Similiar to their oriental counterparts, many of the Western Medieval Masters also taught their students how to fight with a variety of unusual weapons! This illustration shows a leg sweep using an agricultural scythe..... Louie
Hi bulkathos I think the idea behind the training and using farming impliments, was that they could pick up any type of weapon and use it! Louie
Also in medieval europe you were expected to fight for your lord should it be required. Weapons were damn expensive so it wouldn't be unknown to have peasant armies using farming implements. And A little training goes a long way as they say. The Bear.
There must be some other reason. This illustration appears to me as Renaissance not Medieval and the farmers weren't reading expensive, hand written and illustrated books. This might just be intended to explore off-beat weapons or it might be illustrating Judicial Combat or something (speculating, not having seen any context for this illustration such as text or surrounding illustrations). Peace favor your sword, Kirk
Don't have the book in work with me so will post more details & pics later... The costumes in all the illustrations certainly suggests wealth, the book is hand written and illustrated which would be very limited edition and very expensive. A wide variety of weapons and techniques are illustrated from longsword to modified flails adapted for combat. I don't have a translation from this work but I know that Fiori was dead against passing any of the details of his book onto the peasants... Louie
I do recall vaugly s a mention of some Holy Roman Emperor or teh other sponsoring a wide variety of different lists involving less common weapons. Maybe this a product that?
I think the insinuation is that this is not REALLY a combat manual in the same sense as some of the other manuals that have been posted here. I think it's likely too. This may follow the same line of reasoning as people who learn the nunchaku in modern times. There's really no point, it's just a bit of fun.
Modified Nunchuks.... The book from which the pictures were taken, is the fighting manual of Paul Hector Mair c.1550 - more details on Mair's book can be found at; http://www.higginssword.org/guild/study/index.html The following pic shows the modified agricultural flail with spikes.... Louie
The Sickle This illustration shows training with what looks like the "toothed" sickle, another peasants tool, normally used for cutting corn... Louie
One it is interesting that these books have been added to the computer. They are just cool looking. Of interest to me the books you know. The thing I noticed on the page in post 14 looks like the image rubbed off from the page three of that book causing a shadow. Kind of sad, yet amazing more of the book did not get damaged or lost in such a way.
John Ramsay did spoke to us about the tinkers using some types of serrated sickles in their fights (even today), I did saw these images before but never made the connection.
Mair was working on a compendium-style collection of all the techniques he had run across as a collector of fechtbuch's, IIRC. His book used a contemporary (to him) illustrator, so what you get is the techniques being shown by people dressed in 16thc. German clothing.
Medieval ROCK in a SOCK This 'unusual' weapon is from Talhoffer's 1459 manuscript - The "ROCK in a SOCK" is used here by a woman against a club weilding male who is handicapped by having to fight from inside a pit!!! This match looks as though it's been set up as a form of public entertainment but fighting from a pit in this situation may also have been part of Talhoffer's training???? Perhaps representing fighting from a seige tower against someone higher on the battlements? And would Being paired up against a woman be one method of messing with the warriors 'focus'? Any suggestions Louie
this is a judicial duel ... rather than nip down the Samaritans for counciling ... bloke put in hole, the wife gets a brick in a sock and they sort out who gets the remote control that evening in a sensible fashion. If this was how you sorted out domestics today ... the police would have an easier time of it .... and it would make great entertainment on SKY Sports 3. found the link I was looking for... talhoffer judicial duel