page_title: History of fencing
section_title: Middle Ages and Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: History of fencing / Middle Ages and Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: Typical smallsword C 1740s. It is roughly three feet (one metre) long, with a triangular cross section blade and a brass hilt. Digital photo by Jll, taken with Canon Ixus V3, August 2005.
context_page_description: The oldest surviving manual on western swordsmanship dates to around 1300, although historical references date fencing schools back to the 12th century.
  Modern fencing originated in the 18th century in the Italian school of fencing of the Renaissance, and, under their influence, was improved by the French school. The Spanish school didn't become prominent until the 19th century. Nowadays, these three schools are the most influential around the world.
context_section_description: Sword fighting schools can be found in European historical records dating back to the 12th century. In later times sword fighting teachers were paid by rich patrons to produce books about their fighting systems, called treatises. Sword fighting schools were forbidden in some European cities (particularly in England and France) during the medieval period, though court records show that such schools operated illegally.
  The earliest surviving treatise on sword fighting, stored at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England, dates from around 1300 AD and is from Germany. It is known as I.33 and written in medieval Latin and Middle High German and deals with an advanced system of using the sword and buckler (smallest shield) together.
  From 1400 onward, an increasing number of sword fighting treatises survived from across Europe, with the majority from the 15th century coming from Germany and Italy. In this period these arts were largely reserved for the knighthood and the nobility – hence most treatises deal with knightly weapons such as the rondel dagger, longsword, spear, pollaxe and armoured fighting mounted and on foot. Some treatises cover weapons available to the common classes, such as großes Messer and sword and buckler. Wrestling, both with and without weapons, armoured and unarmoured, was also featured heavily in the early sword fighting treatises.
  The very first manual of fencing was published during 1471, by Diego de Valera.(in spite of the title, the book of Diego Valera was on heraldry, not about fencing). Fencing practice went through a revival, with the Marxbruder group, sometime about 1487 A.D. the group having formed some form of Fencing Guild.
  The rapier was apparently introduced to England during a time circa to 1540 (according to listings of the armoury of Henry the VIIIᵗʰ). During 1587 a certain Rowland Yorke (of otherwise ill-repute) might have introduced a particular technique with the rapier-sword to somewhere in England.
  During the 16th century the Italian masters Agrippa, Capo ferro,  di Grassi, Fabris, Giganti, Marozzo, and  Viggiani  wrote treatises which established Italy as the originator of modern fencing.
  By the 16th century, with the widespread adoption of the printing press, the increase in the urban population and other social changes, the number of treatises increased dramatically. After around 1500 carrying swords became more acceptable in most parts of Europe. The growing middle classes meant that more men could afford to carry swords, learn fighting and be seen as gentlemen. By the middle of the 16th century many European cities contained great numbers of swordsmanship schools and fencing was invented with the invention of the rapier. Often schools clustered together, such as in London at "Hanging Sword Lane". Italian fencing masters were particularly popular and set up schools in many foreign cities. The Italians brought concepts of science to the art, appealing to the Renaissance mindset.
  In 16th-century Germany compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed; notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s) and based on 14th-century teachings of the Liechtenauer tradition. In this period German fencing developed sportive tendencies.
  The rapier's popularity peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Dardi school of the 1530s, as exemplified by Achille Marozzo, still taught the two-handed spadone, but preferred the single–handed sword. The success of Italian masters such as Marozzo and Fabris outside of Italy shaped a new European mainstream of fencing. One master, Girolamo Cavalcabo of Bologna, was employed by the French Court to tutor the future Louis XIII in fencing, and his influence may be seen in later French treatises, such as that by François Dancie in 1623.
  The Ecole Française d'Escrime founded in 1567 under Charles IX produced masters such as Henry de Sainct-Didier who introduced the French fencing terminology that remains in use today.
  Rapier gave rise to the first recognisable ancestor of modern foil: a training
caption: Typical smallsword of the 1740s.
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