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    Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters
    Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters
    Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters
    Ebook134 pages42 minutes

    Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters

    By Alfred Hutton

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    About this ebook

    Anyone interested in historical weapons or the art of fencing will want to own this classic study of swordsmanship in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Written in the late nineteenth century by a British officer, antiquarian, and noted scholar of the sword, the work was intended to provide military men with essential training in the art and science of fencing.
    Drawing upon the methods used by master swordsmen over three centuries, Hutton presented the tactics of the ancient masters in a form comprehensible to swordsmen of his own day. His extensive, detailed instructions cover the use of the two-hand sword, rapier and dagger, broadsword and buckler, rapier and cloak, and dagger and cloak.
    Complemented by nearly 60 illustrations, including instructive diagrams and rare woodcuts of classic fencing positions, this excellent introduction and its valuable information will be welcomed by scholars, theatrical directors, and sword-play enthusiasts alike. The book will also appeal to general audiences and anyone interested in an ancient form of self-defense still regarded by many as an art form and recreational pursuit.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateApr 13, 2012
    ISBN9780486140896
    Old Sword Play: Techniques of the Great Masters

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      Book preview

      Old Sword Play - Alfred Hutton

      Copyright

      Foreword copyright © 2001 by Dover Publications, Inc.

      Bibliographical Note

      This Dover edition, first published in 2001, is an unabridged republication of the work first published as Old Sword-Play: The Systems of Fence in Vogue During the XVIth, XVIIth, and XVIIIth Centuries, with Lessons Arranged from the Works of Various Ancient Masters by H. Grevel & Co., London, and B. Westermann & Co., New York, in 1892.

      For this edition, the Foreword by Ramón Martinez has been added, and minor changes have been made: printer’s marks have been deleted, some running heads have been added, and all pages have been numbered.

      Dover Publications wishes to thank Mr. Steve Hick for his valuable assistance in preparing this book for publication.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Hutton, Alfred.

      Old Sword Play : techniques of the great masters / Alfred Hutton ; foreword by Ramon Martinez.

      p. cm.

      Originally published: London : H. Grevel ; New York : B. Westermann, 1892.

      9780486140896

      1. Swordplay. 2. Fencing. I. Title.

      U865 .H89 2001

      796.86—dc21

      2001047482

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501

      FOREWORD TO DOVER EDITION

      One often hears that history repeats itself, and that things come in cycles. Within the last few years, there has been an incredible resurgence of international interest in the methods and techniques of the swordsmanship of past ages. Over a hundred years ago, in Victorian England, there was a similar resurgence of interest. Captain Alfred Hutton, along with his colleagues Egerton Castle and Sir Richard Francis Burton, was in the forefront of the movement to revive the art of the sword in England. To this end, he traveled and lectured widely, giving fencing demonstrations throughout the country. His massive library was later bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

      Like many of his contemporaries, Hutton was a polymath: a career military officer, an antiquarian, and a teacher of swordsmanship. These three interests converged in his works, which sought to reintroduce realistic swordsmanship to a country that had ceased to resort to steel as a means of settling private quarrels. Hutton argued that for military men, training in the art and science of fencing was essential, as, at that time, such individuals might still be called upon to use their swords in the field of battle. In his Cold Steel (1889), for instance, he gives instruction in the use of saber, dueling sword, bayonet, great stick, truncheon, and dagger. Hutton, however, augmented the classical French technique in which he had been schooled with techniques drawn from masters of the past. The elegant and deadly eighteenth-century smallsword of Angelo, the seventeenth-century rapier and dagger of Alfieri, and Marozzo’s sixteenth-century unarmed defenses against a man with a dagger, plainly fascinated him.

      Hutton’s contribution to the study of historical fencing found its culmination in 1892 with the publication of Old Sword-Play, a manual that presented the systems of fence in use during the XVIth, xvnth, and XVIIIth centuries. By presenting the work of the ancient masters in a form comprehensible to the swordsmen of his own day, Hutton upheld the idea that true swordsmanship is always, and has

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