The Best Sword Show: See you March 16 in Timonium, MD!

Same time, same place. Every year in mid-March, the Maryland Arms & Armor Collectors Association puts on a monumental sales show.

Hope I’ll see you there on Saturday!

Silence of the Sticks: Why wooden weapons fell out of favor in 19th-century Germany

The Irish beat each other with shilelaghs, the English drew blood with singlesticks and quarterstaves, the French wielded canne and baton. The Portuguese still play at jogo de pao and the Italians had the bastone. The Germans, however, showed no interest in wooden weapons, at least after the Fechtschul traditions of dussack and assorted staff weapons (most of which with a blade of one kind or another) had disappeared. How come?

Come and get them.

 

Legends of the Sword: Satan fights a Mensur

The German novelist and poet Wilhelm Hauff (1802—1827) is more famous for his fairy tales than for his novels. Unreasonably so, because his Memoiren des Satan alone are better written and more enjoyable than all the semi-competent writage they throw at German literature students in college these days.

Hauff studied philosophy and theology at Tübingen. In 1826, he wrote Mitteilungen aus den Memoiren des Satan (Memoirs of Beelzebub), in which he works in some of the fencing activities of his brother, a member of the Tübinger Burschenschaft.

For the connoisseur of Gedecktes Hiebfechten, this is a rare monument of armament and strategy of the early Mensur…

Sword Skills: Disarming and Throwing the Opponent, according to Roux

He may’ve been one of the most outspoken opponents of the Jena students’ thrust duel with the elongated “wälsche Banditendolch“—the “Frog” bandit dagger, as his colleague from the philosophical faculty, Dr. Scheidler, called the disgraceful French dueling sword.

But F.A.W.L. Roux continued to teach Kreußlerian thrust fencing with the “Rappier” way into the second half of the 19th century—both as a healthy exercise and part of the German Turnkunst, and as a practical martial art for military men.

Included in his repertoire were some disarms and throws that few of his colleagues ever bothered mentioning in print…

Fencing Nudes: Duel Naked!

One of the leading search terms that brings novice FencingClassics readers to our site is “topless fencing”.

Who’d'a thunk?

And since we thrive on giving people what they want, we’re happy to oblige… with images of duels between women in various stages of dress and undress…

Weapons: The Subtlety of the Modern Sports Sabers

Collectors of modern sports weapons face a bit of a dilemma. It’s almost impossible to tell a piece of recent scrap metal found in the back of the club armory from a weapon with at least budding historical value.

Luckily, some old fencing equipment catalogs provide a clue at dating and contextual placement. Like the 1938 catalog of Vince Fencing Equipment, Inc., which provides some clues to early sports sabers…

Dark Age Mayhem: Bet you can’t just read one

A restored Roman helmet…

A mass grave of beheaded Jomsviking mercenaries… 

The remains of a high-ranking warrior, along with his sword, axe and other items…

Here’s a challenge for the habitual SHotS reader: Try not to read more than one of these news flashes from the past…

Swords in the News: Viking Sword Found in Melhus, Norway

A Happy V-Day to you, too!

Happy Viking Sword Day, that is…

A few lucky construction workers in Melhus, Norway, stumbled over a piece of rusted metal that made their hearts beat faster…

Italian-School Saber: “Slipping the Leg”

Since we just reviewed and edited this posting and still have one more article on Italian-style sports saber in the pipeline, we’ve decided to make this “Eye-talian Saber Week” at SHotS Fencing Classics…