The oldest surviving manual on western swordsmanship dates back to the 14th century, although historical references date fencing schools back to the 12th century.Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe, 2000, p 7.
Modern fencing originated in the 18th century, influenced by the Italian school of fencing of the Renaissance as modified by the French school.
Terminology
The English term fencing, in the sense of "the action or art of using the sword scientifically" (OED), dates to the late 16th century, when it denoted systems designed for the Renaissance rapier. It is derived from the latinate defence (while conversely, the Romance term for fencing, scherma, escrima are derived from the Germanic (Old Frankish) *skrim "to shield, cover, defend").
The verb to fence derived from the noun fence, originally meaning "the act of defending", etymologically derived from Old French defens "defence", ultimately from the Latin. The first attestation of Middle English fens "defence" dates to the 14th century;Robert Manning of Brunne, The story of England (ca. 1330), 8638: "To stonde to fens auailled nought", cited after OED. the derived meaning "to surround with a fence" dates to c. 1500.
The first known English use of fence in reference to Renaissance swordsmanship is in William Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, (act i, scene 1), "with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence," ,John Bartlett, "Fence," A Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, Macmillan (1894), p. 519. and later, (act 2, scene 3) "Alas sir, I cannot fence"Harper, Douglas (2001), Online Etymology Dictionary. the term "fencer" is used in Much Ado About Nothing, "blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not."John Bartlett, "Fencer," A Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, Macmillan (1894), p. 519. This specialized usage replaced the generic fight (Old English feohtan, cognate with the German fechten, which remains the standard term for "fencing" in Modern German).
Antiquity The origins of armed combat are prehistoric, beginning with club, spear, axe, and knife. Fighting with shield and sword developed in the Bronze Age; bladed weapons such as the khopesh appeared in the Middle Bronze Age and the proper sword in the Late Bronze Age.
The first historical evidence from archaeology of a fencing contest was found on the wall of a temple within Egypt built at a time dated to approximately 1190 B.C.Maxwell R. Garret, Emmanuil G. Kaidanov, Gil A. Pezza – – Foil, Saber, and Épée Fencing: Skills, Safety, Operations, and Responsibilities Penn State Press 1994 (revised, annotated), 227 pages, [Retrieved 2015-07-12]
Homer's Iliad includes some of the earliest descriptions of combat with shield, sword and spear, usually between two heroes who pick one another for a duel. Roman gladiators engaged in dual combat in a sport-like setting, evolving out of Etruscan ritual. Tomb frescoes from Paestum (4th century BC) show paired fighters with helmets, spears and shields, in a propitiatory funeral blood rite that anticipates gladiator games.Potter and Mattingly, 226; Paestum was colonized by Rome in 273 BC.
Romans who frequented the gymnasia and baths often fenced with a stick whose point was covered with a ball. Vegetius, the Late Roman military writer, described practicing against a post and fencing with other soldiers. Vegetius describes how the Romans preferred the thrust over the cut, because puncture wounds enter the vital organs directly whereas cuts are often stopped by armour and bone. Raising the arm to deliver a cut exposes the side to a thrust. This doctrine was exploited by Italian fencing masters in the 16th Century and became the primary rationale behind both the Italian and French schools of fencing.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Sword fighting schools can be found in European historical records dating back to the 12th century. In later times sword fighting teachers were paid by rich patrons to produce books about their fighting systems, called treatises. Sword fighting schools were forbidden in some European cities (particularly in England and France) during the medieval period, though court records show that such schools operated illegally.
The earliest surviving treatise on sword fighting, stored at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England, dates from around 1300 AD and is from Germany. It is known as I.33 and written in medieval Latin and Middle High German and deals with an advanced system of using the sword and buckler (smallest shield) together.
From 1400 onward, an increasing number of sword fighting treatises survived from across Europe, with the majority from the 15th century coming from Germany and Italy. In this period these arts were largely reserved for the knighthood and the nobility – hence most treatises deal with knightly weapons such as the rondel dagger, longsword, spear, pollaxe and armoured fighting mounted and on foot. Some treatises cover weapons available to the common classes, such as großes Messer and sword and buckler. Wrestling, both with and without weapons, armoured and unarmoured, was also featured heavily in the early sword fighting treatises.
This was followed by a number of treatises, primarily from Germany and Italy, with the oldest surviving Italian treatise being Fior di Battaglia by Fiore dei Liberi, written c. 1400.
In Spain, Diego de Valera published a treatise on fencing in 1471 (in spite of the title, the book of Diego de Valera was mainly focused on heraldry). Fencing practice went through a revival, with the Marxbruder group, sometime about 1487 A.D. the group having formed some form of Fencing Guild. Francisco Román published in 1532 the Tratado de la esgrima con figuras. It meant a change in the approach to fencing, with a more mathematical approach, and started a new tradition in Spanish fencing. The Spanish rapier was apparently introduced to England during a time circa to 1540 (according to listings of the armoury of Henry the VIIIth). During 1587 a certain Rowland Yorke (of otherwise ill-repute) might have introduced a particular technique with the rapier-sword to somewhere in England.
