Il Novellino is one of the first works extant in the developing Italian language. Latin at this time is slowing losing its dominance as the language of public and academic life in favour of the vernacular. The tales in the book have a wide variety of possible origins. Some are definitely from the more traditional Latin-based classical or monastic part of the culture while as many tales are likely to come from a common  everyday urban and rural settings. Some tales have obviously been transmitted to Italy from the near east, likely by crusaders returning home. Several tales are local or popular re-tellings of familiar Bible stories or Italian adaptations of current French or Provençal tales.

Edward Storer published his translation of this mid-sixteenth century version of the tales in 1925. He was part of a literary circle meeting in London before World War I and is known for both his own poetry and his translations into English from the Italian.

Here’s the book:

• Il Novellino: The Hundred Old Tales (ePub)
• Il Novellino: The Hundred Old Tales (PDF)

Related posts:

1. Boccaccio’s Decameron
2. Books I Should Know Better
3. Italian Renaissance Reading List
4. The Venerable Petrarch

• Secrets of the Single Sword – Drawing the Sword 

The translation is based on the transcription of the copy in the Library of the city of Blois (available at Bibliotheque Virtuelles Humanistes) made in 2010 by Olivier Depuis for l’Association pour la Recherche et le Développement des Arts Martiaux Historiques Européens. All amendments to the text made in the transcription have been assumed and are not noted here.

Translating Sainct Didier is heavy going. Not only am I not a professional (or even really an amateur) French interpreter, making sense of a text more than 400 years old in a language which I understand well enough but in which I’m not particular fluent is very difficult. Add to this Sainct Didier’s writing style, which can be charitably described as excruciating. I’m used to reading in Middle English and Early Modern English and was once quite well read in Latin (although I’ve forgotten plenty of it). However, Sainct Dider often defeated me. I’m sure that he was trying hard to sound more educated than he actually was.

The importance that Sainct Didier gives to drawing the sword is a puzzle that I believe is only resolved when the illustrations are considered literally. All the draws start with the opponents facing each other, feet together and hands on hilts. This does not suggest to me a military application but a civilian and social setting, whether a judicial duel, duel of honour of friendly competition.

I do not mean by this to devalue Sainct Didier’s swordsmanship but merely to follow where the evidence leads. Sainct Didier was (to use an anachronism) a career soldier fighting for Francis II and Charles IX in Piedmont and elsewhere.

Sainct Didier introduces several novel concepts to his text, the numbered footprints used to show the student how to step and counting the actions for each draw to facilitate proper timing and sequencing of actions. I have not seen another fencing treatise which uses such simple techniques to convey oft-times very complex information. Whether he was the first to do this, I cannot say. But, he may be considered the Arthur Murray of sixteenth century French fencing.

Related posts:

1. Translation of Henri de Sainct Didier’s General Essay
2. Henri de Sainct Didier – Guards and Draws
3. Henri de Sainct Didier – Fencing and Tennis
4. Summary of Henri de Sainct Didier’s Rapier System

P&O Pacific Dawn Cruise Route

I’m back from my Xmas and New Year break for a new year. Yay me!

This post is a collection of rather stream of consciousness notes I made during my cruise around New Caledonia and Vanuatu. I’m not promising any depth or profundity – just a bunch of thoughts that struck me at the time and were recorded thanks to the portability of tablet PCs.

Links to photos will be edited in as soon as I can knock them into some kind of shape.

Day One – Leaving Brisbane

Crowds, crowds, customs officers, crowds. I hate crowds. A crowd is a slow-moving, aimless and inherently stupid creature. All crowds should be culled for the benefit of the gene pool.

The cabin is remarkably roomy, well-appointed and comfy. The crew is lovely and terribly attentive. One couldn’t ask for a better hotel room.

Everything on the ship looks like its been painted over to hide the rot. There is a constant battle on board between sun and salt on the one hand and the continuing integrity of the ship on the other. In the end, entropy is destined to win however the valiant but ultimately futile efforts to postpone its victory must be applauded.

