Few things are as such iconic symbols of "vikingness" as battle-axes, and the bigger the better. Leaving aside all sorts of fantasy designs, the historical version of this iconic weapon is the big, bad, broad-axe, also known as the breið-öx in Old Norse, the Dane-axe (for its Scandinavian origin, as experienced painfully by Anglo-Saxons), or the large variant of the Type M axe (for the Petersen typology aficionados) - I'll use the term Dane-axe from here on to keep things simple.
In almost all respect, our knowledge about it lives up to our modern (cliché) expectations of the fearsome battle-axe: a very large blade with sharp edge and horns, wielded in two hands by elite warriors... Several surviving axes further confirm their elite status by the presence of decorative inlays in silver or gold on the axe-head.
One of the largest known Dane-axes (24x28cm), found in the Thames river, a small axe from Norway with gold overlay, a medium-sized axe from Sweden with silver inlay, and a Norman nobleman holding his Dane-axe from the Bayeux tapestry.
Among the numerous finds of such Dane-axes of various sizes and shapes, there is a specific category that emerges: the axes with a collar made of a sheet of copper-alloy (brass or bronze) inserted between the axe-head and the shaft. The archetype of such axes is the axe from Langeid, one of the best-known (and largest) Dane-axes. A few axes with collars of different types have been found (in particular a number of small bearded axes from Gotland), but in general the copper-alloy collar is very much a Dane-axe thing - you can find a catalogue of such axes here.
The iconic (and massive) axe from Langeid, Norway, alongside its replica, a similar axe found in London, England, and a different design of collar on an axe from Bjorå, Norway.
The purpose of such collars is dual, and quite obvious to figure out. First, the purpose is of course decoration of the haft (in addition, or rather in substitution as we'll see, to the inlaying of the axehead). And second, the purpose is reinforcement of the shaft: we know that having the head of a Dane-axe flying off its haft is a plausible thing (according to the Bayeux tapestry); additionally, the Dane-axe can be seen as a predecessor of later medieval cut-and-thrust pole-weapons such as bills and halberds, which often had their head attached to the haft by the means of long langets - strips of iron meant to protect the the haft from breaking just below the head, because that is the part of the haft which takes the most stress when striking with the weapon, and also the part which is the most likely to be damaged by the enemy's weapons.
This is what langets are on a halberd head.
And this is why they are useful.
Because the presence non-ferrous metal helps with the archaeological survival of perishable materials such as wood, these Dane-axes with collars very often have the part of the shaft inside the collar preserved in good shape. This is a tremendous source of knowledge about the shafts of Norse axes, but it also raises a serious question: How does the head of such a collared Dane-axe even hold on its haft? (and why is that even a question?)
Let's take it slowly.
To be usable, an axe needs to have its head attached to the haft robustly enough that the head doesn't fly off when it is subjected to the centrifugal force of a swing with the axe, or when the axe is shaken by an impact. Independently from the shape of shaft and wood species used in various axe traditions, there are fundamentally two ways of hafting a typical axe: hafting from above, and hafting from below using a wedge.
Left, an axe hafted from above. Right, an axe hafted from below, secured with a wedge. The areas in red show the pressure and friction between the haft and the axe-head, which is what keeps everything together. See how the "conical" shape of the haft is opposite in the two cases: hafting from above is naturally proof against the head flying off, when hafting from below the wedge is mandatory.
The Norse tradition was very definitely to haft from below using a wedge, which makes even more sense for a large two-handed axe, which has more than enough weight at the top and would benefit from a solid grip provided by a flared bottom of the haft. However, the collared Dane-axes have no wedge.
No. Wedge.
OK, technically there is one example with a large nail in the eye of the axe serving the purpose of a wedge, and one shaft has a crack which might be the slit were a lost wedge was once inserted. But in most cases, no wedge, and a hafting from below. How can that possibly work?
Gluing? Nope - even with modern chemistry gluing metal on metal is far from easy, and no one in their right mind would use an axe the head of which has merely been glued to a polished haft.
Wedging with the brass collar itself? Hm, maybe, but not really. Some collars are indeed made of several parts, some of which look like they have been inserted from above, but a pair of carefully inserted 1-mm-thick brass wedges would be far from having the reliability of a good old 5-mm-thick oaken wedge smacked into place with a big hammer - not to mention that this method wouldn't provide any answer for all the tubular, single-piece collars, which are a majority.
