Swords & Historical Fencing

Kunst Des Fechtens (Wednesday 20:30 – 22:00)

Our “Kunst des Fechtens” class features a true combined-arms approach to combat; we study a variety of different weapons from the late medieval and renaissance German school of fencing.

Our primary weapons in this class are the longsword and the dussack/messer, and this is accompanied by equal parts dagger and unarmed techniques, and from time to time we may also drop in the odd lesson on spear, staff, pollaxe and other weapons when it supports our studies with the longsword, messer, dagger and wrestling.


Cut & Thrust Fencing (Tuesday 18:30 – 20:00)

Our first class on Tuesday evening is a class looking at fencing systems c1600 – c1800, utilising the broadsword/backsword, rapier, smallsword and sabre.

Our primary sources are the works of George Silver, Joseph Swetnam and Zachary Wylde, supplemented by work from Sir William Hope, Donald McBane, Thomas Page and others. We will look at the use of the dagger and other implements n the off-hand, as well as occasional forays into related arts like cutlass!


English Longsword (Tuesday 20:00 – 21:30)

In this class we work directly from the three surviving English longsword sources, Man yt Wol (MS Harley 3542), Cotton Titus XXVa and the Ledall Roll (Additional Manuscript MS 39564), supplemented by material from George Silver.

Although this lesson focuses solely on the use of the longsword we aim to present a rounded approach to combat and will occasionally dip our toes into the murky waters of hypothetical disarms and grapples utilising the longsword.