Sword and Buckler Fighting . Tips from 1.33 Europe oldest surviving sword combat manual

I'm Keith, this is David. Our job is to bring things to life for you. So what we're going to do to finish the day is give you what we believe to be a genuine sword-fighting lesson from a genuine sword-fighting manual. A manual that's called 133. Would you like to be my commander? I'll show the manual around. It's called 133 very often because that was its possession number when the Royal Armouries came into possession of it. It's also sometimes known as the Tower of Bethel book or the Fight Burgess manuscript. And it's remarkable for three reasons. First of all, it's the earliest known surviving Western European sword-fighting manual. Which makes it something really unusual. It was written probably between 1300 and 1320 in northern Germany. The second reason it's unusual is because the people who are fighting in it aren't soldiers, aren't knights, aren't men-at-arms, they are clerics. They are churchmen, a priest and a younger person who's under his tuition. And finally it's unusual because in the final pages of the manual we see a woman involved in sword-fighting. And no matter what we may think from modern films and television, for the early medieval period that is absolutely extraordinary. There are no other known references to women taking part in martial arts at that period. Their power was in a different sphere in terms of society. Now it could be that this is a symbolic reference because we know that she's St. Val Burgher who was an English woman who went to Germany and was canonised and became a saint. But on the other hand it may be a clue that there was female involvement in martial arts even in this early period. That I think is what most of us would like to think. So, very, very unusual manual for all those reasons. So what weapons are we fighting today? We are fighting with a sword and a buckler. So the sword and buckler is a combination that's very popular in the medieval period. In this particular case we have a one-handed sword. This sword has a sharp blade, it's got two sides to it and it's a straight-edged blade. Typically it would have a very sharp point as well. I wonder if we have a point rolled over on these swords today. So we don't actually need to take eyes out or anything like that. At the base of the sword we have ourselves a crossguard. That's there to protect the hand and wrist from any incoming blades. At the bottom is a big bit of metal known as the pommel. The main purpose of the pommel is there to balance the blade. It allows you to swing the blade around with relative dexterity. Now accompanying the sword we have ourselves a buckler. The buckler is made out of solid metal. It is a small shield designed to enable me to simply place it in between myself and an opponent's weapon, hopefully opening up the guard and then finish them off with the sword. There are several guards in this match. Your positions for which you might begin to attack or might begin to defend yourself. David, what guard are you going to take? I'll take a half shield and I'll place the sword down. So as a teacher I'm going to take my own favourite guard which is called the first guard. Possibly because it's like this. Some illustrations might suggest it's a bit higher. But we believe essentially what it's showing is a sword either in the scabbard or thrust through the belt. Or possibly in a position where you carry it in your left hand. So that means you would essentially grab the sword immediately, bring the buckler over to protect your hand. And then you'd be in a position of having to fight from here. So as David said, I'm going to find a way around the guard. So what I'm going to do is come round with my left foot as I aim. It could be a cut, it could be a thrust. I'll make it a cut in the high line for his face. So as you can see I've stepped to the side to apply pressure against the sword and let the point of my sword in position to thrust forward or to have his guard again. Nasty. Alright, so can I do anything to stop that happening? Well yes I can. Pressure is a big feature of teaching in many new sword fighting. And it brought us up until recently in modern fencing as well where there's more blade contact. The idea being if you are in contact with your opponent's blade you can feel pressure. If you can feel pressure you may have some idea of what he's going to do with his sword. So here's the trick. As I come in for the attack and he comes in for his attack, if I can then outthink him. If when I feel his pressure on my blade I can change my body position, my sword position, I might defeat him. We want to call the shield strike. So if one gets it right, it should look something like this. So what's happening there is, as I come in for the attack, he simultaneously comes in for his. I bring my sword over the top, my buffer over the top. I'm not smothering both of these weapons. I'm able to flip the sword up with what's called a nuking. A rising cut, a flipping or nodding. Flipping presumably because it's flipped, but nodding because he's from there. It's very definitely going to make him nod. However, he does go on to the very same technique if he tries to do that to me. So hopefully my time is right. There we are, so I do the exact same thing, bring my sword up. So these are the very basic techniques to recur right the way through the manual. One of the things that the priest says right at