What are we left with, then? Even renown experts and museums have given up on that quest and resorted to using a wedge on such axes.
The replica of the Langeid axe, made for the Kulturhistorisk Museum in Oslo under the supervision of expert archaeologist Vegard Vike, next to the original. Yes, they've put a wedge through the eye of the replica, and no, they shouldn't have, there is none in the original.
But I have a theory to offer - and I'd love to see a blacksmith testing it in practice.
You see, there is an item in European history (until recent times), subjected to harsh stress and daily use, which managed to fix to each other the worst possible shapes in iron and wood - a cylinder around another cylinder - without the use of any wedge, nail, glue or other element. This object is the carriage wheel. To perform this miracle, the wheelwright would prepare an iron banding that would be a little bit too small for the intended wheel. This banding would then be heated in a fire, so that the heat would get the iron to expand - just enough to fit onto the wheel. The iron band would then be put into place, and quickly doused with water to cool it down and get it to shrink, thus locking it into place (and preventing the wooden wheel from catching fire).
How does that relate to our wedge-less Dane-axes and their collars? To put it simply, the idea would be to prepare the haft so that with wood only it barely fits, add the copper-alloy collar which now makes the haft too thick, heat the axe eye to expand it, insert the brass-wrapped haft into it, hammer it as deep as reasonable to form the eye of the axe tightly around it, and cool the axe-head quickly to protect the wooden haft and lock everything into place.
Several elements speak in favour of such a hot-assembly method.
First, none of the surviving axes with collars shows any sign of having been decorated with metallic inlays. Of course the statistics are limited, but the fact that the options for Dane-axe decoration were either inlay or collar would make sense if the final assembly of an axe with a collar required heating the eye of the axe, which would destroy the inlay (of course it's possible, although annoying, to do the inlaying on an already hafted axe, but in case the haft would need to be replaced the repair could then only involve a collar-less haft).
Second, copper-alloys are good heat conductors, meaning that the collar would dissipate the heat and help protecting the wood from damage when inserted into a red-hot axe eye.
Third, a commonly used tool for forging axe-heads (or rather, for finishing the details of the eye) is a drift, a slightly conical punch which is hammered into the (red hot) axe eye to give it its final shape. Using the brass-covered haft itself as a drift would therefore not be a completely exotic axe-making technique.
Oh, and speaking about glue, this is where it actually comes back! What is the best way to "glue" metal to metal? Welding or brazing or soldering (depending on the temperature and metals involved)! And it is possible (however untested to the best of my knowledge on the surviving examples) that some brazing was used, brought to heat together with the axe eye so as to fuse it to the copper-alloy collar upon cooling. So, in case any archaeo-metallurgist reads this and has access to such axes, you know what to try and analyse!
So there you have it. If you are blacksmith with experience in making Dane-axes reading this and you're willing to test this hafting method, I just want to say two things:
1) I would be delighted to see the results of your test, and have your opinion about why and how it succeeded or failed.
2) maybe don't start your sharpest axe-head, and take some safety precautions before you start swinging the thing around! Just because I like my theory doesn't mean I would trust my life to it!
This is part 2 of posts on archery, find part 1 here.
In part 1, I discussed many details of how a Norse bow was made and equipped, but a bow is only interesting in so far as it shoots arrows, so today the big question is: how were Norse bows shot?
As mentioned in the post about bow construction, the focus here is on the Norse bow proper (Norse longbow, examplified by the Hedeby and Ballinderry bows), not on the other bows that the Norse could have come in contact with and used (Sámi two-wood bow, and Magyar composite bow). So, while one cannot exclude the fact that some cross-pollination happened between the different archery traditions present in Scandinavia (for example someone could have tried to shoot a longbow with a thumb draw, with or without thumbring), let's focus on the "normal" way to shoot a Norse longbow.
A counterexample to the rest of the discussion: this large bone ring found in Iceland might be a thumb ring, which might have belonged to one named Hjörtr (stag), who might be the archer from Brennu-Njáls Saga (killed close to the find site), which might indicate the use of a thumb-ring in Norse archery.