There is nothing to be seen from horizon to horizon. We are the only thing in existence. For a 70,000 ton ship, this thing rocks like a roller coaster in slow motion. The sea is calm and blue-grey but the wind is rough as guts.

Day Two – All At Sea

Salt has crystallized on all exposed external surfaces. Early morning crew chores include wiping away this salt crust and picking up empty beer bottles.

I suspect there’s a whole ‘nother cruise going on in the 18-30 age group which is much more like a Carry On movie. Thankfully, my cruise and theirs only intersect on deck around happy hour.

Running around the jogging track is much easier in one direction than the other. The wind has built up sufficient momentum between South America and here and nothing is gonna stand in its way. It’s not a high wind as such but it’s constant and has a mass to it unlike anything I’ve experienced on land.

I’m feeling a little odd. I’m not seasick – I know well what that feels like – but confined. There an undercurrent of waiting, waiting, waiting.

It’s Henry’s birthday. He’s two years old today. He’s packed so much living into twenty-four months and is a real lesson to me in how to live. We’re throwing him a party at lunchtime.

The crew pay Henry much attention, especially those who let slip that their kids are about his age. It’s gotta be tough being away from your family and isolated on the endless ocean for months at a stretch.

As much as I love my nieces and nephews, hell is other people’s children.

In the middle of the ocean, there are more stars in the sky than anywhere else on the planet. I know it’s a cliché but you can almost touch them.

Day Three – Noumea, New Caledonia

Greeted by native dancers at the gate. We could see them from our balcony as the ship was tying up. The checking of credentials and passes to exit the ship and walking off into the middle of an open dockyard immediately struck me as a new way to present Traveller RPG material. Traveller now makes more sense.

Noumea definitely looks French, if you ignore all the palm trees. It has a real French feel to it. Although, I find it surprising that for an island which survives on tourism, the shops still close at 5pm. That’s very French.

Went to the supermarche just on dusk to see what was about. I picked up an issue of Adele Blanc-sec comic. Kathi bought proper drinking chocolate (which does not exist anywhere else in the world but France). We also bought another imagier for Henry to accompany the one bought for him by some French mates. This one is full of sea creatures and their French names.

Nana was minding henry so we had a night to ourselves. Couldn’t find a taxi or a restaurant nearby despite asking a few locals (and having a couple of good conversations with them in French) so we went back on board to the fancy restaurant on deck. Licorice parfait with lime coulis is the yum.

Day Four – Lifou, New Caledonia

Anchored in a beautiful bay. Crystal clear green water hiding a floor of broken coral pieces worn smooth by constant wave action.

Our tropical getaway has been actually rather cool and overcast. Is this normal?

We transferred to Lifou by tender; there’s no dock for us here so we anchoring the bay and use the ships boats.

We jump in minivans and meander through the dodgy island roads to the vanilla drying house. Local animals kept in pens possibly for our benefit only: coconut crabs, snakes, fruit bats (good eating, apparently), and captured wild pigs. The local ladies show us how to make a good trap to capture the pigs. We’re shown the vanilla drying and preparation process before tasting lots of local vanilla cakes and vanilla liquor – a little like cough medicine but very yummy. Henry loves the local vanilla cake – very much like a donut but a stick rather than round.

We had lunch on the beach – sausages and baguette – then went for a swim. Henry dug holes in the beach which filled up when the waves hit. This disconcerted his greatly. I walked up to the church of Notre Dame de la Mare about a mile away. There’s a scary looking native carving of her at the start of the church grounds. She’ll definitely be keeping the evil spirits away.

Met the captain and senior crew at a cocktail reception in the evening. Very enjoyable. Chatted with most of the seniors and their wives. My faux pas for the evening was when it was revealed she was the captains wife – “I thought blokes went to sea to get away from their wives?”

Leaving port. Slow but inexorable progress. 19 knots is approx 35 km/h. Does seems like much until you realize the ship never stops at sea. That means 35km/h is 850-odd km in 24 hours.

