Rapier and Dagger, The English Way.

In keeping with our English focus- my esteemed and honourable Maestro and myself have been looking at Swetnam's rapier and dagger. Swetnam is quite a character, he has more hits in Google for his misogynist ranting than he has for his book on stabbing people. This book follows in what appears to be a tradition in English fighting manuals for waffling on somewhat (I've only looked at two, but it's a 100% hit rate so far... Silver pretty much forgot that he was writing a book about fighting. )

Swetnam is also a blasted idiot. Or innumerate. Or using a different method of measure than normal human beings. Or a blasted idiot.

Anyway, I digress: I'll come to that again, later, once I've finished reading his book.

This one is more difficult for me to read, mostly because I don't have a physical copy and I'm working from a PDF, partially because the scan is less than perfect, and partially because I have to keep changing from thinking in diuerse ways like thif to modern typography. Something I find easy when making notes by hand.

I like books and in a perfect world, I'd read this over a few pints then come back and make notes from the important parts.

Anyway- It can get confusing, let's take this:

When thou dost practise with thy friend or companion; at the first get thy backe to the wall, and let him that playeth with thee stand about twelve foote distance , and set thy left heel close to the wall , and thy right foot heele to the great joynte of the left foote great toe.....

He goes on a bit but doesn't really say what the purpose of this is or what to do after that, except to get proper technique for the lunge. Your sword is about 3 and a half feet long, your pace is about the same. You might make 9 feet if you start with your arm in a half-reasonable guard.

I'm just starting my third year of this stuff and I've been bouncing about, watching some people, joining in other lessons and this sounds roughly like Dave Rawling's introduction to time and distance (or whatever he calls it). Your partner stands well out of distance and walks towards you. You strike when he's in range.

This is a far more sensible way to interpret this than a 12 foot lunge (the length of a snooker table). However, this is merely an educated guess that sounds more likely than an extra 3 feet of stabbyness appearing from thin air. Swetnam does not give you the information needed to make that interpretation.

I'm glad I'm not one of the poor sods translating things from medieval Italian.