Wednesday HEMA: Now on Thursdays! No. 2

So, my plan to do a regular GIF of HEMA techniques being implemented in sparring or competition was disrupted right away by some traveling, but here it is, a day late! In the context of recent discussion on takedowns in HEMA tournaments, here's a GIF of a fight between Arto Fama and Simon van Gemert. It's a slightly longish one, as it involves a somewhat extended grappling exchange preceding the takedown, and I wanted to get it all in one shot. It's also a shame that I couldn't get the GIF to run entirely smoothly, but you get the gist I'm sure. Hopefully I'll get better at making these things in future posts.

Notice here that Arto clearly has no interest in engaging in the bind, striking merely as a diversion in order to get Simon to raise his arms up to parry. As soon as Simon does this, Arto immediately discards his weapon and drops levels for a full grip around Simon's waist. Simon is somewhat hard to take down, however, and Arto switches to an underhook in order to pull Simon over the leg and land in top position.

Now, I don't want to make this a political post per se, but what I do want to close this post with is saying that grappling, throws and takedowns in my mind at least clearly have a place in competitive HEMA, and this is an example of how it can be executed properly, with full intensity and intent.

Wednesday HEMA, No. 1

I'm planning on doing a weekly post on a range of HEMA-related topics every Wednesday. Mostly, this will be GIFs of manuscript being pulled of in competition/sparring settings, like my earlier post did, likely with some extra context and analysis added on.

The first one in this series is a nicely executed Duplieren by Cristoffer Holm on Axel Pettersson, in a competition that started each exchange in a bind.

Notice how Holm seems to let himself go soft in the bind for a brief moment before exploding into the Winding action behind Pettersson's blade, taking Pettersson by surprise. He also immediately covers any possible afterblow after making the hit. Good stuff.

HEMA technique gifs

I've been playing around with the idea of collecting gifs of sparring and tournament footage where 'textbook' techniques are being executed 'in the wild'. I don't have many yet but here's a few for future reference, and to play around with using gifs in blog posts.

Jin Ke Rapier Review

Intro
A few months ago, a Facebook user named Jin Ke advertised a new line of cup hilt rapiers on the Hema Professional Retail group, for 160 euros each. After seeing some early positive reviews, I decided to purchase one for myself. I wasn't really looking for a rapier, being more a longsword and sabre kind of guy, but noticing the Facebook post and the attractive price, I jumped on it; an extra toy is never a bad thing, was my reasoning, especially if it's (relatively) cheap. As such, I am an absolute novice when it comes to this weapons system. I had never trained or sparred with a rapier before this, and my exposure to rapiers is extremely limited. Any opinions expressed should be viewed in that context.

Service
I contacted Jin Ke via Facebook chat, and communication with him was quick and pleasant. He was very helpful and informative, and kept in touch, guiding me through the ordering, payment and shipping process from Ukraine, which was also very fast; I received the sword well within the two weeks quoted. Overall, nothing negative to report about this part.

I also ordered a pair of gloves with the rapier, and the whole package was shipped in two boxes: gloves, guard, cup and pommel in one, blade in the other. Both boxes arrived on the same day. Assembly was relatively easy, aside from the requirement of a pipe spanner or similar to tighten the pommel nut. I found it quite pleasant that a simple universal nut was used to hold the whole thing together, as this made possible future modifications a lot easier. The gloves look quite good, albeit a bit on the smallish side for a size L. They're leather, except for index finger and part of the palm, which is covered in some kind of tough-looking fabric, presumably to reduce wear. Clearly, they were designed and made by people who knew a thing or two about fencing, which is not surprising as I believe the production company is also a Kiev-based Olympic fencing store.

Fit and finish
If assembled properly, everything is super tight, and the cup rings like a bell. After the first sparring session, the guard did loosen slightly, but I have since replaced the regular nut with a locking nut, which should solve that problem. The blade is buffed to a nice shine, and the hilt furniture is sandblasted, which gives an attractive finish. The cup is rather big, and the grip is quite long, which does give a bit of an odd look to the sword. Presumably this was done to accomodate larger gloves, but it seems like overkill to me. What also seems like overkill is the thickness of the cup and guard bars; this thing should stand up to heavy (ab)use. Overall though, very high quality looks, far above what could be expected for the price.

