Renaissance Swordsmanship: The Illustrated Use of Rapiers and Cut-and-Thrust Swords

by John Clements

1997

Description

This is the most thorough work ever about historical swordsmanship. It is both a general reference and an instructional guide for advanced and beginning sword enthusiasts, students of military history and martial artists. Includes rare historical info and 100 original drawings.

Library's review

The most thorough work on historical European swordsmanship ever undertaken.

Both a general reference and an instructional guide for advanced and beginning sword enthusiasts, students of military history, and martial artists.

An invaluable compilation of historical and never-before-published
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material, including information from rare 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts from Italy, Germany, France, and Great Britain that are unavailable to many readers.

A detailed description of Renaissance sword-fighting techniques, how they differed from earlier medieval forms, and how these techniques can be applied by today's enthusiasts.

Features more than 100 pages of original drawings depicting fighting techniques, as well as stances, grips, parries, thrusts, bucklers, daggers, and much more.

When you mention Renaissance swordsmanship, most people immediately think of The Three Musketeers or some other Hollywood swashbuckler. Renaissance Swordsmanship dispels the many myths and misconceptions about swords and swordsmanship that films and popular fantasy have generated. This serious reference gives a fascinating, straightforward explanation of what Renaissance rapiers and cut-and-thrust swords were, how they were used, how they differed from modern fencing sports, and how you can use them today.

To write this book, John Clements, the author, combined exhausitve reserch with years of hands-on practice in fencing, contact-weapons sparring, and training wtith historically accurate replicas. His intention was to return historical swordsmanship to its rightful place as a true martial art, not just a recreational sport, and to produce a book that reconstructs our Western martial heritage.

By stydying the weapons, the armor; the historcal accounts of battles, and the artwork of the Renaissance period (roughly 1450 to 1700 A.D.), you can see how men acutally fought and killed with these rapiers and cut-and-thrust swords.

Contents

Introduction
Author's note
Chapter 1 The rapier
Chapter 2 The small-sword
Chapter 3 Cut-and-thrust swords
Illustrations: Weapons and their use
Epilogue
Advice to readers
Bibliography
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Subjects

ISBN

9780873649193

Publication

Paladin Press
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