02-04-2006, 09:05 PM
Salve patres.
Yesterday one of my collegues and I where at it again and some found some relevant stuff.
We started of with the Gladius. First we tried some of the techniques from the manual known as I:33 ( http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html ) but with our oval shields intead of a buckler. A major chainge is the way the shieldhand is posisioned. For one thing it gets a litlle less agresive by the sizedifference and the angle of the arm did it a little harder to be active with the shield at first. Then we tried to hold it "normaly" and it changed alot. Still some of the guards dont work with a shield of larger dimentions.
One thing that struck us (hehe) was that the oval shape of the guard of the Gladius made it possible to execute a technique mainly done with messers in the manuals. It goes like this:
A strike or thrust comes in on you from above on your left side. You sidestep in a 45 degree angle to your right and at the same time you deflect the attack with the forte (strong part, i.e. the third of the blade closest to the guard) on your blade but with the knuckles turned towards yourself. This is a weak bind but with shorter blades you are able to still have the initiative. Then you flick your wrist and let your pommel go over your opponents wrist at the same time as you step 45 degree to the left. By doing so you will get control over his/her swordhand for a moment and can eather hit or thrust him/her to end the fight. The good thing here is that you get in on his/her swordside where the opponent has a harder time to deflect your attack.
This can only be done with a sword that has a guard that goes not only in te edge aligment but also defend your knuckles a bit.
With the spathae we found that many rapiertechniques from Joachim Meyers manuals from the late 16th c. where possible to apply. The length of a early rapier was a little bit longer than a spathae but not so much, and they had simple guards, (not he intricate of the later rapiers). The blades are simillar in some ways but a diffrence is that the tapering are somewhat greater on a early rapier than some spathaes, (though spathae come in a myriad of desings as far as I have found examles of on the net) But we are getting more convinced that the spathae is more of a thrustweapon than the Gladius.
Here I have to revive some of my earlier thought on the gladius. Against unarmoured enemys a Gladius is a formidamle stabber AND cutter, but against a armoured foe I would try to stab in the openings and unprotected areas. The spathae is less the chopingsword and acctually a suberb thrusting blade. (At least our waisters based on the third of the pictures on albions spathaes are). It acts in many ways as a thrust orientated weapon much like the so called cut and trustblades of the early to mid 16th c.
I will uppdate you on this after the next session.
Take care and fence with sence!
Have a nice weekend all!
Martin
Yesterday one of my collegues and I where at it again and some found some relevant stuff.
We started of with the Gladius. First we tried some of the techniques from the manual known as I:33 ( http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html ) but with our oval shields intead of a buckler. A major chainge is the way the shieldhand is posisioned. For one thing it gets a litlle less agresive by the sizedifference and the angle of the arm did it a little harder to be active with the shield at first. Then we tried to hold it "normaly" and it changed alot. Still some of the guards dont work with a shield of larger dimentions.
One thing that struck us (hehe) was that the oval shape of the guard of the Gladius made it possible to execute a technique mainly done with messers in the manuals. It goes like this:
A strike or thrust comes in on you from above on your left side. You sidestep in a 45 degree angle to your right and at the same time you deflect the attack with the forte (strong part, i.e. the third of the blade closest to the guard) on your blade but with the knuckles turned towards yourself. This is a weak bind but with shorter blades you are able to still have the initiative. Then you flick your wrist and let your pommel go over your opponents wrist at the same time as you step 45 degree to the left. By doing so you will get control over his/her swordhand for a moment and can eather hit or thrust him/her to end the fight. The good thing here is that you get in on his/her swordside where the opponent has a harder time to deflect your attack.
This can only be done with a sword that has a guard that goes not only in te edge aligment but also defend your knuckles a bit.
With the spathae we found that many rapiertechniques from Joachim Meyers manuals from the late 16th c. where possible to apply. The length of a early rapier was a little bit longer than a spathae but not so much, and they had simple guards, (not he intricate of the later rapiers). The blades are simillar in some ways but a diffrence is that the tapering are somewhat greater on a early rapier than some spathaes, (though spathae come in a myriad of desings as far as I have found examles of on the net) But we are getting more convinced that the spathae is more of a thrustweapon than the Gladius.
Here I have to revive some of my earlier thought on the gladius. Against unarmoured enemys a Gladius is a formidamle stabber AND cutter, but against a armoured foe I would try to stab in the openings and unprotected areas. The spathae is less the chopingsword and acctually a suberb thrusting blade. (At least our waisters based on the third of the pictures on albions spathaes are). It acts in many ways as a thrust orientated weapon much like the so called cut and trustblades of the early to mid 16th c.
I will uppdate you on this after the next session.
Take care and fence with sence!
Have a nice weekend all!
Martin