Handling
As I said, I have almost zero experience with rapiers and rapier fighting. I do however, have some experience with single handed weapons, and in my relatively ignorant opinion, this rapier is quite heavy. It's advertised as being 1.3 kg, and mine is just over that. This is well within the historical spectrum for rapiers, though being on the heavier end- and usually, cup hilt rapiers were relatively light when compared to other models. However, while being technically historically accurate in terms of weight, in terms of practicality, I had difficulty using the sword for extended sparring. This wasn't a problem of balance, which was quite good; the point was easy to maneuver yet remained stable in the thrust. It was just that the static weight of the thing caused my forearm to cramp up after a while, especially using the extended-arm posture that Spanish rapier fencing often uses. Now, this could just be my inexperience, but I have never had this happen with any other weapon.

If one looks beyond the weight of the weapon, however, the blade itself performed quite well. It´s not whippy at all, as I heard is a problem with other cheaper makes of rapier such as Hanwei. It is more than flexible enough to be safe, though. Strong thrusts delivered straight to the throat did not hurt or cause any injury. This is probably also a result of the nicely large mushroom tip, which made adding any kind of thickening over the end, such as a rifle cartridge case or rubber tip, quite unnecessary. This thing is basically ready to use when assembled, which is quite nice and from what I've gathered, not always the case with rapiers. The blade edges are also relatively thick, and the heat treatment seems quite good, with no bends and minimal scratching after a full-tempo sparring session. The edges are a bit square though, and could stand to be rounded a bit more to make them even more durable.

Conclusion
Overall, this is a really good sword for the price. It's cheap, durable, well made, and good looking. I am however not entirely sure whether it would be a suitable training weapon for everyone straight out of the box. This is mainly a function of it's weight. I plan on doing a little HEMA hacking on it, maybe changing out the rather bulky cup for a lighter dish to improve handling, but if the makers themselves could put the hilt on a diet and have it shed 100-200 grams, and maybe shorten the grip by about three centimeters, this would be an amazing starter sword. As it is, it's very decent.

Authorship, proof, and basic assumptions in HEMA

This post is intended as a kind of follow-up to my earlier post on my research into the link between historical fencing and esoteric practices. As that post was of a more general, introductory nature, I would like to devote this and a few other, future post to some specific examples of what my research entails.
One of the main difficulties I encounter when trying to write about my findings is substantiating my claims. A lot of things that by now have become basic assumptions for me, may actually be incorrect, and need to be verifiable by my audience, and in order to do so I need to provide a thorough description of my reasoning and the way I approached my sources. In this post, I like to take a stab at doing that with one of my basic assumptions.

This basic assumption concerns the manuscript Hs. 3227a, also known as the Codex Döbringer. The reason for it being called the Codex Döbringer is part of another basic assumption as to the authorship of the book, but that is a can of worms I'll try to crack some other time. I do, however, want to discuss elements of the authorship of the manuscript. I believe that whoever composed the manuscript, while copying numerous texts from other books, did not copy the Glosse of Liechtenauer's Zettel contained in the book, but was the Glosse's original author.

There are several reasons why I believe this to be the case. The first reason concerns the use of personal pronouns, the second reason concerns the links to other texts in the manuscript, and the third reason concerns the structuring of the contents of the manuscript. The very nature of the book also plays a role, albeit only tangentially.

First, the use of personal pronouns. Usually, a Fechtbuch is prefaced with some kind of introduction, explaining the nature of the Glosse, but also quite often an explanation of the identity of the author of the Glosse. Because these texts are usually found in compilations by third parties, the authors are usually referred to in the third person. The use of the first person, where the writer of the maniscript refers to themselves in the first person, is exceedingly rare. in the few examples of it being done, such as in the works of Fiore and Talhoffer, it is clear that the first person is used because the author is referring to themselves. There is one example, in the Hans Medel Fechtbuch, where the copyist is referring to themselves in the first person, but here the scribe is quite careful to distinguish between themselves and the author of the text, Hans Medel. The Glosse in the Codex Döbringer, while being anonymous, does contain sections where the first person is used, while no reference is made in the third person to an author.

