I just completed a read of Paradoxes of Defense by George Silver. It was a fun read. Let me share with you some of my thoughts.
George Silver is an absolute jerk. Reading his writing is a hilarious reminder of just how much conflict and argument always existed between schools of this art. I say hilarious, yet the laughing stops at the end when George tells stories of friction between the Italian fencers and the English fencers. Unlike today, arguments were often settled with the sword. Sometimes in “play” sometimes in a drunken challenge with sharp steel. In either case, saying that things got ugly really does not cover it.
I was particularly drawn into the story of the unskilled Englishman Austin Bagger who challenged the famed Itallian teacher Signior Rocco Bonetti. Bagger was armed with a sword and buckler as he called out his challenge to Rocco. It was interesting to me that Signior Rocco came running out to attack him with a longsword rather than any arrangement of rapier. According to Silver, given all his prejudices, the Italian master was sorely wounded on the feet and lost the fight. Bagger was considered kind for letting Rocco live.
As wikipedia will miss lead you, Silver does not harp his preferences at the backsword. He seems to embrace a large array of weaponry and he writes general rules for which combinations of weapons have advantages over eachother. His notes that weapons’ advantages are still situational. I think that part of his work is an interesting read.
One of the main points of Silver’s writing is that weapons have a perfect length. Silver explains that there is a proper length for most weapons based on a person’s body. He is very critical of weapons that are too long to fight properly with or too short to give full advantage. Silver explains what the proper lengths are and why. I really think this is the best part of what Silver has to say. It is also why he hates the Italian rapier so much. This is Silver’s paradox by the way, that shorter swords of proper length have significant advantage over improperly long rapiers.
At the heart of this improper length argument is that rapiers were made too long to cut in close with. This is partly because long blades have to be thin to be light and thin blades cut poorly. Also, long blades can’t swing around the body tightly in close combat like shorter cutting blades can. The Italian schools which Silver criticizes taught the thrust to be superior. They abandoned teaching cutting with the sword and disregarded many swords that were capable of lethal cutting. Silver rages over these teachings which he bluntly calls “evil”. Silver stresses both cutting and thrusting and he makes his argument convincingly. I particularly enjoyed the story about the man stabbed with a rapier 10 times who then killed his enemy and recovered fully from his wounds. I also like the point about how a child can divert a rapier thrust yet it takes a trained man to stop the cut of a sword in the hands of a strong man.
Silver talks about how the advantages of the rapier seem true in demonstration but are false in real combat. I personally draw ability to relate this to the world of fencing today. He talks about how an unskilled and valiant person has advantage over a person trained to use a “false” martial art with a weapon founded on lies. I connect that to modern phenomenon as well. Silver shares personal stories to back up his points and I could do the same myself.
I think what made Paradoxes of Defense so fun for me to read was that there are so many parallels in Silver’s time of swordsmanship and today’s. I will leave you with one final example of this.
… “there are now in these days no grips, closes, wrestlings, striking with the hilts, daggers, or bucklers, used in fencing schools. Our plowmen will by nature will do these things with great strength & agility. But the schoolmen is altogether unacquainted with these things. He being fast tied to such school-play as he has learned, has lost thereby the benefit of nature, and the plowman is now by nature without art a far better man than he.”
… “There is no manner of teaching comparable to the old ancient teaching, that is, first their quarters, then their wards, blows, thrusts, and breaking of thrusts, then their closes and grips, striking with the hilts, daggers, bucklers, wrestlings, striking with the foot or knee in the cods, and all these are safely defended in learning perfectly of the grips.”
George Silver taken from Paradoxes of Defense (1599)
In those two statements are so many things I have to say to the modern historical fencing world.