There are three key elements to determine an archery technique: the grip (or draw, or release, depending on how one considers things), which defines how the string is held by the draw hand; the arrow positioning, which interacts with the structure of the bow and/or the bow hand; and the drawing motion itself. For all these elements, information is scarce, and we have to mostly rely on iconography and parallels (in particular with later Welsh and English longbows).
Regarding the grip and the arrow placement, relevant depictions of archers are few and far between, but in general we can guess quite safely that the grip was, like for the better known English longbow, a Mediterranean grip with the arrow on the inside: two or three fingers pulling the string, set above and below the arrow, with the arrowhead on the left of the bow for archer drawing the string with the right hand (and vice versa). The two-finger versus three-finger variants are in practice very similar, with debates in favour of one or the other spanning centuries among archers - the only definitive point being that beyond a certain bow poundage the two-finger grip becomes too weak. It is however possible that other styles of draw were used, such as variations of the pinch draw (primary, secondary or tertiary release): some intact arrows have been found that lack a nock, such arrows would need to be held in the fingers in order to stabilise them on the string while drawing the bow (however it is likely that such arrows predate the Viking Age by a few centuries). There is similarly a debate about the possibility that medieval (English) longbows were shot with the arrows on the outside of the bow (on the right for a rightie) but even then, the vast majority of depictions suggest that the arrow is on the inside of the bow. So, with the possibility of minor usages and exceptions, let's keep the Mediterranean grip with the arrow on the inside.
Now to the question of the drawing motion. For this, there is more or less no direct source that can help us: no text describes it in detail, archaeology has nothing to say on the matter, and pictorial sources are static at best if not distorted by artistic conventions. So, what are we left with?
12th century English depiction of 9th century Norse archers (MS M.736)
15th century French depiction of 14th century English archers (MSS Fr. 2643–6)
Some people, based on iconography such as the martyrdom of St Edmund above, suggest that there is an "early medieval draw", which would consist in drawing the arrow towards the middle of the chest, with the bow arm pointing somewhat in front of the chest, in contrast to modern archery where the arrow is drawn towards the face and the bow arm is in line with the shoulders. This is in my opinion a completely wrong interpretation: not only is such motion completely inefficient in using the muscles of the upper body, but it also makes aiming very difficult (admittedly we're talking about instinctive aiming, but even then some angles offer a better intuition that others). This error probably stems from a misinterpretation of artistic conventions (early medieval art struggles with perspective, and hates putting anything in front of a human face) as well as from the reenactors' desire to set themselves clearly apart from modern archery. It is instead more likely that the arrow was drawn in a motion happening more or less at the level of the archer's head, or slightly above it, as illustrated by any more realistic artistic representation, or just about any traditional archery form in the world. This quasi-universality of drawing techniques can be explained in terms of body mechanics, optimizing the way the skeletal structure is locked, and as many muscle groups as possible are harnessed when drawing powerful bows (or for more comfort and stability when drawing weaker bows): for an excellent explanation, see these two videos.
We can therefore quite safely assume that at full draw of a Norse archer would have their upper arms slightly above horizontal, with the nock of the arrow somewhere between the level of the chin and the eyes. That would possibly imply, when shooting on a flat trajectory, canting the upper body to bring the bow arm horizontal - this posture is well visible on the English archers above, and possibly hinted at in the depiction of the Norse archers shooting poor Edmund. That still leaves us with the question of the motion itself - was it closer to the exagerrated downward arch performed in kyūdō, or an almost perfectly horizontal draw like in modern olympic archery ? - and the question of the anchor points - to where (and thus how far back) was the arrow drawn?
It is very tempting, to answer all these questions, to simply apply principles from modern barebow archery, saying that this is just a matter of using a slightly different style of bow (short comment here - don't). The other common, somewhat more relevant avenue is to assume that since we're dealing with a type of powerful medieval longbow coming from north-western Europe, let's use as a reference some other type of powerful medieval longbow coming from north-western Europe - namely the English longbow, for which far better documentation (writings, depictions and archaeological finds) is available, and which has already been revived and is practiced by a solid community of enthusiasts. Is that "Norse English longbow" hybridisation a good approach though?