My second indication concerned the link between the Glosse and another anonymous text concerning fencing in the manuscript. This essay, if you will, on the general principles of fencing, precedes the Glosse. It is, however, quite similar in style, as well as in the nature of the principles being explained. On multiple occasions, emphasis is made on what the author considers the foundation of longsword fencing, which he considers point-centric, lean and simple, and devoid of any superfluous techniques. The phrasing of these principles is so similar, that I would be very surprised if the author of the essay preceding the Glosse and the author of the Glosse were not the same person.

My main reason for thinking that the writer and original owner of the Codex Döbringer is also the author of the Glosse, however, lies in the way that the book is structured. The martial arts sections seem to be structured with the intent of providing a complete system. The Glosse is the meat and potatoes of the treatise, to be sure, but it is preceded by a foreword of sorts; it is summarized; and, it is followed by 'chapters' on a variety of weapons and their use, all described as deriving from Liechtenauer's system. Strangely, though, interspersed between these chapters are texts on a variety of other subjects, which ostensibly have nothing to do with martial arts. On top of this, many of the chapters seem unfinished, some even breaking off mid-sentence. It's almost as if the author decided to write a general treatise on martial arts, set aside a bunch of pages for each chapter, and got quite far into his first draft of the manuscript, but never quite got around to finishing the entire thing. But, books are expensive, and there's no sense in wasting a good notebook, so the empty pages were used for random notes from other books that interested the author.

This last bit is obviously merely a hypothesis, and a lot of the evidence is circumstantial, but I do believe I made a strong case for it. The above points are the main pieces of evidence I have, but there are lots of other little bits that pointed me in the direction. At the very least, the possibility that a professional scribe wrote the manuscript for a client can be excluded. For example, the book is quite small, pretty much the size of a modern Moleskine notebook. Also, while the handwriting is the same throughout the book, there are indications, such as in the color of the inks used, that the author went back and forth within the book, adding sections within paragraphs perhaps days or weeks later. Not only that, but a lot of sections are striked through, to be rewritten or discarded.

All these little things give me small indications as to the identity and perhaps even character of the author of the manuscript. Since the manuscript is anonymous, this is all I have to go on, but now, aside from knowing his interests through what he chose to copy from other books, I can also say with some confidence I have access to his original thoughts.

Swords and Sorcery: my research

This post is mainly meant to summarize the current state of my research on the link between medieval martial practice and esotericism. I want to use it for both selfish and generally informative purposes. Selfish, because I can use it to get my current lines of thought in a little more coherent shape, and maybe build a base to springboard my thesis off of. Generally informative, because I believe my topic is a genuinely interesting side of HEMA research, and underdeveloped topic within a deeply underdeveloped academic genre.

My interest in the link between HEMA and esotericism began when I had to pick a topic for my Bachelor's Thesis in Religious Studies. I figured I'd pick a topic that involves something you like investing large amounts of time in, so swordfighting wasn't that far around the corner. The main guideline for the thesis topic was that it had to have some kind of connection to magic and/or witchcraft. I happened to recall an online discussion that mentioned the swordfighting instructor Hans Talhoffer had some kind of connection to Kabbalah, so I thought that was as close as I was going to get. Some research got me scans, photocopies and transcriptions of most of Talhoffer's manuscripts, and while looking through them I got two surprises. First, there was no real Kabbalah in there to speak of. One of the two manuscripts had a Hebrew alphabet, yes, and some other Hebrew scribbles, but that was about it. However, there was quite a bit of other very interesting material there to work with. One of the manuscripts, for instance, contained all sorts of devices for predicting the outcome of a duel through combing the letter-value of the names of the combatants with the date and time of the fight, a particularly rare kind of divination called onomancy. Another manuscript was filled with strange illustrations of all sorts of machinery, semi-alchemistic recipes, and, on top of that, a whole chapter devoted to astrology and physiology, complete with Medieval humoral teachings. In short, I had more than enough material to devote a thesis to.