the beginning, he's kind of a narrator. And he says, you know, he can go for the burst to attack. But the problem with the burst to attack is that if that person moves in on you, which we've just been talking about, you wind up walking onto their sword. But even if you don't, you're going to draw out the fight by having to bring all these other techniques into play. Far better to master your opponent's blade right from the beginning if you can. So you do that by binding, which is essentially taking your opponent's blade and pushing it aside as you make your attack. So it's what we've been doing previously, but it now becomes an offensive rather than defensive technique. So, for instance, if I was now going to bind his blade and attack, what I would do is something like this. So hopefully I'd be fast enough to take his blade and then move in having displaced it. What could he do about that? Well, that's not very nice. I'm going to use the same principles to help him myself. From here, push the sword aside and pull the sword. Now, that might look like something you can't do. Certainly, it's extremely difficult to get out of. There is a technique in the manual that really deals with that, and it's called changing the sword. Which essentially is, if he pushes your sword down, you come over the top. If he pushes your sword up, you come underneath. So, if I can get this right, so essentially what was happening there was that I took the blade, I made the thrust, then took my sword out of the way. He came in for his thrust, but I was already there to beat his sword out of the way. And simultaneously, I beat his butler up. And then from there, the sword comes up, and once again, the nook comes in. You don't want to kill your entire flock. So there are techniques that disarm someone. You'll stick with the same intro technique. So this is how the manual works. It's a bit like a long language tape or language video. You know, you get a few words, you string them together, then you start stringing a few more words. At some point, you come back to the original words, and you go off in a different direction. So that's what we're going to do, a slightly different direction. So, there's a grab. So what's happening there is that as I take the blade, I make the thrust, I bring it down, I come in for my own thrust, but this time, I actually stick on his blade, I move to the opposite side, I bring my arm around as his arm is going to fly past me, and I take him under the arm. Now, from here, what I would probably do is actually simply crouch and put him on the ground. But, you know, once I've got him trapped in this position, there's pretty much anything I can do. I can just sort of whack him on the head, crack him in the butt, any number of things. So I've got him immobilised. Very nice. However, I suspect there might be a way out. You do, do you? I do, I do. Many of these techniques, and this is about self-defence at the end of the day, some of these techniques are about winning a fight and giving yourself enough time to run away from a fight. It does say in the manuscript that that kick is going to lower the spine, could be tough enough to cause him some serious hurt, so it might even win him the fight. There we are. Now, these are all very complex techniques, but actually one technique that comes up later in the book is a technique for stopping a fight before it even starts. In other words, what the priest says is, I can immobilise you and I won't even hop. You may laugh, David. Come into your guard. You can beat me right in the face. See, he didn't even draw a sword. He held on to it. That is a technique from the manual. This grabbing of the blade is shown. Now obviously you're going to think, if it's a sharp sword, you grab it with your hand, what's going to happen? I think there's two answers to this. First of all, if you grip it tightly enough and you're fast enough with your, then he doesn't stand a chance. He won't be able to yank the sword. He may barely hurt you at all. Even if he does hurt you, isn't it better to finish him off and be the last one standing? And finally, we're talking about men who are hard physically, so maybe they had good, tough hands and grabbing the blade was less of a problem. Let's go through the techniques from beginning to end, shall we? So, to give you the progression that we talked about, I've got to fight my way round him. I need to finish him off. So come round, hit him in the high line. I use a shield strike to neutralise the shield strike. Nicely done. I'm going to say, right, that's only if someone attacks you out of the blue. You've got more problems if they take the blade on the attack, so keep yourself to it and take the blade before you. Very nice. But, if you could use a change of sword, maybe you can get in there and finish him off. You don't want to do quite so badly. And then grab his arms. And a kick. All he has to do is grab you, smash his knuckles, get buckled up, and then move in and finish him off. So, hopefully, that's given you a little bit into 133. Britain's oldest surviving Western European sword fighting manual. Myself, Keith, and David will be around for a few minutes now to ask questions. Hold the swords. We'll get a proximity copy of the manual to see where we got our ideas from. If you want to hold the swords and buckles, fine, but keep the weapons pointed up in the air, keep it in your eye line, and don't walk away from us when you see us.