This leads to a topic which I think suffers from a misrepresentation : the power of Norse longbows, and as a consequence the energy of the arrows shot out of such bows. Replicas of the yew longbows from Hedeby, Ballinderry and Wassenaar have yielded bow weights in the range of 80 to 110 pounds. This seems in line with what was known for English war bows (with typical draw weights in the 100 – 160# range), and probably also in line with the idea of "strong, manly Viking warriors". However, there are elements which speak in favour of Norse longbows typically having a lower poundage.
First, there is a survival bias in the archaeological material: the most powerful bows are the thickest, and thus the most likely to get through centuries undamaged, even if they are not of "typical" draw weight. This is very clear when including the broken bow fragments from Hedeby in the picture: their draw weights is impossible to determine, because one could not make a proper replica, but it is very obvious that all of these bows were thinner, and therefore weaker, than the "Hedeby 1" intact bow.
Second, there is the context of use of these bows. Unlike the English longbow, Norse bows are primarily known from a hunting context, where a heavy poundage is useful against large game (such as very commonly reindeer), but does not need to be as high as against an armoured opponent. Then even if different, more powerful bows were used for war rather than for hunting, the armour involved was much lighter than in later medieval times (mail was present but was nowhere near as widespread as it became later, not to mention gambesons and plate), and no source points at the archers themselves being trained from the youngest age to wield extremely powerful bows (as was the case for English longbowmen). It is thus both unnecessary and unlikely to find a very heavy bow on an early medieval Scandinavian battlefield.
And third, the draw-weight of a bow doesn't mean anything without a corresponding draw-length - and that's where the key misconceptions lie.
The bow is a spring, and as such it takes more force to pull it a longer way. That's why the poundage of a bow is always given in relation with a draw-length. In modern archery the standard is of 28 inches (the typical draw-length on a modern bow for a ~180 cm tall person), this is also the draw-length for which the poundage of replicas of Norse longbows are typically reported. For English longbows the draw-length is typically longer than in modern archery, due to the anchor point being at the ear rather than the cheek, so poundages are given for draw-lengths 30 or even 31". But what is the typical draw-length used by Norse archers?
This is something which can be answered by archaeology as well as literature. Entire arrows survive very rarely in archaeological contexts, and the only thing left to be found is usually only the rusty arrowhead. But in some cases, intact shafts survive, sometimes with the fletching still present: this is the case for example in the ancient hunting grounds of the Norwegian mountains, where glacial archaeology has uncovered countless items in almost pristine conditions. From these finds, we can tell that the average length of arrow shafts was around 66 cm or 26".
If we account for the depth of the arrow nock and the fact that the front of the shafts was reinforced with sinew or wire wrapping, we're left with a typical draw-length of 25.5" if not less (for a clean arrow flight it is very unlikely that the archer would have rested the wrapping, and even less the admittedly very long arrowhead, on his bow hand for an increased draw-length). That tells us two things:
1) the energy of the arrow (and the strain put on the bow) is 10-15% lower than it would be with a 28" draw-length, and this can be more than 20% with respect to shooting English longbow style.
2) the anchor point was typically set quite forward. People in the 10th century were not particularly short (unlike commonly assumed): the average European male was about 172 cm tall, with Norsemen being a bit taller than average, so the expected draw-length for "modern style" archery would have been expected to be of the order of 27" to 28". At 25.5 inches we are dealing with a draw which barely reaches the face!
Such a short draw-length is hard to understand, given that most archery traditions try to maximise draw-length. It might be a matter of aiming (bringing the arrow to eye level - makes sense for the very short-range shooting that reindeer hunting involved) but also maybe a way of adapting to the bow itself. That's where literature enters the discussion!
One of the best know accounts of Norse archery comes from the story of the Battle of Svolder (year 999 or 1000) in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. During the battle, the archer Einarr Þambarskelfir, renown for his accurate and powerful shooting, fights for king Óláfr Tryggvason on the royal flagship. Despite his bow being struck by an enemy arrow, he attempts once more to shoot the enemy leader, Eiríkr jarl Hákonarson, and then...
"What is it" cried King Olaf, "that broke with such a noise?" "Norway, king, from your hands" said Einar.
Now the interesting part is that king Óláfr then hands him his own bow and commands him to keep shooting.
