Quaestiones Forojulienses

I have many open questions about Fiore dei Liberi's art of armizare. Although nobody seems interested, I have moved them here from the notetaking app I used when I was involved in historical fencing. I have divided these questions into two parts, one which are interesting but not very important, and another which affect our practice of the art. Let us begin with theory, for as Cennino Cennini teaches, all arts are composed of theory and practice, but the theory is most worthy.

Most of these questions were written circa 2012 to 2016. They reflect my thinking and reading and training at that time.

Theoretical ←

What does it mean to fence, box, or wrestle according to a style? What is the boundary between variations in individual performance and a different style? (Here is one confusing answer).
Who were Fiore's family?
How was Fiore educated?
Who were Fiore's named masters?
Who else fought duels in doublet and hose in late 14th century Italy?
Was Niccolo III d'Este Fiore's patron?
When did Cividale name a street after Fiore?
What is the relationship amongst the four known manuscripts?
Why do Fiore’s jargon and armour jargon overlap? Asked on Wordpress (2016)
How do Fiore's teachings relate to the blows and stances seen in art from his lifetime?
How do Fiore and his teachings compare to other teachers of fencing or the art of arms in late 14th century Italy?
What were the spears, swords, daggers, axes, armour, etc. in Fiore's world like? (Since I asked that, someone has created a whole website on the subject)
Martial artists disagree about almost everything. If our name is not Donn Draeger or Robert W. Smith, how can we decide whether a general principle applies to what we are interested in?
Was there really a manual by the del Serpente brothers in Milan circa 1280? AEMMA has a short note on it

Practical ←

Concepts and Jargon ←

What do giocco largo and giocco stretto mean to Fiore?
What does it mean to 'enter'? Asked on Wordpress (2014)
What does it mean to break a guard?
What are contrataglie and contrapunte?
Why is there so little advice on fighting with two weapons? Asked on Wordpress (2015)
Is the lack of explicit reference to hand cuts because its obvious that if someone exposes their hand you break it? Or, as Guy Windsor says, because such techniques may fail to stop a determined attack? The Bolognese make a lot of cuts to the hand (edit 2022-12-06: and what about the sottani in the P-D manuscript "who always seek to strike the hands"? Guy is a fundamentalist about the Getty MS)
Why does the Italian tradition say so little about pressure at the cross? Or decisionmaking at the cross?
Why do the different manuscripts have different structures?
How did men use arms and physical force in Fiore's world?
What laws and customs governed the bearing of arms in Fiore's world?
When did Europeans from the middle of society start carrying swords again?

Poste ←

Why is Posta di Coda Longa so important in the Italian tradition but unpopular today? (Its even in haec sunt guardiae in dimicatione [Wiktenauer])
Why is the stance with the right shoulder back, the right elbow back, and the point up so common in art but absent from the manuals? (its in the famous sword and buckler picture in the Tacuinum Sanitatis as well as Carolingian and High Medieval art)

Blows ←

What cutting mechanics does Fiore use?
Fiore and Vadi like to hold the sword with the forward hand on the handle near the cross and the back hand on the pommel. Some Japanese sword arts and the longsword gloss in the recommend both hands together on the handle, and this is very common in art from Fiore's lifetime (eg. Bodmer 78 Historia destructionis Troiae from around 1370 or the manuscript with fencers in Fulda or BNF Français 343 Queste del Saint Graal from around 1385). What are the advantages and disadvantages and how unusual was Fiore's preference? (added 2022-11-15)
With which edge should one make each cut? Asked on Wordpress (2014)
Why do the sottani say that they can remain in posta longa?
In what situation does the first master of the sword in two hands, giocco largo, occur?

Thrusts ←

Does Fiore have an imbrocatta or overhand thrust, or does he rotate all thrusts so the false edge is up at full extension?

Covers ←

How does one make the cover of the sword in one hand against cuts on foot? True edge or false edge?
What do the colpi mezzani mean about thrusts and fendenti in the Pisani-Dossi MS?
Is the exchange of thrusts in Posta di Finestra Sinistra part of the art?

