Fencing teaching traditions

Fencing Teaching traditions

Fencing Teaching Traditions

by Dr. William M. Gaugler, Maestro di Scherma

ur current method of determining ranks of fencing teachers is based on the medieval guild system and provides three levels of teaching accomplishment and licences: apprentice or instructor, journeyman or provost, and master. The apprentice learns the foundation elements of a craft, the journeyman exercises the skills he has acquired as an apprentice and prepares for the masters' examination, and the accomplished master, Vi/ho enjoys the respect of his peers because he has reached the highest level of technical skill in his discipline, will have passed a rigorous examination given him by a commission of senior masters representing the association of masters.

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In the visual arts, during the late Middle Ages, the master-candidate presented the commission with an example of his finest work, which was fittingly called a masterpiece. And in the fencing community the mastercandidate gave the commission a practical demonstration of his skill in the use of various edged weapons, often fencing some of the commission members at a public site, as in the trials for master-candidacy that the Brotherhood of Saint Marcus (Marxbrüder) held in the market-place of Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. This fencing guild issued a document to masters of the sword known as a letter of freedom and privilege.

Whether by the apprenticeship system, which was the most common, though not the most efficient means of teaching, or the school or academy, fencing instruction necessitated transferring to the pupil the accumulated body of knowledge acquired by fencing masters over a period of some 500 years, that is, from the Renaissance to the present. At bottom, duelling practice determined what was sound and what was not; unsuccessful actions disappeared along with their unfortunate inventors.

The logical organisation and classification of fencing actions for effective teaching, and the question of protecting teaching standards, appear already in 16* century fencing literature. For instance, Marozzo's Opera Nova, 1536, tells the master how he should begin instruction, advising him to demonstrate all the principal thrusts and cuts from which all other movements are derived. And he is concerned with beginners fencing when the master is not present, as well as students teaching what they have been taught, without the master's permission. To help the reader comprehend the classification of offensive and defensive actions and positions, Viggiani's Loschermo, 1575, organised principal cuts and thrusts, as well as guards, on illustrations of trees, cuts being shown on the left branch and point thrusts on the right.

In the 17tfi century, the problem of unqualified teachers also troubled Capo Ferro, Gran simulacro...., 1610, who warned his reader against some who quickly, after having learned a little, and having even tess practice, commence to teach others, and teach without foundation and rule.

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A tree of cuts and thrusts by Viggiani, 1575

Later in the same century Marcelli's Rególe délia scherma, 1686, expressed the need to require fencing teachers to undergo examination by their peers.

He praised a commendable custom of the past, in which someone who claimed to be able to teach was examined in public by a Senate of Excellent Masters, and if after examination was approved, received a public licence, and was declared worthy of the rank he had acquired through his own effort.

Already in England in 1540 Henry VIII had issued a bill under the title Masters of ye Noble Science of Defence, giving masters a monopoly of teaching fencing and empowering them to commit to gaol any offender who taught without being a member of the guild. When the king died in 1547, this monopoly lapsed and the SWORD—19

Fencing Teaching traditions

engages the weak of your blade, they say, you must remain composed, arm extended, body immobile and, with an instantaneous and almost invisible movement, lower your point, circle under the bell guard of the opponent and deliver a straight thrust; this artion is called a disengagement.

Gomard defines the engagement simply as contact by crossing blades and says the disengagement is the action of passing the point of your sword from one line to another to direct it to the body. He describes eight different disengagements and the cut-over, which he says is nothing more than a variety of the disengagement. Rosaroll and Grisetti make no mention of the cut-over.

English lesson. 1850 masters did not recover their privileges until James I granted them a warrant in 1605, although this was abolished in 1624. During the latter part of the 171** century the body fell into disrepute because of the socalled masters who did not play their prizes (a traditional examination which required the fighting and defeating of their betters). These swordsmen merely gave themselves the title of Master or Professor and were in fact, nothing more than paid prize-fighters with swords. tn France In 1567, the King's Procurator General confirmed the statutes of the maistres joueurs et escrimeurs d'espée, authorising them to form an association. In 1656 the fencing masters of the French Academy of Arms received letters patent from Louis XIV for a coat of arms and hereditary nobility for six of its members who had practised their art for 20 years. Angelo's L'Ecole des Armes, 1763, tells us something of the fencing master's examination in Paris during the 18ih century. Rewrites: "When an usher has finished his apprenticeship under an able master, and is presented to the public to be received as a master, he is obliged to fence with several masters. After having performed with the foil alone, he is forced to fence with sword and dagger....no man can be received among the masters unless he hath served a regular six years apprenticeship under one master (a custom only made use of in Paris)."

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A written text with definitions of actions and the method of their execution, plus technical and tactical observations, is an important pedagogical instrument in the development of a formal education in fencing instruction. In Italy RosarollScorza & Grisetti's La scienza della scherma, 1803, and in France Gomard's La théorie de l'escrime, 1845, were among the first publications of this kind in the 19th century.

In the 1871 edition of their work, Rosa rol I-Scorza & Grisetti state that order in teaching the principles of a science or an art is essential and this order must also be maintained in the practical lesson. They define engagement as blade contact with domination. When the adversary

French master's examination, 1891

The two textbooks developed for use in the military fencing schools of France and Italy, the French Ministry of War's Manuel d'escrime \n 1877, later updated to the Règlement of 1908, and Parise's Trattato teórico pratico della scherma. 1884, became the bibles of contemporary fencing instrurtion. Virtually every book on fencing that was written after these volumes was based on their material. This standardisation of theory and practice in written form meant that in certification of fencing teachers every level of examination could be prepared for employing the same materials, and that the commission members would be in accord on whether or not their questions and requirements in demonstration had been met by the candidate.

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