The History of Fencing: Foundations of Modern European Swordplay

by William M. Gaugler, William M. Gaugler

Book by Lobo, Lance C., Gaugler, William M.

Genres: History, Martial Arts

Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

Reviews

[Rossdavidh]

I'll be honest, I didn't read this book from cover to cover. But, I read quite a bit, and looked over the rest. Is is in many ways more like a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia than it is like a long-form book. But even more, it is like a bunch of books, published together.

Each of those books, was written by a fencing master, some time in the last 500 years or so. In the beginning, they were intending to tell the reader how to acquit oneself well in a duel, and even occasionally discussed weapons other than a sword. But soon, they came to concentrate exclusively on swordplay, and after a few hundred years, on sport fencing rather than if-I-kill-you-that-is-fine-by-me dueling.

I dabbled a bit in foil fencing about 30 years ago, for about a year, and I admit to also having a fondness for the fencing scene in the movie "Princess Bride". For the most part, though, I have no particular reason to memorize the details of, say, Agrippa's four guards, compared to Capo Ferro's. The author of this book, Gaugler, is really more of a translator, and summarizer. He does give some historical context at the beginning of the section on each fencing master, but for the most part he is just here to tell you what each fencing master said in his treatise.

There are also at least a sampling of the illustrations from these treatises (if that's the correct plural), and I notice that until the 20th century, it was for some odd reason the custom to show the fencers nude (or nearly so). I find it hard to believe that dueling in the nude was a very common occurrence, even prior to the 20th century (although I suppose if it were, I might not know about it). Perhaps it is to allow the viewer to see which muscles are tensed up in each pose?

There is some reasonably graphic illustration of fencers taking rapiers to the face or armpit or elsewhere, which if you are excessively squeamish might put you off. But then, if you're that squeamish, perhaps you should not be reading a book about fencing.

All in all, an interesting book to browse through, if not (for most of us) worth spending the time to study every one of its over 400 pages in detail.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my absolute favorites