Einarr took the bow, and drew it over the head of the arrow.
"Too weak, too weak," said he, "for the bow of a mighty king!" and, throwing the bow aside, he took sword and shield, and fought valiantly.
While drawing a bow over the arrowhead would be physically impossible in the case of arrows made for a 30" draw-length, it is absolutely possible to do with short arrows such as the ones found in Norway. But why would Einarr draw the bow so far back instead of stopping at his usual anchor point (and maybe still complaining about the bow's power)? It seems that he only borrowed the bow from the king, and kept using his own arrows, so even if there was a significant difference in stature between the king and him that should not have created such a problem. The other explanation is that bows were not necessarily drawn to a fixed anchor point (as would a modern archer do when switching bows) but rather to the maximum draw strength of the wielder.
In a context where accurate measurements of a bow's performance were not available, where no one would keep changing equipment for the sake of performance or fanciness (like some modern archers do) unless the previous item broke, and where regular archery practice (from which comes a well-established shooting form and the ability to shoot the heaviest of bows) was not common, it is very likely that an archer would procure (or make) a bow that would roughly match his physical capacity, and then procure or make arrows matching his draw-length with that bow. This approach to draw-length would be familiar to anyone attempting to shoot a bow far beyond their strength!
I hope that all this series of posts will inspire you to try out new things in your reenactment archery practice.
The following is the summary of a proposed talk with didn't make it to the
ReConference.
Any attempt at "re-creating" (whatever this might mean) any type of combat in
a controlled environment, often for an audience, and usually with a historical
research (understanding how it was done) or outreach (showing how it was done)
purpose, faces an unsolvable dilemma: How to combine material accuracy (authentic clothes, armour, weapons),
technical accuracy (authentic fighting techniques), and safety?
By "re-creating" combat, I mean performing combat-like actions which are not
part of an actual conflict, and are in principle not intended to cause the
same outcome (as in, injury and death) on the participants. It can be anything
from competitive bouts in martial arts, re-enactment battles, stage combat or
fight choreography in film, etc. Let's focus on the case of combat
involving cold weapons, bladed or otherwise. When dealing with bare-handed
combat, or firearms, the challenges and solutions are different, and arguably
easier: bare-handed combat implies by essence lesser damage to the human body
than a weapon can create, and blanks/simunition enable one to retain most of
the functions of firearms in combat while removing most of the damage
potential (but there is some interesting debate on that topic too).
At any point in history, the main solution to increase the safety of fighters
was the addition of armour. It is therefore tantalising to use the same logic
in the context of re-created combat: let's add more armour suitable to the
historical context being re-created and voilà, our fighters are now
safe!
The thing is, at any point in history, as soon as armour is involved, it
brings along something called... armoured combat! And the very purpose of any
technique in armoured combat is to somehow bypass (circumvent or compromise)
the armour, in order to still manage to hurt the person wearing it. The (very)
common solution of applying techniques of non-armoured combat to combat in
armour therefore doesn't solve our problem (and it even brings with itself its
own crowd of problems and biases, such as "making up" vaguely plausible armour
for context where it wasn't worn, or over-representing heavily armoured
combatants compared to the historical reality - yes Wolin I'm looking at you).
The other obvious approach to make re-created combat safer is to make the
weapons safer. Again, that only solves the problem up to a point. The thing
is, while most of the lethal potential of a bullet is removed by replacing it
with a blank, the blunted version of a bladed weapon still remains a large
metallic implement capable of dealing a substantial amount of trauma. This is
all the more true for impact weapons, which do not rely on their sharp edge or
point to hurt the other person. One can try to solve that by making the
weapons ever lighter, with broader impact areas, until we enter the realm of
foam weapons, which (despite the commendable efforts of LARPers) do not look,
and more importantly do not behave at all, like their metal counterparts.
This is a blunt, and therefore perfectly safe, 13th century mace.
To summarise, authentic combat (and therefore a faithful re-creation thereof)
implies the use of appropriate weapons and techniques in order to overcome a
certain level of protection/armour. The combination of authentic techniques
and authentic equipment is therefore by essence lethal, or to the least
dangerous. Should we, as people interested in re-creating combat, resign
ourselves to using ugly non-period gear, or to pretend-fighting with silly,
non-martial moves, or to killing each other? Hopefully not. Most
activities related to re-creating armed combat have found ways of balancing
these three aspects: let's have a review to see who fights how, how
technically authentic, materially authentic or safe the fights are, before
trying to get to a conclusion.