In 1582 was finally published Jerónimo Carranza's seminal treatise De la Filosofía de las Armas y de su Destreza y la Aggression y Defensa Cristiana, one of the main works of the Spanish tradition on Verdadera Destreza. Its precepts are based on reason, geometry, and tied to intellectual, philosophical, and moral ideals, incorporating various aspects of a well-rounded Renaissance humanist education, with a special focus on the writings of classical authors such as Aristotle, Euclid or Plato. Its represents a break from an older tradition of fencing in Spain, the so-called esgrima vulgar or esgrima común ('vulgar or common fencing'). That older tradition, with roots in medieval times, was represented by the works of authors such as Jaime Pons [es; ca] (1474), Pedro de la Torre (1474) and Francisco Román (1532). Writers on destreza took great care to distinguish their "true art" from the "vulgar" or "common" fencing. The older school continued to exist alongside la verdadera destreza, with Spanish soldiers working as fencing masters across Europe, but was increasingly influenced by the new destreza forms and concepts.
During the 16th century the Italian masters Agrippa, Capo ferro, di Grassi, Fabris, Giganti, Marozzo, and Viggiani wrote treatises which established Italy as the originator of modern fencing.
By the 16th century, with the widespread adoption of the printing press, the increase in the urban population and other social changes, the number of treatises increased dramatically. After around 1500 carrying swords became more acceptable in most parts of Europe. The growing middle classes meant that more men could afford to carry swords, learn fighting and be seen as gentlemen. By the middle of the 16th century, many European cities contained great numbers of swordsmanship schools and fencing was invented with the invention of the rapier. Often schools clustered together, such as in London at "Hanging Sword Lane". Italian fencing masters were particularly popular and set up schools in many foreign cities. The Italians brought concepts of science to the art, appealing to the Renaissance mindset.
In 16th-century Germany compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed; notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s) and based on 14th-century teachings of the Liechtenauer tradition. In this period German fencing developed sportive tendencies.
The rapier's popularity peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Dardi school of the 1530s, as exemplified by Achille Marozzo, still taught the two-handed spadone, but preferred the single–handed sword. The success of Italian masters such as Marozzo and Fabris outside of Italy shaped a new European mainstream of fencing. One master, Girolamo Cavalcabo of Bologna, was employed by the French Court to tutor the future Louis XIII in fencing,Brantome, Discours sur les duels, 1997, p.199 and his influence may be seen in later French treatises, such as that by François Dancie in 1623.
The Ecole Française d'Escrime founded in 1567 under Charles IX produced masters such as Henry de Sainct-Didier who introduced the French fencing terminology that remains in use today.The Single Sword Of Henry De Sainct-Didier, Henry De Sainct-Didier, 1573.
Rapier gave rise to the first recognisable ancestor of modern foil: a training weapon with a narrow triangular blade and a flat "nail head" point. Such a weapon (with a swept hilt and a rapier length blade) is on display at the Royal Armouries Museum. However, the first known version of foil rules only came to be written down towards the end of the 17th century (also in France).Czajkowski, Z. (2005). Academy News (British Academy of Fencing) 33, p.9
Early modern period
Fencing was a popular form of staged entertainment in 16th- and 17th-century England. It was also a fashionable (although somewhat controversial) martial art. In 1540 Henry VIII granted a monopoly on the running of fencing schools in London to The Company of Masters. Fencers were specifically included in the 1597 Vagabonds Act ("all fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes, and minstrels"). A number of notable fencing masters from the late 16th century (Vincentio Saviolo, Rocco Bonetti, and William Joyner) ran schools in and around Blackfriars (then the main theatre district of London).
Around the same time, a number of significant fencing manuals were written in or translated into English.Giacomo di Grassi, His true Arte of Defense, 1594Vincentio Saviolo, Vincentiio Saviolo, his Practice, in two bookes, the first intreating of the use of the Rapier and Dagger, the second of Honor and honorable quarrels, 1595George Silver, The Paradoxes of Defence, 1599 Prizefights were bloody but rarely lethal. Samuel Pepys describes visiting at least two prizefights held in London's Beargarden in 1667 – the contestants were tradesmen rather than fencing masters; both fights ended after one of the contestants was unable to continue because of wrist injuries.Samuel Pepys' Diary – Monday, May 27th 1667 and Monday, September 9th, 1667 On the whole, the English public opinion of fencing during this period was rather low; it was viewed in much the same light as cage fighting today.
An almost exclusively thrusting style first became popular in France during the 17th century. The French were enthusiastic adopters of the smallsword, which was light and short, and, therefore, well suited to fast, intricate handwork. Light, smaller training weapons were developed on the basis of an existing template: narrow rectangular blade with a "nail head" at the end. The first documented competition with rules resembling contemporary foil took place in Toulouse in the late 17th century.
Academic and classical fencing