The school offers training in specific historical systems, as well as in general conditioning and healthy living. To be considered historical, the system must be drawn from a specific historical source, so each style that we do is drawn from one book. In each case the drills that we train are built up from the techniques and tactics in the book. The systems are (in order of how much time we give to them):
Fiore dei Liberi’s Art of Arms: this comes from a book written in 1410 by an Italian master, and includes wrestling, dagger, longsword, spear and pollax, in and out of armour. There are four copies of the manuscript that we know of, and we take the Getty Ludwig XV 13 as our primary source.
This is available in translation, and there are various commentaries, including our own instructor’s Mastering the Art of Arms series.
You can find our basic syllabus pdf guide here: Trainingguide2011
And our full syllabus with videos here.
We augment our Art of Arms training with Filippo Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi, recently translated, annotated and published by our instructor.
Ridolfo Capoferro’s rapier combat: this is drawn from Capoferro’s Gran Simulacro dell’arte e dell’uso della scherma, published in 1610.
I.33 sword and buckler: this is drawn from the oldest surviving swordfighting manuscript, the Royal Armouries MS I.33.
The manuscript is being gloriously reproduced, with a full new translation. The school has a copy on order.
Domenico Angelo’s smallsword; drawn from his 1763 publication L’Ecole des Armes.
This was translated by his son and published in 1797; it has been reprinted in a new edition.
18th century English backsword: this is the only system for which we do not rely on a single source.
This is also the only system in which we encourage freeplay from an early stage, and make use of non-steel training swords, specifically the single-stick.