My main working question revolved around trying to figure out why, exactly, Hans Talhoffer decided to combine these esoteric elements with his seemingly more down-to-earth fighting arts instruction. While I never quite came up with a conclusive answer to that, the work did serve as a gateway to other manuals combining esotericism and swordsmanship in similar ways. For instance, along the way I discovered that another swordfighting manual, the Hs. 3227a, also called the Codex Döbringer, contained what a catalog entry called "astrological texts, magical and medicinal recipes, onomatomancy". Here was another manuscript combining onomancy and swordfighting! I would have loved to include an analysis of the particular kind of onomancy contained within the Döbringer manuscript, but unfortunately, as opposed to the Talhoffer manuscripts, no transcription or translation of the relevant folio's could be found. In fact, I had quite a bit of trouble getting a hold of good quality scans of the relevant folio's, let alone a transcription. This meant I would have to do the painstaking work of transcribing and translating a particularly tricky passage of a hard to read manuscript myself, with no experience in such matters. Did I mention that, while the sections of the manuscript were in German, the esoteric bits were in Latin? Clearly, a compare and contrast of Talhoffer and Döbringer were quite beyond the scope of a Bachelor's thesis.

So, I figured I'd continue my research during my Master's program. I have now had roughly two years of a Research Master behind me, and this is what I have so far. After quite a bit more work than I anticipated, I was able to transcribe the section containing the onomancy. I wasn't exactly sure which folio contained the relevant information, so I had to transcribe around fifteen pages. Then, after taking a course in Medieval Latin, I attempted to sort through the raw data. Besides the onomancy, which turned out to be roughly two paragraphs of quite a bit more primitive devices than the ones contained in the Talhoffer manual, the pages contained a great variety of other hugely interesting material. A brief overview should give an idea of the nature of the texts. For instance, a table connecting the four humors, the four seasons, the four elements, and the four stages of a man's life, in various ways. Or, a poem describing the different months, with their nature or the activities one undertakes during that time. A few medicinal recipes, for instance a drink that purportedly gets rid of a tapeworm. The previously mentioned onomancy. My personal favorite section, however, is a copy of an alchemical manual called the Liber Vaccae, or the Book of the Cow. This rare and historically quite demonized book contains a variety of what can only be described as scientific experiments of a generally quite gruesome, visceral nature. For instance, one experiment describes an application of the Medieval scientific principle of spontaneous generation by transforming a dead calf into a swarm of bees, or vice versa. The procedure is quite complex, and involves beating the calf to a pulp with a black dog's penis and  I am not even kidding. Another experiment describes the creation of a homunculus by impregnating an unidentified animal with various herbs and stones, sealing up all its bodily orifices, and storing it in a dark place. After this, it's stomach is cut open, and the resulting product can be used to produce all sorts of miraculous effects, among which control over the weather, invincibility and invisibility.

So, with this material in hand, my plan for this year is to finally compare and contrast Talhoffer and Döbringer. there are a number of questions I would like to have answered. Who were these men who wrote these books? What was their education like, or their social context? What caused them to be interested in both martial arts and esoteric topics. Were these interests related in any way? Did Talhoffer, perhaps, have entirely different reasons for including the material than Döbringer? Of course, perhaps not all of these questions are answerable, and new questions might arise during the coming months. This is, however, where I stand right now. It's kind of exciting, really, as I believe no one has ever done this kind of research, at least, not that I'm aware of. It can also be kind of lonely though, so if anyone is working on the same kind of thing I'd very much like to hear about it.

Future posts will probably go into more detail, but I hope this was of interest to those already involved in HEMA, but perhaps unaware of this side of it.

Krumphau and attacking the guards

In this post, I wanted to devote some space to two main topics: using the Vier Versetzen and attacking the fighter camped in a guard.

Guards are often seen as positions one should not linger in too long. At the same time, it is often advised that one should not attack someone who is camped in a guard. This has always seemed somewhat contradictory to me. I wanted to devote some time in this post exploring how I see guards and their use, focusing on these two points.

First of all, I wanted to give some thought to how I see the Krumphau working as a counter to Ochs. This basically means I'll try to write down what I've already been teaching in my classes, more or less. I've been drawing a lot of ideas from Ps. von Danzig lately, and my specific implementation of Krumphau versus Ochs owes a large part to that text. Coupled with this specific technique, I also wanted to discuss some points on attacking guards in general.

First off, I think it would be useful to first sum up some of the basic assumptions I have regarding the Vier Versetzen. What I always tell my students is that the Vier Versetzen negate the offensive potential of the Vier Leger. What I mean by this is that each of the Vier Leger has an attack that comes naturally from that position, and which is most often employed from that position. Vom Tag has the Obenhau, Pflug has the low thrust, Alber has the short edge Unterhau or Ansetzen, snapping up quickly with the point, and Ochs has the high thrust. My basic assumption is that each of these attacks are countered in some way by one of the Vier versetzen, enabling one to attack a guard while working around the most likely attack from said guard.

