Justifying the name: medieval martial arts

[Colin]

Continuing on from this thread, but with a slightly different tack.

This is more aimed at those people or organisations that use the term "medieval martial arts" but do not practice
a.) from the fencing treatises (e.g. Tower Manuscript I.33)
b.) trying to reconstruct medieval war machines (e.g., a trebuchet)
c.) trying to reconstruct medieval battle field tactics (e.g., how the Battle of Hastings went)

They more or less practice instead:
a.) waving swords or other weapons around (e.g. swishing a viking axe)
b.) use non-European martial arts as their basis (e.g. kendo, aikido, or sumo-wrestling)
c.) use the 1950/60s theatrical fencing as their basis (essentially the old sword and shield curriculum). A non-fighting system turned into a fighting system.
d.) "Backwards collar man"/my instructor said it was so, but cannot substantiate it
e.) a mixture of the above

What I and plenty of other people would like to know is how you justify calling what you do a medieval martial art? The excuse of "medieval martial art" is a term which the general public knows is invalid simply because you do not know what the general public understands as a "medieval martial art" (have you run a survey, and if so how many people did you ask, what is the margin of error, and can you please post the survey up so the questions can be examined for neutrality?)

Personally I find it quite easy to prove to newcomers or onlookers that I'm doing a medieval martial art. I simply open up a medieval fencing treatise and proceed to demonstrate it. What justification do you use on a new person or onlooker?

[Vorschlag]

The first point that springs to mind against that argument would be that most the people I’ve used the term medieval martial art and/or European martial art have instantly had a puzzled look on their face and asked me to explain what I’m talking about.
To me this would indicate, that people outside of historical re-enactment (if anyone in the country practices it) the (few and far between) wma groups, the sca and naama groups, do not know or understand the term at all.

Thus they should be properly educated as to what such terms mean and shown that such systems a} did exist and b} are functional "martial" arts.
Anything less only reinforces the idea that Europeans didn't have any martial arts (as many people seem to think) and the much earlier thought that medieval combat is won by the heaviest sword and strongest arm.

Lets face facts people who are interested in any given period (further more any given culture), especially those interested in the food, clothing, dancing and/or fighting, "should" be proud to show that the people and period they choose to enact/glorify etc had functional systems for all of the above and happily educate outsiders and "ignorants" (to quote Hope) to the glory of such arts.

This I think also breeds healthy competition between people of different interests, for instance facing German against English long sword, or rapier against Silvers basket hilted short sword etc.



What would you suggest for people interested in practice a martial art based on a people of an earlier periods Collin, i.e Norsce, Roman, Celtic, Khem?

The only thing I can think of would be to use the existing treatises from later periods and work out what would and wouldn't work with the given armour and weaponry of the period and people.

This would mean that while not practicing a documented historical martial art, the system of use would be historically based and have some realism to a fight system used by said period and people.

Note: this is an idea for the use of earlier systems by people interest in historical martial arts, not a suggestion to change any given sportive system of play.

[Colin]

[Patch]

I am replying to this post from a theoretical perspective as I am sure you are aware that in my club we practice;

a.) from the fencing treatises (e.g. Tower Manuscript I.33)
– as a question do you practice the very interesting and peculiar stance work as depicted in the Tower Manuscript?

b.) trying to reconstruct medieval war machines (e.g., a trebuchet)
- School kids love playing with the miniature trebuchet. On a good day you can get a hard jube across a football field.

c.) trying to reconstruct medieval battle field tactics (e.g., how the Battle of Hastings went)
- Are you thinking of war-games included here or just study work? Does anyone in NZ do Maori wars battle field reenactment?

I rather imagine that those clubs that simply wave swords around, and I can think of at least one club in NZ who could probably fit this category… maybe… actually I am not sure if they are still going, anyway I suggest that if they wished to claim the phrase (I felt compelled to reply as you transferred the topic from my thread) I suspect that they would say that they are perfectly justified in calling themselves medieval martial artists as they practice a form of martial arts and that it has a medieval theme. Both being definitively true. A group cannot be said to not practice a martial art simply because it is a poor one, and holding to a medieval theme is indicative of medievalism in it’s current form. Obviously no one in the NZ medieval community wears actual cloths from the middle ages so although we are entitled to be utterly scornful of unsuccessful attempts to recreate medieval garb, mannerisms, speech, dance, art, fighting techniques, styles, food, thought patterns, et all, we are equally vulnerable to the re-creationist who lives in a real medieval village, in a totally authentic way and has medieval diseases and lifestyle, laughing uproariously at the feeble attempts of the best of us to be “medieval” by his standards. My essential point is, however, that that very re-creationist has no right, or ability to say with any authority that what western martial arts does is not medieval.

As an interesting perspective the phrase medieval art is not exclusive to surviving pieces either. Whilst many museums will show either the original or re-creations of medieval art, many galleries will show unique and modern examples, based on the style and theme. Obviously this is not a direct analogy but you can see how the environment affects the appropriateness of the art form.

As another interesting side note, there are clubs overseas who use hockey amour and foam weapons and are completely confident calling themselves medieval martial artists, something that would certainly raise eyebrows in the NZ community.

But at the end of the day I suspect you will find that while you have a definition of medieval martial arts that suits you and is appropriate to the specialist jargon of your parlance and community, others also do so with equal justification. What you do they do. It is widely recognized that WMA is the particular specialist art form that you practice, that is why this forum is the western martial arts forum, just as it is widely recognized that medieval reenactment is the phrase used to describe NAAMA clubs even though re-creations of medieval enactments are actually not within their purview to any noticeable extent.

[Patch]

[Colin]

[Carl]

[Callum]

[Carl]

[NigelT]

[Callum]

[Carl]

[Víkarr]

[Colin]

I freely admit that my access to the various fencing treatises and explorations of them occurred whilst I was still attending AS&S. Whether I would have come across them and explored them is open to conjecture: I was interested in medieval martial arts long before I had ever heard of AS&S or any of the other re-enactment groups. There have been numerous self-starters around the world. I've even come across some in New Zealand.

It doesn't bother me whether people still practice the old AS&S system or a close carbon copy of it or not. What matters to me is honesty. "Say what you mean and mean what you say". If you don't practice medieval martial arts, don't say you do. If you don't practice Hans Talhoffer (to pick a name out of the hat), don't say you do. It isn't exactly complicated.

I wish you well in your endeavours in making AS&S more historical. Depending on where you want to head with it and the willingness of participants I might be willing to help.

[Carl]