Day Five – Vila, Vanuatu

Nana babysitting once more as Kathi and I go snorkeling in a glass bottom boat. The reef in the harbour seems half dead. Lots of fish around the isolated islands of living coral but little anywhere else. We took lots of photos with the underwater camera. My right ear wouldn’t clear when diving down to the bottom, probably around 6m deep. Want to go snorkeling a lot more. It’s great fun. May even go diving again.

Afternoon largely spoilt by the crazy sister-in-law flipping out her paranoid delusions of familial persecution. Henry and me having a snooze. Kathi is sitting on our balcony with the camera. We’re too tired and shook up to take another shore tour.

Feels odd dropping into a port for a dozen or so hours. Not enough time for other than a short walk or taxi trip somewhere. Couldn’t really be bothered.

Vila is a good-looking city, from what I’ve seen. People drive n the right but all the signs re in English. People speak to each other in the local language and/or pidgin. This place is the firs really mixed culture we’ve seen so far. Others were definitely French. Vanuatu is a true cultural melange.

Day Six – At Sea

Bloody hell. The slo-mo roller coaster action is back. Feeling a little wobbly but not as bad as last time. A day of lying around or pottering about.

Captains cocktail reception. Bigger than the previous do with many more people invited. Not sure how the invitations are allocated. Lucky door prizes, etc.

Henry and I went to bed while Kathi went to see a show – just or the costumes she says.

Day Seven – At Sea

Up at 4am local to go or a run and watch the sunrise. Surprised at how well the knee is holding up. Walk 4-5 long circuits and run 3 short circuits (250m long, 160m short for a total of 1500-1750m). May do some more later or may just spend time in the pool.

Not much going on today. Just winding down the clock until we dock tomorrow and can go home. I’m longing to stand on a surface which doesn’t sway under my feet. Room service and merchandising are the order of the day.

Chasing Henry around the deck to wear him out. We both have a good nap afterwards.

Packing up in preparation for tomorrow. All luggage must be collected before 9pm for bulk unloading tomorrow.

Day Eight – Disembarkation

A final breakfast with the family then off the boat. We breeze through customs, pick up the car and head home. Now I start feeling seasick … on dry, solid land. How does that happen?

Related posts:

1. Wah?
2. I laughed until I stopped
3. Justice League of Scientology
4. Waiting to be burgled

Linda M Paterson – The World of the Troubadours

Title: The World of the Troubadours: Medieval Occitan Society, c.1100-c.1300
Author: Linda M Paterson
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Language: English

This is a book of lists which concentrates on the topics of:

• the nature of feudalism and vassalage in Languedoc and Provence
• medieval medicine and surgery and their Arabic influences
• the place and role of women in society which contrasts sharply to the north of France
• religion and heresy, especially the reasonably well-known Albigensian Crusade and the Gregorian Reforms

Scholarship in English on the south of France in the high medieval period has been until fairly recently rather poor. It is one of the forgotten areas of history. A book like this is required reading in order to give one a sense of the south and the manner in which the Langedoc and Provence, collectively known as Occitania, is both the same as and different to the more well-known north of the country. Each chapter is a prose list which provides bountiful evidence to either confirm or refute the received ideas about the region. It is not a book about the Troubadours as such but an explanation of the world which created them.

Feudalism in Occitania is cast in an entirely different mold to that of the more famous north. Until recently, most historians have linked the weak ties of vassalage in the south to their particular scheme of inheritance. Rather than willing the entirety of the lord’s estate to the eldest son and the rest of their children, if they’re lucky, getting some measure of stipend, the Occitanian divided the estate between the inheritors. This destroys the northern conception of land in return for military service. How can a lord expect a vassal to maintain all the accoutrements of war when all he owns is a title, the land which may have supported this being divided between his other siblings? This creates a very different type of feudalism, one not based on land ownership but personal ties. The focus becomes the court and court life. Nobles without land or without enough land to sustain themselves congregated in the towns and made them larger and more important to the life of the south than they would be for 300 years and more in the north. Urban, intellectual and social pursuits rose to prominence. But which came first, the inheritance scheme or the concentration on the court?

