besides bucklers. Large oval shields were in use in the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries especially in siege situations. And rodelas were also a common shield-form in the renaissance. I'm not familiar with the texts which talk about rodelas; I don't know how clear those texts teach the use of that shield. But studying those texts we do have in the renaissance on rodelas would be a great place to start for anyone interested in shields or learning how earlier sword & shield might have potentially looked like.

Btw, I don't think sword & buckler would resemble sword & shield very much. Sword & buckler, especially I.33, looks to me to be quite close to longsword.