This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com SchoolsandmastersoffencefromtheMiddleagestoeighteenthcentury EgertonCastle ■ . _> i SCHOOLS SCHO & MASTERS WITH OF FENCE. JLLUSi EGERTON CASTLE. G. BELL AND SONS. 1885. S* r SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY I SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WITH A SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART OF FENCING WITH THE RAPIER AND THE SMALL SWORD AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE FENCING ART DURING THAT PERIOD ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF OLD ENGRAVINGS AND CARBON-PLATES OF ANCIENT SWORDS BY EGERTON CASTLE, M. A. Con Brcvetto di Nomina a Maestro di Scherma LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET COVENT GARDEN 1885 \The right of translation is reserved.] ' -- /. .j 1 j -1FEB35 CHISWICK PRESS :— C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. INSCRIBED TO BARON DE COSSON AND CAPTAIN A. HUTTON, IN RECOLLECTION OF MANY PLEASANT HOURS SPENT, WITH THE FORMER AMONG OLD BOOKS AND OLD ARMS, WITH THE LATTER IN THE FENCING ROOM, FOIL IN HAND. PREFACE. WORK of this kind must necessarily contain a great deal of" mere compilation, but considering that so little has been written on the subject, and that the early books of Fence are so difficult to find and really such tiresome reading to anyone who seeks intelligible i) information in their pages, I venture to hope that — however sketchy and superficial — this book may prove of some interest to lovers of ancient arms as well as to the votaries of the fencing school. Some time ago, my friend Captain Alfred Hutton — a well-known swordsman, who now, however, seems inclined to neglect the sabre and the foil for the brush and maulstick — left under my care a magnificent collection of books treating of the sword and its use, ranging in date from the early sixteenth century to the present day. Out of these I took sundry notes, at first with a view to future maga zine articles, the idea of which was suggested by a clever but unfortunately incomplete notice on early fencing-masters by the late Mr. Latham — whose name is so familiar to all connoisseurs of a good blade — which I discovered in a back number of " Time." Very shortly, however, my plan embraced a wider scope. In a lecture remarkable for its terseness, accuracy, and compre hensiveness, on the " Forms and History of the Sword," delivered at the Royal Institution last year, Mr. Frederick Pollock observed that an account of the development of the fencing art would require, not a discourse, but a book, and that such a book had not yet been written. Within modest limits I fancied I would make a work of this description out of my notes, when the announcement of the approaching publication of Captain Burton's treatise under the felicitous title of " The Book of the Sword " made me for a time completely abandon the idea. I well knew that Captain Burton never undertakes a subject without exhausting it, and felt sure that the " Book of the Sword " would comprise in itself all that could be said on the topic. When the first part of this immense work appeared, iv PREFACE. I was struck however by a passage in the preface which announced the author's intention to neglect all questions of " carte " and "tierce" — notwith standing his authority as a professed maitre d'armes — and to deal with the history of the sword itself rather than with that of the many theories con cerning its use. Perceiving from this that there was still room for a small work on subjects interesting to all frequenters of schools of arms, I forthwith began to arrange my notes into a coherent shape, in which I now present them to the public. There is little doubt that the French system of fencing can be traced, at its origin, to the ancient Italian swordsmanship ; the modern Italian school of course being derived in an uninterrupted manner from the same source. Either one or the other is followed by all nations in Europe, at least for small-sword or puncturing play ; the French, however, having undoubtedly more followers, although it may well be considered an undecided question, from a practical point of view, i.e. sword, not foil in hand, which of the two systems is the more perfect. Sabre, spadroon, or rapier-play — all cut-and-thrust play, in fact — derives its leading principles from the more elaborate small-sword fencing, so that a consideration of the development of the latter will be sufficient in the main for the purpose of this sketch. As Spain produced a school which only flourished in the Peninsula, being even there all but forgotten now, and as Germany and England adopted first the Italian and then the French system, the plan followed in analyzing the most celebrated authors and elucidating