Medieval medicine is a subject close to Paterson’s heart if the text provides any evidence. The south of France was as famous for the number and quality of its doctors as was Italy, Sicily or the Arab world. Indeed, the fact that the region was a crossroads for knowledge from Italy and from both Arabic and Christian Spain means that medical knowledge could be collected and synthesised into a body of knowledge which was lauded throughout north-west Europe. Montpellier at this time had a medical school that was the equal of its better known contemporary in Salerno. Because Papal rule was not as complete in the south as it was in the north, the restriction on autopsies and other invasive mechanical investigations of the body was not strictly followed. As a result, Occitanian texts on surgery and anatomy were highly prized.

There’s a rather large chapter on the social roles and place of women in Occitanian society. The received notion is that women were freer in Occitania than in the north because of the weakness of the political structure. Paterson cites a great deal of evidence to suggest that while some noblewomen enjoyed freedoms and a level of control of their world similar to men, these women are the standout exceptions. It is interesting to note, however, that the northern literary motif of the young girl rescued by the knight who has his way with her is almost entirely absent in the literature of the south. Also, until the rise of the universities, women and girls seemed to have had the same opportunities in education as their male counterparts. While in general women in the south had a greater degree of freedom than in the north, they were still subjected to a level of control which could not be tolerated today.

It’s impossible to talk of the south of France without discussing the Albigensian Crusade where, under Papal orders, the King of France destroyed Occitania and incorporated the territory into his realm. However, Paterson spends little time of the Crusade itself, preferring to outline a different view of its causes. Many have written that the Church in Occitania was a languishing in a forgotten backwater. The evidence, however, suggests that there was an ecclesiastical vitality and independence quite unlike anything found where the Church followed a more fuedal structure. The priests in parish churches was frequently lay, local men rather than ordained priests. Dioceses elected their own bishops from among themselves rather than appealing to Rome for an appointment. The changes instituted by the so-called Gregorian Reforms (Gregorian Crisis?) overturned these traditions and imposed on the churches of the region foreign bishops, who believed they had the right to rule both the spiritual and temporal worlds and who appointed their lackeys to local churches. In response to this invasion, it is no wonder that the Occitanians turned to less orthodox religious practises.

This is a fascinating book and should be on the “must read” list of anyone interested in the region and the period.

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3. Review: Australian Zombie Myths
4. Review: Flat Earth

Dall’Agocchie never describes a parry without outlining a multitude of counter attack with which to follow it. I’ve listed only the parries but not the responses. The responses are, to my mind, fairly simple to determine in the heat of the moment and based in the situation at hand.

Other than where Dall’Agocchie specifies attacks targeting the legs, it is assumed that all movements are aiming for the a square bounded by the top of the head, the solar plexus and the outside of the shoulders. Attacks can be launched into this area from above, below, left or right giving the (German) four openings: upper inside (left), upper outside (right), lower inside (left) and lower outside (right). These are from the point of view of the right-handed swordsman being attacked.

Countering Attacks to the High Inside Line

• Guardia di Testa or a hanging parry
• Thrust into long point (Guardia di Faccia, Guardia d’Entrare, Guardia d’Alicorno) turning the long edge into the incoming attack
• Cut downwards into the attack whether from the left or the right (Riverso or Mandritto) targeting either the blade or the hand
• Slip back, sidestep or otherwise void the body from the danger area the incoming attack is targeting

Countering Attacks to the Low Inside Line

• Cut downwards into the incoming attack to the blade or the hand

Countering Attacks to the Low Outside Line

• Cut upwards into the incoming attack to the blade or the hand. (The description of this action appears elsewhere as a kind of barring or static block.)

Countering Attacks to the High Outside Line

• Guardia di Testa or a hanging parry
• Thrust into long point (Guardia di Faccia, Guardia d’Entrare, Guardia d’Alicorno) turning the long edge into the incoming attack
• Cut downwards into the attack whether from the left or the right (Riverso or Mandritto) targeting either the blade or the hand
• Cut upwards into long point targeting either the blade or the hand
• Beat the attack upwards and away

Countering Attacks to the Legs

• Slip back, sidestep or otherwise void the body from the danger area the incoming attack is targeting
• Any kind of barring or hanging parry action which sweeps away the incoming attack

Countering the Thrust

Note: the response against a thrust is always a thrust. The default action is to parry the incoming attack and thrust.