NOTE: For all the activities listed, the following evaluation is made in a
"best case scenario" where proficient practitioners use the highest quality
of equipments and techniques involved in the activity. As for safety, any
physical activity, especially involving physical contact with an opponent,
is likely to cause injury: I am therefore therefore taking into account the
risks of serious or lethal injuries, not the likelihood of sustaining a
sprained ankle or numerous bruises. BTW concussion is a serious injury.
The (historical) combat-related activities below are regrouped into 4 main
categories.
A very specific one, the category of non-lethal combat. By this I don't mean
that no one ever died in the historical "real" version of such combat, but
that death was avoided, and mostly accidental when it happened.
The category of activities laying the emphasis on equipment and safety, at
the expense of technical accuracy (to various extents).
The category of activities laying emphasis on technique and safety, at the
expense of material accuracy (to various extents).
The category trying to lay emphasis of both technical and material accuracy,
(which may be struggling more or less with safety, or with accuracy
actually).
I hope I won't be too judgemental at this stage!
1. Non-lethal combat
This is an interesting context, because the safety level can already be quite
high by default (at least compared to fights to the death) without having to
implement any adaptation for the re-creation of the fight. Such combat was
usually a public performance, involving highly trained participants who were
expected to perform many times – this is actually pretty close to the setting
of our modern-day "re-created combat". The level of safety of a "non-adapted"
version of re-created combat therefore directly depends on the acceptable
level of risk and violence as it was perceived in the original context. Such
practices include historical fencing competitions, jousting, or gladiatorial
combat.
Jousting
There are many ways in which jousting is portrayed nowadays, but here the
focus isn't on people who dress up as knights and crush balsa-wood or
cardboard lances on plywood shields. It's about the crazy and amazing people
who ride horses as close to the historical breeds as possible, in the most
accurate replicas of armour, and ride at each other wielding solid pine,
metal-tipped lances. The technical and material accuracy are, in principle,
maximal, as for the safety... well, historically jousts came with their fair
share of injuries, some of them being fatal. Modern materials and knowledge
can to some extent prevent accidents, but accidents keep happening, with the
potential of being severe. The participants obviously favour the understanding
and faithful recreation of the historical jousts over their own safety...
However, risks vary depending on the tournament discipline being practiced:
the joust itself, given the violent impacts and sharp splinters flying
everywhere, entails far more injuries than, for example, the
Kolbenturnier, in which participants merrily bash each other on the
armour with fairly light wooden clubs.
Ready for knight clubbing
Another interesting point about safety in jousting, is that safety actually
increases with material and technical accuracy: the historical jousts involved
certain elements of armour and a certain wielding of the lance for good
reasons, and then as now, if the proper gear is used in conjunction with an
appropriate skill level, accidents are less likely to happen.
Gladiators
Because (as you of course know) the purpose of gladiators was not to die in
the arena, but to entertain the crowd and bring a good return on investment
for their owner and for the organiser of the games, gladiatorial duels are
another instance of fights which are inherently highly spectacular but in
principle non-lethal. The fighting techniques aim at producing very visible
but non-lethal injuries (such as shallow slashes across the back), and the
fights finish in a submission. Mortal wounds were avoided as much as possible
(in particular because the duelling pairs were training partners, and because
as slaves gladiators did not have the right to take a life), but death would
of course happened, generally for exceptional fights which were ordered to be
to the bitter end (however, the said end was often an execution after the
submission, rather than death from a mortal wound received during the fight).