their leading principles has been to pay especial attention to the earlier Italian and the later French masters. On the way many points of interest in the history of well-known schools, and the manners and habits of devotees of the Noble Science of Defence in bygone days, have also been noticed. The investigation has only been carried to the last years of the eigh teenth century, when most of the old traditions of the fencing art were for ever abandoned ; for at that time the fashion of wearing the sword as part of a gentleman's dress was universally discarded, and swordsmanship became consequently no longer an indispensable accomplishment. At the same period, also, the old Compagnie des Maitres en fait d'Armes in Paris was dissolved by the Revolution, whilst in Germany at nearly all the universities — the great fencing centres of that country — the deadly" Rapier "was relinquished in favour of the comparatively harmless " Schlaeger." It is true that some improvement — in the theory at least — has been intro duced into the art of fencing during this century, but the minute points it deals with cannot be interesting to the general reader, besides which, much has been already written on the subject. On the other hand, the literature of the early history of fencing and fencing schools seems to be very small. PREFACE. v The only authorities that I have been able to find, besides some articles in cyclopaedias — all very incomplete and more or less copies of each other — are thirty-eight pages in Posselier's " Theorie de l'Escrime," 1 devoted to a cursory analysis of sixteen authors previous to 1800, and forty pages on the same subject in Marchionni's introduction to his " Trattato di Scherma,"'2 a great part of whose text, however, is a mere translation of Posselier's remarks ; also the " Bibliographic de l'Escrime " 3 of M. Vigeant, which, without pre tending to deal in any systematic manner with the history of fencing schools, is full of most valuable miscellaneous information ; the " System der Fecht- kunst,"4 by Josef Ott, containing a fair amount of useful matter concerning fencing schools ; and, lastly, a few notes in Strutt's " Sports and Pastimes " on the justs and tournaments and on the " Corporation of Maisters of Defence." I owe to the kindness and courtesy of Baron de Cosson, well known as a high authority on the subject of ancient arms and armour, and also to that of Mr. Wareing Faulder, one of the most experienced connoisseurs of such objects, the unhoped-for advantage of having been allowed to arrange for my purpose, in a chronological series, the pick of their magnificent collections of swords, and to have it photographed for publication. 1 Paris, 1845, 8°. ' Firenze, 1847, 8°. * Paris, 1882, 8°. * Olmutz, 1853,8°. TABLE OF CONTENTS. EDICATION Preface Bibliography ............. Introduction. The Modern Neapolitan School and the old Rapier-play — Object, of the work — Fencing in pictures, in historical novels, on the stage — Periods in the history of the Art : the " Sword," the " Rapier," and the " Small Sword " — Modern foil-fencing — Broad principles of the Fencing Art ........... Chapter I. The art of individual fighting in the Middle Ages — Tournaments and Schools of Fence — Sword-dancers — Sword-men and gladiators — Sword and buckler and " Swash bucklers " — Obnoxious nature of early fencing schools — The chartered Corporation of Maisters of Fence under the Tudors — Introduction of Rapier-play in England — National prejudice against the new-fangled weapon — G. Silver's " Briefe skctche of three Italian Teachers of Offence " — Ancient Teutonic schools of fence — The " Marxbruder," the " Fcderfechter," and the " Luxbriider " — Ancient fencing schools in Spain — Degrees in arms in the Corporation of Fencing-masters in Spain — Early Italian schools of arms .............. 13 Chapter II. Antonio Manciolino and Achille Marozzo — Classification of cuts — Fanciful guards of the early Italian schools — Marozzo's progression — Practice in the fencing room — Oath exafted from new pupils — Camillo Agrippa's system — Numerical guards and Free use of the point — Giacomo di Grassi — Typical system of early Rapier-play 34 Chapter III. Early sixteenth century fencing schools in France and foreign masters — " La noble science des joucurs d'espee " — Henri de Sainft Didier — Mania for duelling under the Valois — Angelo Viggiani — First definition of the lunge .... 5 3 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. rAGi Chapter IV. Geronimo Sanchez Carranza — The " Father of the Science of Arms in Spain " — Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez — Narvaez's progression — Early fourteenth century fencing schools in Germany — The Schwerdt and the Diisack — Joachim Meyer — Jacob Sutor — German fencing terms ........