The History and Art of Personal Combat by Arthur Wise

Author:Arthur Wise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1971-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

It is impossible to say when the transition rapier turned into the small sword. Certainly the way was open for the development when the idea of cutting with the rapier was discarded altogether. But it was established before the last quarter of the seventeenth century, with simple guard, pas d’ânes and knuckle-bow and its stiff, triangular or lozenge-section blade. And the names most closely associated with its use in combat are all French – Le Perche, Liancour and Labat.

There is a precision about the works of these three men, characteristic of the French school. Their guards are simple, the parries they recommend are economical and effective. To face any one of them in actual combat must have been a devastating experience. They attack on the lunge and fight up and down an imaginary line. They favour ‘simple’ parries rather than the circular ones of the Italians – perhaps because they feel that the simple is more secure, perhaps because they consider the circular might take a fraction more time. They do not approve of sidestepping to avoid an attack, but they are prepared to teach it under popular pressure. Equally they teach the occasional use of the left hand whilst not entirely approving of it. They teach the disarm – the removal of the opponent’s sword from his grasp, usually by seizing it and wrenching it from him – because it was still considered useful in combat. Liancour favours the occasional use of a ‘universal’ parry – a rapid, circular movement of the point covering the whole of the target – for there were, after all, still many dark alleys in the Europe of the late seventeenth century, just as there were shady characters to lurk in them. And Liancour also throws interesting light on the need for a master of fence to preserve his status and authority, by recommending that the pupil be given a practice weapon both heavier and shorter than that of his master. A difference to which, no doubt, the pupil’s attention was not drawn.

Rapier variants of the seventeenth century. The four cup-hilted weapons are Spanish. The shell-guard weapon is Flemish and the weapon with the simple ‘dish’ guard, quillons and knuckle-bow is German. Victoria and Albert Museum.

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