I have added one more section with my confused thoughts on the changes to the historical fencing movement in the 2010s. If you just care about the art and its medieval and modern practice, stop reading here!

Around the year 2012 there was a dramatic change in the culture of historical fencing. As the preliminary stage of research finished, and as the struggle between the "WMA" and "HEMA" parts of the movement was stirred up by corporate social media, the culture of scholarship was pushed to the margins of the culture of historical fencing. This is a problem because I was trained to believe that knowledge advances through communities not lone geniuses. And no one person (except possibly this guy or this guy) is qualified to research early martial arts.

How could we rebuild a culture where people share enough of a knowledge base and understanding of politeness to have productive conversations? [1]
How could we rebuild a culture where people are aware of issues wider than what position their hand should be in during a technique? (Since I wrote this, I learned that many of the people who do early Central European fencing talk about what kind of violence it might have been intended for).
How could we rebuild a culture which builds knowledge rather than losing it? [2]
Around the time people get good at fencing, they tend to lose interest in 'how they did it back in the day' and focus on giving unsolicited life advice or becoming better fencers. How could we preserve and share the 'historical' part of their work after they lose interest?

[1] For example, the three martial artists from three countries who translated Hans Lecküchner tell us that "traditional western martial arts, such as boxing, wrestling, and numerous forms of fencing, generally do not adhere to a centerline-based theory of tactics" (Grzegorz Żabiński, Russell A. Mitchell, and Falko Fritz (tr.), A Falchion / Langes Messer Fencing Treatise by Johannes Lecküchner (1482) (2012) p. 29) That seems hard for anyone familiar with 17th century Italian fencing (or Royal Armouries MS I.33!) to agree with.

I was surprised to read in a peer-reviewed article that "It is common ground for most schools that the validity of an interpretation is tested in tournament conditions" but others would be surprised to hear that tournaments cannot answer "is that how they did it back in the day?"

From studying presses like Freelance and watching what fencers talk about, I get the impression that the fencers buy many more translations of fencing manuals than books on other swordy topics such as deeds of arms, but the most prolific historical fencing author says that "You know, I’ve published a couple of translatey-type stuff and they make no money at all. My training manuals make reasonable cash, but translations make no money."

A teacher in the UK tells the Internet that "I believe the vast majority of us come to historical martial arts because of a love of the spectacular: the performance, the daring-do that appeals to us from whatever media we derive pleasure" - that does not match my experience. Some people think that the tournament crowd became more athletic or better fencers than my crowd, but I just do not and did not see that - tournament-focused groups had some uncoordinated people and some skilled athletes, so did historically-oriented groups and deed-of-arms focused groups.

About the actual name-calling ("X's interpretation is crap"), appeals to unnamed authorities ("serious HEMA scholars know that Y is bunk"), and ad hominem attacks ("Z is fat") the the less said the better.

I tried to be polite but question everything and build a framework of provisional truths based on the best arguments I could find and the judgement of experts. And somehow, what I could not see a basis for others took for granted, while the arguments which I found tentatively convincing others could not be bothered to hear or read. It was utterly bewildering. ←

[2] For example, people seem to be losing the knowledge that a martial art is a way of moving not an instruction manual. And when I try to talk about the date of the Nürnberg Hausbuch (Germanisches Nationalmuseum MS 3227a), I find people who don't know that the 1389 date is uncertain, people who aggressively insist that it could be as late as 1494 when Nicolaus Pol owned it, and people who say that Hans-Peter Hill and other scholars created a pretty good argument for c. 1389 plus or minus a decade or two (but they don't cite the best version of that argument). And many people tell me that Roland Warzecha's method of fighting with a Viking shield is pure I.33, whereas when he was getting started he explained that he drew on the German long shield plays collected by Hand and Wagner. If anything, you could argue that his I.33 is flavoured by his own personal style and by 17th century Italian fencing. ←

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