• Slip back, sidestep or otherwise void the body from the danger area the incoming attack is targeting
• Thrust into long point (Guardia di Faccia, Guardia d’Entrare, Guardia d’Alicorno) turning the long edge into the incoming attack
• Cut downwards into long point to the blade or the hand
• Any kind of barring or hanging parry action which sweeps away the incoming attack

Related posts:

1. Dall’Agocchie’s Essential Actions
2. Learn to Duel in 30 Days – Part One
3. Meyer’s Rapier in One Post
4. Meyer’s Rapier Parries

I’m just a simple swordsman and I reckon that learning from the sources can give me an edge over others I bout with. This may mean I look at the tradition from a slightly different angle and it may help beginners unravel some of its intricacies.

The text appears to me to be one long list of sub-classification after sub-classification. Dall’Agocchie agrees with Henri de Sainct Didier that there are only three strikes – mandritti (cuts from the right), riversi (cuts from the left) and punta (thrusts) – but then goes on to break down each strike into the numerous subdivisions we’re used to seeing from the Italians. He does the same with the guard positions.

Thankfully, Dall’Agocchie only enumerates eight guards rather than the 14+ described in other works. Even here, the eight represent sub-classification rather than vastly different positions. For example, his porta di ferro stretta and cinghiale porta di ferro and his coda lunga stretta and coda lunga alta differ only in that the first of each pair has the right foot forward and the second of each pair favours the left. The sword position in each pair remains the same. So, are these really four guard positions or just two with a couple of variations?

In Day Two, Dall’Agocchie has a surprising amount of clear instruction on footwork. I’m working through what he says at the moment and find it simple, clear and concise. If, he says, you are in a right foot forward stance:

• In a double time response, gather the left foot forward when parrying and then step forward with the right foot to counter attack,
• In a single time response, begin the parry statically then advance the right foot as the counter attack develops.

If you are in a left foot forward stance:

• The right foot is used to support both the parry and the attack regardless of tempo.

Regardless, always turn your body and rear foot away from the incoming blade. Not being there when the blow lands is always the best form of defence.

This point last point thrilled me to bits when I read it. This exact movement is found is found in Joachim Meyer‘s sidesword style and I have elsewhere dubbed it the Meyer Pivot. Suddenly, this Club 1570 idea looks like it may provide some value. Each fencer’s treatise can illuminate that of the other.

The remainder of Day Two is spent in outlining a long catalogue of responses to various strikes. Almost all of the actions listed at double-time defences, ie: a parry and a separate counter attack, rather than the two combined into the one motion. I’ll present my take on this catalogue in another post.

Day Three looks to consist of how to break an opponent’s guard and initiate an attack. This, again, is for another post.

Related posts:

1. Learn to Duel in 30 Days – Part Two
2. Learn to Duel in 30 Days – Part One
3. Meyer’s Rapier in One Post
4. Dall’Agocchie’s Essential Actions

A wholly remarkable book but not for the reasons usually trotted out by its fans:

• it is not about Catholicism or the benefits bestowed by religion,
• it is not about trite clichés such as ‘those who do not listen to history are doomed to repeat it’ or ‘with great power comes great responsibility’,
• it is not about power of faith in the face of destruction.

The novel outlines a thesis which describes humanity as fundamentally and irredeemably broken. Humanity, after global nuclear war brought it to the brink of extinction, has been given a second chance to get it right this time, to develop a peaceful society which respects humanity and, by extension, the rest of the planet. Even with the full knowledge of the consequences, we can’t do it. One of the characters opines that the first near extinction event could be the result of ignorance. Perhaps the “ancients” simply didn’t understand or couldn’t comprehend the destruction they could cause. That humanity would put itself in the same situation for the same reasons, he says, beggars belief. While playing nuclear brinksmanship for a second time in humanity’s history, the government’s enactment of a law allowing euthanasia only in the event of terminal radiation poisoning is used to show that the world’s leaders are both fully aware of the consequences of their proposed actions but intend to carry them out anyway. That a colonisation mission is sent secretly to the stars is the final proof that no one in this world still holds onto the hope that reason or the human spirit (whatever that is) will triumph. Humanity is a job-lot whose consignment to the dustbin of history is inevitable and perhaps the option to be preferred.

