Book Reviews
The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship: a facsimile & translation
of Europe’s oldest personal combat treatise Royal Armouries
I.33,
translated and transcribed by Jeffrey L.
Forgeng. The Chivalry Bookshelf, Union City, California and
The Royal Armouries, Leeds, Yorkshire, 2003. ISBN 1891448382.
157 pp.; 8 3/4” x 11 1/4”; color plates throughout;
hardbound. $54.95.
This publication reflects the continued interest in antique arms and the techniques
of individual fighting methods in Europe during the medieval period. Dr. Forgeng’s
translation of Royal Armouries’ codex I.33 is the first complete reproduction
of this important work. Produced probably during the late 13th or early 14th
century, I.33 appears to be the earliest, but anonymous guide to the unarmored
use of sword and buckler (small shield held in the fist). It is little known
outside a small audience of specialist curators and arms students, with about
only eight of its plates published previously, and having been cited only in
a few specialist works. In the Armouries’ Yearbook for 1997, Dr. Forgeng
(then Singman) published an article on I.33, and the idea to publish it in facsimile
began to take shape.
The work illustrates the codex in its entirety, in full-page color plates that
illustrate the artwork quite well. A range of employments of the buckler, opening
positions (guards), and attacks (largely cuts, and primarily towards the head)
are shown and discussed. As is to be expected in a specialist manual for users,
a basic knowledge and experience of swordfighting was assumed, so stances and
footwork are largely ignored. Artistic license also means that the weapons are
shown only in profile, regardless of what their true position might have been.
One of the work’s intriguing aspects is its cast of characters, one a priest,
the other a student (a classic example of the conflict between the sacred and
profane), with the former replaced near the end by a woman combatant. The plate
captions appear in both Latin and German, and transcriptions and translations,
together with discrete footnotes, are provided on facing pages. To assist the
reader further, two glossaries of Latin and German terms are provided in the
back matter.
Due to the codex’s generic treatment of swords, no curatorial discussion
is made of weapons or preserved examples. The publisher states that I.33 and
its subject matter were too complex to be fully addressed in a single work. Dr.
Forgeng’s book was published to document the historical work for a wide
audience, provide translations and interpretations of its text, and discuss the
provenance of the artifact. A second volume just released by the American publishers
is to present a modern, personal interpretation of the physical aspects of the
combats, as executed by historical martial artists.
