Martial arts manuals are instructions, with or without illustrations, specifically designed to be learnt from a book. Many books detailing specific techniques of martial arts are often erroneously called manuals but were written as treatises.
Prose descriptions of martial arts techniques appear late within the history of literature, due to the inherent difficulties of describing a technique rather than just demonstrating it.
The earliest extant manuscript on armed combat (as opposed to unarmed wrestling) is Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 ("I.33"), written in Franconia around 1300.
Some early testimonies of historical martial arts consist of series of images only. The earliest example is a fresco in tomb 15 at Beni Hasan, showing illustrations of wrestling techniques dating to the 20th century BCE. Similar depictions of wrestling techniques are found on Attic vases dating to Classical Greece.
There are some examples in the Chinese classics that may predate the turn of the Common Era: the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (c. 100 BCE) documents wrestling, referring to earlier how-to manuals of the Western Han (2nd century BCE), which have however not survived. An extant Chinese text on wrestling is "Six Chapters of Hand Fighting" included in the 1st-century CE Book of Han.[1]
All other extant manuals date to the Middle Ages or later.
The earliest text detailing Indian martial arts is the Agni Purana (c. 8th century), which contains several chapters giving descriptions and instructions on fighting techniques.[2][3] It described how to improve a warrior's individual prowess and kill enemies using various methods in warfare whether they went to war in chariots, horses, elephants or on foot. Foot methods were subdivided into armed combat and unarmed combat.[4] The former included the bow and arrow, the sword, spear, noose, armour, iron dart, club, battle axe, chakram and trident.[5] The latter included wrestling, knee strikes, punching and kicking methods.[4]
"Illustrations only" manuals do not become extinct with the appearance of prose instructions, but rather exist alongside these, e.g. in the form of the Late Medieval German illuminated manuscripts.
Example of an illustration of half-sword, c. 1418: Islan the monk executes a half-sword thrust against Volker the minstrel (CPG 359, fol. 46v).fol. 2r of the Cod. 44 A 8, depicting two fencers in the vom tag and alber wards.Illustration of a half-sword thrust against a mordhau in armouredlongsword combat. (Plate 214) Codex Wallerstein.
Fechtbuch (plural Fechtbücher) is Early New High German for 'combat manual',[Note 1] one of the manuscripts or printed books of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance containing descriptions of a martial art. The term is usually taken to include 15th- and 16th-century German manuals, but the nature of the subject matter does not allow a clear separation of these from treatises from other parts of Europe on one hand (particularly from the Italian and French schools), and from manuals of later centuries on the other hand.
Egenolph: Der Altenn Fechter anfaengliche Kunst, anonymous, printed by Christian Egenolff, 1529, Frankfurt. This is largely derived from Pauernfeindt's 1516 manual.
Johannes Lecküchner (1558) (this is a reprint from the Altenn Fechter anfaengliche Kunst, printed by Egenolph).
Joachim Meyer "Gründtliche Beschreibung der freyen Ritterlichen vnnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens in allerley gebreuchlichen Wehren mit vil schönen vnd nützlichen Figuren gezieret vnnd fürgestellet" (1570)
Gunterrodt: "De veris principiis artis dimicatoriae" (1579), Wittenberg
The Italian school is attested in an early manual of 1410, at which time it is not yet clearly separable from the German school. Indeed, the author Fiore dei Liberi states that he has learned much of his art from one "Master Johannes of Swabia". The heyday of the Italian school comes in the 16th century, with the Dardi school.
Similar to the situation in Italy, there is one early manual (c. 1400, dealing with the pollaxe exclusively), and later treatises appear only after a gap of more than a century.
Andre Pauernfeindt, La noble science des joueurs d'espee (1528)—This is a French translation of Pauernfeindt's 1516 work. One notable difference between it and the original is that the "noble science" print has colored images, unlike the German.
Henry de Sainct-Didier, Traité contenant les secrets du premier livre de l'épée seule, mère de toutes les armes, qui sont épée, dague, cappe, targue, bouclier, rondelle, l'espée deux mains, et les deux espées, avec ses pourtraictures, ... (1573)
Gérard Thibault d'Anvers, Académie de l'epee, ou se démontrent par reigles mathématique, sur le fondement d'un cercle mysterieux, la theorie et pratique des vrais et jusqu'a present incognus secrets du maniement des armes, à pied et a cheval (1623)
Monsieur L'Abbat, The Art of Fencing, or, the Use of the Small Sword (1734)
British manuals
England
Apart from three rather opaque texts of the later 15th century,[11] the native English tradition of fencing manuals begins with George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense (1599).
Scottish manuals detailing the use of the basket-hilted Scottish broadsword, besides other disciplines such as the smallsword and spadroon, were published throughout the 18th century, with early and late examples dating to the late 17th and early 19th centuries, respectively:
Sir William Hope, The Scots Fencing Master (the Complete Smallswordsman) (1687)[15]
Sir William Hope, Advice to his Scholar from the Fencing Master (1692)
Sir William Hope, Complete Fencing Master (1691–1692)
Sir William Hope, The Swordsman's Vade-Mecum (1692)[16]
Sir William Hope, New Short and Easy Method of Fencing (1st edition, 1707)[17][18]
Sir William Hope, New Short and Easy Method of Fencing (2nd edition, 1714)
Sir William Hope, A Few Observations upon the Fighting for Prizes in the Bear Gardens (1715)[19]
Sir William Hope, A Vindication of the True Art of Self-Defence (1724)[20]
Thomas Page, The Use of the Broad Sword (1746)[22]
Captain G. Sinclair, Anti-Pugilism – Anonymous (1790)[23][24]
Captain G. Sinclair, Cudgel Playing Modernized and Improved; or, The Science of Defence, Exemplified in a Few Short and Easy Lessons, for the Practice of the Broad Sword or Single Stick, on Foot[25]
Archibald MacGregor, Lecture on the Art of Defence (1791)[23]
Thomas Rowlandson, The Guards of the Highland Broadsword (1799)[26]
In 1599, the swordmaster Domingo Luis Godinho wrote the Arte de Esgrima, the only fencing manual that preserved the older "Common" or "Vulgar" system of Spanish fencing, which has its traditions in the Middle Ages.
17th-century Spanish destreza is steeped in the Spanish Baroque noblemen mindset, so it does not contain graphical explanations of the fencing techniques so much as explanations based on mathematics and philosophical sciences in general. The subsequent difficulty in interpreting the theory and practice of destreza correctly has frequently led to this school of fencing being misunderstood.[editorializing][citation needed]
^fechten is cognate to English fight and still meant "fight, combat" in general in Early Modern times; in contemporary Standard German, fechten translates to "fencing", while the noun Gefecht retains the generic meaning of "fight, battle".
^Anti-Pugilism, or The Science of Defense Exemplified In Short and Easy Lessons for the Practice of the Broad Sword and Single Stick Illustrated with Copper Plates, By a Highland Officer, London, Printed for J Aitkin, NO 14, Castle-street, corner of Bear Street, Leicester Fields 1790, www.hroarr.com/manuals/boxing-pugilism/Anti-pugilism.doc
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