HEMA is OK

  When historical fencers want to follow the guidance in our fencing sources as strictly as possible, we need to understand the meaning of their guidance as best we can. Dictionaries, thesauruses, grammar guides, and similar tools can help with this. However, they are often insufficient on their own because fencing is a specialty topic, and they might not include the specialized use-cases for a word or concept found in fencing sources.  As a result, gaining a deep understanding of a technique, concept, or tactical idea sometimes requires consulting examples of it in more than one fencing source. However, doing so also creates certain information integration challenges. When we consult multiple sources to develop our training program and want to follow the instructions of our sources as strictly as possible, which source’s guidance should we follow if their content differs? Additionally, the very act of deciding which sources to consult can steer the outcome of our study of a concept.

Tl;dr: The artists at Landsknecht Emporium deliver again and very kindly indulged my request for a design that I cared about. Detailed pictures and a short video at the end of the post. Why Get a Messer   I’ve been without a good messer for fencing since I started fencing back in 2016. Messer fencing was pretty fundamental to German fencing culture for the period I focus on, and the first club I started at - bafflingly, in my opinion - doesn’t teach messer to beginners, so it flew under my radar for the first few years of my fencing “career.” Earlier this year I decided to rectify that, and got in touch with Tamas at Landsknecht Emporium to talk about a custom piece I could use for fencing. I wanted a thick-edged blunt version of their “Gottfried” model with some customizations - longer pommel, slightly wider cross, slightly larger nagel, a “fuller” on the grip slabs, and a few other things. We figured out money and got the order in.  I wanted one because in 15th century Germany, p

Today's article is provided by guest author Bastian Koppenhöfer, and published here with his kind permission. I assisted with editing. Bastian holds a M.A. from University of Mainz in Germany. Unlike other articles on this blog, written by me, this article is © 2021 Bastian.  A thing of beauty.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to being where I am with historical fencing:  I realized that the literature stuff I studied in school was actually relevant - both to thinking about history, and to thinking about fencing. Here is how. Literary Theory Part of my life path involved getting a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. Before that, though, I wanted to be a fiction writer. The main reason I never did pursue the literature path was - if I’m honest - I found a lot of it boring. I liked reading fine, but I didn’t enjoy writing - at least not writing fiction. I was engaged by some of the ideas in literary theory, though.  Literary theory doesn’t seem at first like it’s all that relevant to historical fencing, but I think it is actually pretty relevant. Literary theory, as a field, came into existence because of theoretical problems around how to interpret and understand books, stories, and other bits of text. Historical fencers working to understand and interpret the text of fen