The second of the three parts of the novel outlines the core of the argument. This is a point that is missed by most fan reviewers who usually get caught up in the imagery of the first (the monastery in the wastelands) and the emotion of the last (euthanasia and the impeding second nuclear war) parts. The middle section asks whether “to know” is sufficient motivation for the newly emerging secular scientific renaissance. What responsibility does the discoverer bear for how the discovery is used by others? Miller refuses to fall into the trap of simplistically preferring the good life to the technologically easy life. He very pointedly states that each individual has a moral responsibility to uphold the moral law of helping and protecting each and every individual. It is the duty off each individual to hold themselves and others to account for their actions. Shirking this responsibility or abrogating it to others is the true evil in the world of the novel and technological development without a moral compass to guide it is the tool Miller uses to make his case.

Is it the great work of art the fans claim? No, definitely not. There’s a lot about it that’s just plain clumsy. The figure of the Wandering Jew makes for a good (not so private) in-joke but is ultimately pointless. Miller’s rather heavy-handed treatment of the monks gathering and making rituals of the scraps of shopping lists that survived the first apocalypse lacks any subtlety. That the much vaunted scene between the doctor and the priest over the mercy-killing of a mother and baby with terminal radiation poisoning refuses to devolve into moralising is not a sign of brilliance, so claimed by so many fans, but of mere competence as a writer. The fact that it stands out from the common run of sci-fi is an indictment of moderns writers rather than a sign of Miller’s genius. One could be easily forgiven for seeing this book as nothing more than an expression of Miller’s guilt at his role as part of a bomber crew in World War II which, among other actions, destroyed the first monastery in western Europe, the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy.

(If you want to see someone struggling with his conscience, watch Fog of War, a documentary/interview with Robert McNamara consumed by the guilt of his involvement in World War II, Vietnam and the Cold War.)

Is it a good read? Definitely yes. The world Miller creates (in all it’s incarnations) is fascinating and Miller shows wonderfully well the flow and progression of the characters’ internal debates and quandaries. Don’t expect to find the gun-toting action or political intrigue of the standard run of post-apocalyptic novels. This book is not one of them. This book is a well told, well argued, bleak but at times very funny future history of the world and a look at how a bunch of very ordinary people live and deal with the consequences of the actions of their ancestors.

Related posts:

1. Review: Flat Earth
2. Review: Australian Zombie Myths
3. Review: Pegasus Bridge
4. Review: A Model Victory

Imagine this. It’s sometime early in the ninth century and you’re a scribe. Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, has just given you the task of making a copy of the bible in Old Saxon to convert to Christianity the pagan tribes on the other side of the River Elbe. How do you translate the Gospel’s message of peace and salvation in terms those battle-loving barbarians will understand?

One answer is the Heliand, a wacky paraphrase rather than translation of the Gospel in the form of a Norse or Germanic saga written around AD 825. Here’s the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane replayed under the title of “Christ’s deep fear before battle, his last salute in the garden.” It could be a Uwe Boll or Michael Bay movie.

“Christ’s battle companions saw warriors coming up the mountain making a great din, angry armed men. Judas the hate filled man was showing them the way. The enemy clan, the Jews, were marching behind. The warriors marched forward, the grim Jewish army, until they had come to the Christ. There he stood, the famous chieftain. Christ’s followers, wise men deeply distressed by this hostile action, held their position in front. They spoke to their chieftain, ‘My Lord chieftain’, they said, ‘if it should now be your will that we be impaled here under spear points, wounded by their weapons then nothing would be so good to us as to die here, pale from mortal wounds for our chieftain’.

Then he got really angry, Simon Peter, the mighty, noble swordman flew into a rage. His mind was in such turmoil he could not speak a single word. His heart became intensely bitter because they wanted to tie up his Lord there. So he strode over angrily, that very daring Thane, to stand in front of his commander, right in front of his Lord.

