Welcome to our book catalogue page for the art German Longsword, hand to hand combat weapons and sword fighting techniques.
This catalogue page has books about sword fighting, fencing, the medieval longsword, and medieval swordsmanship. Books for teaching swordsmanship as a martial art and complete combat discipline .
To defeat an opponent, a swordsman must use mind and body together to anticipate attacks, carefully observing the opponent, making proper contact with the blade, and combine strategy with technique.
Sword fighting as a science, an art and, for many, a religion that began at the dawn of civilization in ancient Egypt and has been an obsession for mankind ever since.
Sword fighting was an entertainment in ancient Rome, a sacred rite in medieval Japan, and throughout the ages a favorite way to settle scores. For centuries, dueling was the scourge of Europe,
banned by popes on threat of excommunication, and by kings who then couldn’t keep themselves from granting pardons—in the case of Louis XIV, in the thousands. Evidence of this passion is all around us.
For example, we shake hands to show that we are not reaching for our sword. A gentleman offers a lady his right arm because his sword was once attached to his left hip. Men button their jackets to
the right to give them swifter access to their sword.
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With his first book, Christian Henry Tobler offered students of historical swordsmanship a first English-language look
at the renowned German school through the translated and interpreted commentaries of Sigmund Ringeck and the verse
Zettel of Johannes Liechtenauer. Since the book's release in 2002, Mr. Tobler has expanded his knowledgeof the
Liechtenauer system and encapsulated its teachings through the use of the main Liechtenauer sources and through
practical teaching in his Selohaar Fechtschule and in seminars around the United States.
Fighting With the German Longsword is a brilliant book, distilling the foundational concepts that underly the German
system and presenting them in a logical order complete with drills and photographic support. Now, the students of
German swordsmanship can build their skills in a well-organized and sensible progression of skills. As such, the
book will prove useful to anyone interested in historical swordsmanship. Fighting draws from the corpus of German
manuscripts, including those of Hanko Döbringer, Sigmund Ringeck, Hans Talhoffer, Paulus Kals, the von Danzig fechtbuch,
Jud Lew, Hans von Speyer, and Joachim Meyer. Most of the work is based on Mr. Tobler's original translations, tempered
by his experience with the system as a whole.
On its own or as a companion to Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship, this book will become an essential part of
any library on historical sword techniques.
No look at the historical techniques would be complete without close quarters work, and Mr. Tobler is to be particularly congratulated for his distillation of the principles of the Drei Ringen or Three Wrestlings. Using this simple system, the fundamentals of the close quarters Krieg may be easily integrated. The author then extends these principles to the wrestling at the sword, in and out of armour. The sections on spear and halfswording step the combatant through an application of the principles in such a way that they can be applied to any martial system, including the study of historical swordsmanship for its own sake, for use in armoured tournaments, for stage, and for SCA/Reenactment purposes.
On its own or as a companion to Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship, this book will become an essential part of
any library on historical sword techniques.
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The best way to learn the Italian Longsword is to train with an expert teacher, like Bob Charron or Guy himself.
Failing that, Guy's book is a great place to start your studies.
With the recent release of Christian Tobler's excellent "Fighting with the German Longsword", both major systems of
medieval longsword play are the subject of well researched, excellently written books. It's a great time to be studying
medieval swordsmanship.
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From the author of Renaissance Swordsmanship comes the most comprehensive and historically accurate view ever of the lost fighting arts of Medieval knights, warriors and men-at-arms. Based on years of extensive training and research in the use of European swords, it contains highly effective fighting techniques for the sword, sword & shield, long-sword, great-sword, pole-arm and more. And with more than 200 illustrations and rare historical documents, it is a scholarly reference as well as a hands-on training guide for martial artists of all levels.
John Clements has had a lifelong pursuit of (some say obsession with) nearly all forms of swordsmanship. He started studying historical weaponry in 1980 and has practiced cut-and-thrust swordsmanship for almost 18 years. He has practiced under five different weapon-sparring systems and trained in numerous sword arts. He started fencing at the age of 14, followed by an interest in martial arts, and in 1982 founded the Medieval Battling Club. He has spent time in Europe examining weapon collections, and his writings on swordsmanship and weapon-sparring
have appeared in more than six magazines.
John is a member of the British Arms & Armor Association and taught two semesters on swordsmanship and Medieval battling at Western Nevada Community College in 1992. In 1994 he took first place in the Advanced Weapon-Sparring Competition of the U.S. National's Kung Fu Tournament in Orlando, Florida. He lectures on historical weaponry and is an ardent promoter of contact-weapon sparring and study with historical replica swords. He trains regularly in long-sword, sword & shield, sword & buckler, sword & dagger, Medieval spear, and rapier & dagger methods.
He now teaches classes and seminars on Renaissance and Medieval swordsmanship in Houston, Texas, with the Historical Armed Combat Association (HACA).
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Medieval Sword & Shield is a fascinating interpretation of the earliest known fighting treatise in Europe, Royal Armouries RA I.33, also published by Chivalry Bookshelf as The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship (ISBN 1891448382).
In Medieval Sword & Shield, Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner decrypt the sword and buckler techniques presented in the color treatise, explaining the concepts that underly the system and providing photographic examples to explain their interpretation to the reader.
This book looks at a unique time in the Western Martial Arts, c. 1290, as the sword and buckler were used for civilian defense on the roads of Europe.
Clearly presented, this book promises to become a classic of Western Martial Arts, of interest to historical fencers, SCA combatants, martial artists, and students of medieval history.
Readers interested in European Medieval martial arts have to realize that these systems were kept secret at the time. Medieval manuscripts on fencing were written for a very select audience and are brief, deliberately obscure, and cryptic. It requires a great deal of effort and dedicated study to try to reconstruct personal combat techniques from period sources with any hope of success. Paul Wagner & Stephen Hand have done an excellent job in that regard with their book. Royal Armouries MS I.33 is the oldest illustrated fencing manual in existence and is devoted exclusively to a single weapon system: the arming sword and buckler. Wagner & Hand have studied all the available period sources on this weapon system and combined that with a lot of hands-on trial and error to come up with a complete and plausible interpretation of the system.
The strength of the book from a scholar's view point is the clarity with which they explain what is not being said in the original manuscript. For example, MS I.33 contains no references to footwork. I appreciate authors who do not blurr the line between their own inventions and those techniques clearly grounded in the source.
(Readers interested in the source will want Dr. Jeffrey Forgeng's translation and facsimile of the original manuscript titled: The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship.)
The strength of the book from a practitioner's view point is the clarity of the text and photographs. It is a simple matter to work your way through the material following their explanations and illustrations. Given the limited source material, it is only natural that there will be disagreements on interpretation. Mine comes from Wagner & Hand's reliance on 16th-century Italian rapier and dagger sources for their footwork. Admittedly, MS I.33 provides no guidance in this area, but I find 16th-century Italian footwork so distinctive, even compared to other 16th-century styles, that I have reservations about its applicability here.
This book is an historically important fencing manual and Wagner & Hand have done the European Medieval martial arts community a service by providing a complete and rigorous interpretation. The quality of the presentation reflects their effort and dedication. This book deserves a place on any bookshelf devoted to the subject.
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