Got a Real-World Weapon or Armor Question? Mk. VI

[Galloglaich]

Most of the manuals (sometimes known as "fechtbucher") that we are reconstructing Medieval and Rennaissance Martial Arts from deal with Judicial Combat (13th - 16th Century) Tournament fighting, and private dueling (16th -18th Century)

So mostly it involves a certain fairly limited range of weapons which were popular for duels or judicial combat. The latter especially were focused on weapons which had a somewhat limited (at least potentially limited) lethality, because a lot of times a juducial combat would be not be fought to the death. Same with duels actually. A mace is a weapon which is not easy to give a minor wound with, it's pretty much cave in the head or break the thigh, or you missed. Mostly the training is for one guy (or occasionally, woman) with a given weapon facing another person with the same identical weapon.

But I don't think fighting with a mace or a battle-axe is any less sophisticated to be honest, I suspect the martial arts for those weapons were probably as or nearly as sophisticated as what you see with most other weapons. The exceptions are longsword and rapier which seem to have a unusual potential for sophisticated techniques.

There are some exceptions among the fechtbucher, like this newly discovered 16th Century Portuguese Montanto (greatsword) manual which apparently deals with all kinds of interesting situations like fighting on a ship or a corridor, fighting groups of people, fighting people with different weapon combinations etc.

It's also true that we as a community have probably only digested and partially understood maybe something like 40-60% of the manuals, a lot of them remain viritually untouched and it's almost certain that more exist. I know of at least two interesting ones which haven't been made widely publicized yet.

The weapons I know of which are covered include:

Longsword (four foot two-handed sword or 'bastard sword' in D&D)
Sword and buckler roughly three foot long single-handed arming sword roughly equivalent to an RPG "Longsword"
Sword and dagger
Cut-thrust sword with buckler, small shield or dagger (this is like between an arming sword and a rapier)
Greatsword Like a longsword or a DnD greatsword but a bit bigger, about 5 feet long or maybe up to six feet, callled Spada di due mani by the Italians and Montante by the Spanish and Portuguese, 16th Century. Not quite as big as a true Zwiehander.
Zweihander the true giant sized six foot+ two-handed sword. 16th Century.
Rapier this is a bigger weapon than the 'rapier' in most RPG games, typically almost four feet long with a sharp blade, rapier techniques include including case of rapiers, one of the only two-weapon fighting systems I know of in the real world, as well as rapier with dagger and rapier with buckler, and rapier with cloak.
Smallsword Three foot thrusting only weapon similar to a modern fencing foil, basically this is the weapon called a "rapier" in most RPG games and computer games.
Grosse Messer (something like a heavier machete) the manuals show single handed messers but a lot of the surviving ones from 16th century or later are two-handed "kriegsmessers".
Dussack closely related to a messer, but curved and with a knucklebow, something like a primitive cutlass. In the 15th-16th Century, sparring versions of these were made out of leather and wood or whalebone, used for training for any kind of single-edged sword, hanger, or saber.
Saber I think only in 17th - 18th Century military manuals though I could be wrong about that. Also includes backsword etc.
Poll-axe (there is a Burgundian French manual called Jeu Du La Hache which deals exclusively with this weapon, it's also a lot in Talhoffer and many other manuals) and this include halberds and bills
Dueling Club
Scythe
Special dueling shield
Sort of a dueling flail (a rock in a sock, used for women in judicial combat)
Flegel (a real military flail, two-handed)
Dagger
Spear (including Partisan, a spear-like polearm, and the awl-pike)
Unarmed (similar to jujitsu)
Staff of various sizes ranging from bo-staff sized to pike-sized

Of course many other weapons were used on the battlefield and in civilian disputes, more manuals will undoubtedly emerge, but currentlly this is what we got as far as I can remember. Anyone think of any others I missed ...?

G.