[Regia-NA] Sword and Shield

Sat, 21 Jun 2003 18:36:24 -0700

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In the current issue of Spada: Anthology of Swordsmanship (http://www.chivalrybookshelf.com/titles/spada/spada.htm), Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner offer an article Talhoffer’s Sword and Shield Duelling Shield Techniques as a Model for Reconstructing Early Medieval Sword and Shield Techniques that may provoke some thought. They begin by looking at a “Fechtbuch” or fighting manual written by Hans Talhoffer in 1467 (as seen in Medieval Combat: A Fifteenth-Century Illustrated Manual of Swordfighting and Close-Quarter Combat). One of the most curious sets of illustrations shows two duelists using large, door-sized shields. Hand and Wagner suggest that the techniques for these shields cannot have arisen out of nowhere, and that by studying them, one can derive the otherwise-undocumented sword and shield techniques of the early Middle Ages. 
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They supplement their observations by looking at other fencing treatises (Marozzo, Agrippa, Di Grassi, Capo Ferro and McBane) as well as pre-15th century pictorial evidence, as far back as 300 BC. The conclusion is pretty clear: outside of the shieldwall, and armed with a sword and shield, the general practice was not that of keeping the shield vertical and perpendicular to the line of combat (which I will define as a straight line between two combatants). Instead the shield was rotated to be roughly parallel (within 20 degrees?) to the line of combat, roughly vertical, and with the boss pointed to the left (for a right-handed fighter) to protect the outside line. The authors call this the “Outside Ward” and it allows a better bead on the target and a more open path for your sword. The shieldwall position (as described above) is termed “Medium Ward”. A third ward is called “Inside Ward” and it consists of rotating the shield from the Outside Ward so the boss is pointing to the right.
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I think this is worthy of being experimented with; there are many hide-bound ideas about how men fought back in the days, and there are certainly safety concerns, but I think we should at least try to represent combat with the same fidelity as we do our costumes.</DIV></div> <hr>Protect your PC - <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMYENUS/2755??PS=">Click here</a> for McAfee.com VirusScan Online </html>