My second basic assumption is that the Vier Versetzen, or Fünf Hauen if you include the Zornhau, are named 'hidden strikes' for a number of different reasons, but one of them being is that they are hard to discern. Each of the strikes starts from a standard sword-on-the-shoulder Vom Tag, and each appears to begin as a regular old Obenhau. This makes them hard to predict, and hard to counter, and enables you to control your opponent and his reactions to your advantage.

Now, having these assumptions in the back of my mind, let's have a look at what the source text tells us on how the Krumphau breaks Ochs. Strangely, most of the older manuscripts containing Glosses of Liechtenauer's Zedel did not specify exactly how one of the Vier Versetzen were to be used in 'breaking' a guard. They merely briefly summed up wich Hau broke which guard. Luckily, Ps. von Danzig goes into a little more detail. Of the Krumphau, he tells us:

[17r] Merck der krump haw ist der vier vor setzen ains wider die vier hüten wenn do mit pricht man die hüten Die do haist der öchss vnd auch der öber vnd den vnder haw den treib also wenn du mit dem zu° vechten zw° im kumpst stet er denn gegen dir vnd helt sein swert für seinem haubt In der hu°t des ochsens auff seiner lincken seitten So setz den lincken fues vor vnd halt dein swert an deiner rechten achsel in der hu°t vnd spring mit dem rechten fuess wol auff dein rechte seitten gegen ÿm vnd slach ÿn mit der langen schneid aus gekräutzten armen vber sein hend

My interpretation of this is as follows. The main threat of Ochs is in the point, which is primed for a high thrust. One therefore would wish to avoid the point, and consequently avoid moving straight in. since the point is very maneuverable in Ochs, it would be unwise to try to simply bash it out of the way, as a Durchwechseln would be very easily made to counter this. Therefore, the intention is to flank the opponent, while giving the impression that a regular Obenhau is imminent. This would give the opponent an incentive to move forward, expecting to make a successful Absetzen. However, instead of finishing the Obenhau, the attacker jumps out of the line of the high thrust, but throws the point back towards the opponent, hitting him in the hands. Note that this version works for both an  opponent camped in a static Ochs, primed for a thrust, or for an opponent standing in, say, Pflug, expecting an Obenhau and wanting to make an Absetzen. In both cases, deception and lateral movement, while throwing the point back towards the opponent's closest target, the hands, makes the Hau work.

My interpretation of the Krumphau countering Ochs through deception can be backed up by another of Ps. von Danzig's Stücke, a second counter of Ochs. This time, the deception is that the Krumphau is clearly telegraphed to the opponent. I'll quote the text again:

[18r] Auch prichstu mit dem stuck die hu°t des ochsen Den treib also Wenn dw mit dem zw° vechten zw ÿm gest stet er denn gegen dir vnd heltt sein swert mit dem gehültz auff seiner lincken seitten vor dem haupt So wurff dein swert an dein rechte achsel vnd thue als du im mit dem krump haw an sein swert an wöllest pinden vnd haw kurtz vnd wechsel do mit vnden durch sein swert vnd schewss im deñ ort zu° der anderñ seitten lanck vnder seine~ swert ein zu° dem hals So mües er vor setzen Do mit kumpstu zw° schlegen vnd zw° ander arbait mit dem swert krumpha. _{W. der pricht die Huet des Ogsen}

If you'll remember, I said earlier that I would not advise trying to bind on the blade with the Krumphau, if trying to counter the Ochs. This Stücke advises pretending to do exactly that. If he doesn't respond, of course, like with any feint, you can proceed like you were sincere in your intentions, bind on his blade, wind, and thrust to his chest, like earlier Stücke advise doing against an Obenhau. It is, however, very likely that he will try to somehow avoid the bind, move his sword, or at least somehow move his point to counter your action. This is your cue to move off to the other side, slide your sword under his in a classic Durchwechseln, and finish with a thrust.

Notice the theme here. In both cases you can safely engage the opponent, because you can reasonably predict his responses and work around them. This is why I believe the Vier Versetzen are suitable for fighters camped in a certain guard, so long as you are able to pre-empt and draw out their predictable responses. Future posts will elaborate on this, but I think this is enough for now.