No doubting in his mind, no fearful hesitation in his chest he drew his blade, and struck straight ahead at the first man of the enemy with all the strength in his hands, so that Malchus was cut and wounded on the right side by the sword. His ear was chopped off. He was so badly wounded in the head that his cheek and ear burst open with the mortal wound. Blood gushed out, pouring from the wound.”

Source: Quodlibeta

Here’s the original version for comparison. Notice that the focus is on choosing non-violence rather than revelling in cinematic blood-lust.

I would love to see this filmed with Arnie in the central role. It would make the perfect counterbalance to that hideous Mel Gibson movie.

Resources

• The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel
• An Annotated English Translation of the Old Saxon Heliand: A Ninth-Century Biblical Paraphrase in the Germanic Epic Style

Related posts:

1. How To Read The Iliad
2. Review: A Model Victory
3. French Film Festival – Red Balloon & White Mane and The Intimate Enemy
4. French Film Festival – 13m2

I’m not so much concerned with re-creating the style as it was but understanding how I can use what Dall’Agocchie can teach in my own practice. How, for instance, does he propose I should defend against a thrust or a cut to the high outside line?

That’s not to say that context is not important. It’s vital. Dall’Agocchie himself says that fencing is the “noblest of all bodily exercises” and that it’s terribly useful in time of peace as well as in times of war. While understanding the theory of fencing is important, the real value is in putting it into practice.

I must say, though, that I like him already. He’s thrown out a large number of the Bolognese guards in favour of a mere eight. Even then, the four low guards (coda lunga and porta di ferro) are really only two positions with both a left foot or ward and a right foot forward stance. He wants to simplify which is, as Henri de Sainct Didier says, the mark of a master.

Dall’Agocchie Resources

Here’s a list of links very useful for understanding the text and the Italian take on sidesword fencing at the end of the 16th century.

• Ilkka Hartikainen Dall’Agocchie’s Stepping in the Guards video
• William E Wilson’s Dall’Agocchie page
• The Bolognese Swordmanship page at Nova Assalto
• William Jherek Swanger‘s translations of Books I and II

Related posts:

1. Learn to Duel in 30 Days – Part One
2. Learn to Duel in 30 Days – Part Two
3. Dall’Agocchie’s Essential Actions
4. Henri de Sainct Didier – Guards and Draws

• The Secrets of the Single Sword – General Essay

The translation is based on the transcription of the copy in the Library of the city of Blois (available at Bibliotheque Virtuelles Humanistes) made in 2010 by Olivier Depuis for l’Association pour la Recherche et le Développement des Arts Martiaux Historiques Européens. All amendments to the text made in the transcription have been assumed and are not noted here.

Translating Sainct Didier is heavy going. Not only am I not a professional (or even really an amateur) French interpreter, making sense of a text more than 400 years old in a language which I understand well enough but in which I’m not particular fluent is very difficult. Add to this Sainct Didier’s writing style, which can be charitably described as excruciatingly complex. I’m used to reading in Middle English and Early Modern English and was once quite well read in Latin (although I’ve forgotten plenty of it). However, Sainct Dider often defeated me. I’m sure that he was trying hard to sound more educated than he actually was.

The general essay condenses the information in the rest of book into a list of the six pillars on which his swordplay is founded. These will come as no surprise to anyone:

• Knowing how to stand
• Knowing the guard positions
• Knowing the strikes
• Knowing the targets on the opponent’s body to aim for
• Understanding how to attack and defend using the strikes
• Understanding how to tell what the opponent will do next

After this, he spends some time arguing with and mocking mercilessly an Italian fencer named Fabrice. Whether or not this may be the famous Salvator Fabris is entirely open to question.

I may translate more of the text when I can find the time and if there is sufficient interest from other to spur me on.

Related posts:

1. Translation of Sainct Didier’s Drawing the Sword
2. Summary of Henri de Sainct Didier’s Rapier System
3. Henri de Sainct Didier – Guards and Draws
4. Henri de Sainct Didier – At First Glance