Kalendio is yielding the fight to Astyanax and is still very much alive, but he will
be Ø = Θανατομενος = put to death
Even when excluding the fights to the death, the accuracy of what can be
re-created today in gladiatorial combat is limited by the fact that, even
though it was non-lethal, bloodshed was at the core of gladiatorial duels. The
weapons were sharp, and the submission was obtained by accumulating injuries
on the opponent, until pain, exhaustion and blood loss would prevent him from
fighting back. This is nowadays replaced by blunt weapons (which, for most
purposes, look realistic enough from the distances at which they are intended
to be viewed), and the victory in competitive matches is awarded for scoring
points - which excludes from the reconstruction everything about fighting on
while injured. Despite these precautions, injuries can still happen, given
that the gladiator's body is mostly naked and thus unprotected from the
accidental thrust with a blunt trident or dagger, or from a burr on a weapon's
blunt edge. But these injuries are not likely to be severe, as the gladiator's
kit in specifically designed to protect effectively the areas which could lead
to mortal or debilitating wounds, and thus end a carreer.
Fechtschule
Less famous than the previous examples, public fencing competitions (Fechtschule
- fencing school in German) were a very popular type of event in Western
Europe in the late medieval and Renaissance period. They were a non-lethal but
competitive display of martial skill, which, depending on the
region and period, could involve weapons such as the two-handed sword, halberd, dagger,
rapier or dussack, all of which were replaced by safer implements (rebatted
steel swords, wooden halberds, daggers and dussacks). The protective equipment
was in general non-existant (except for leather gloves and sometimes brimmed
hats offering some protection to the head and face). The scoring systems were
variable, but in some cases required to make a bloody gash for the hit to be
valid. The study of HEMA (see below) includes the study of such fencing
practices, because many teachings from historical fencing masters actually focus on fencing matches rather than (or in addition to) fighting with sharp
weapons. There are therefore people, although not many so far, who pursue
specifically the reconstruction of this form of fencing, including all the
material culture surrounding it (and thus parting with the usual gear worn in
HEMA, again see below). The material and technical accuracy have the potential
of being excellent (down to the fashion, fencing style, and competition
ruleset favoured in a given city in a given decade), but this depends on the
safety requirements and type of Fechtschule. From historical
records, we know that serious injuries (broken hands, jaws, wounds to the
face, gouged out eyes...) happened occasionnally - and there were prosecutions
for dealing such a blow, but the lethal injuries where in general related to
thrusts (in particular rapiers going through the eye and brain). As a
consequence, it is no surprise that re-creations of such fencing competition
favour rulesets which ban thrusts and where hits are counted by judges rather
than bloody gashes... However, some amount of technical and material bias
still remain, with the blows being pulled more than historically, techniques
involving "threats of thrust to the face" being used less if at all, or some
fencing weapons being replaced by even safer counterparts (e.g. leather dussacks instead of wooden ones).
2. Emphasis on equipement and safety
This is the categories of practices that come to mind immediately for most people when mentioning vague terms such as "medieval combat", "sword fighting" etc. They are actually very distinct things with different rules and purposes, but they share one thing: the importance of the visual aspect conveyed by the material culture represented. After all, for most of us, it is the equipment which is the most evocative of an era and context. If I showed you two guys goofing around, one wearing a hoplite panoply and the other the uniform of a Napoleonic grenadier, you would be able, as least in broad strokes, to identify what they represent. On the other hand, hearing recordings of conversations in old languages, or of ancient music, or seeing stick figures displaying dances or combat techniques from various times and places, is not telling at all for most people. It is therefore quite an obvious choice to focus on showing objects, while not caring much about actions.
Stage fencing / Fight choreography
Stage(d) fencing is arguably as old as, if not older than theatre. Let's start
with the fact that it isn't combat at all, given that the fights are partly or
entirely choreographed. The safety of the performers, who are in general
primarily actors, is paramount, and the goal of the fights is to tell a story,
not to enact violence. As a result, while the material accuracy can in
principle be excellent (depending on the type of production and the wishes of
the art director), the technical repertoire is in general far removed from any
realistic portrayal of a fight: the blows are pulled, or off target,
exaggerated for better visibility from the audience, and interspersed with
elements which allow narration rather than combat (dialogue while "pushing
swords" etc.). All this to ensure that the story can be told in a clear and
enjoyable way (and the course of the fight can be a story in itself), and that
none of the choreographed moves ends up injuring an actor. This safety
consideration also has a frequent impact on the material accuracy of the
weapons, which are made lighter, and often shorter, in order to facilitate
their wielding and limit risks of injury in case of an accidental hit.
Things are somewhat different regarding the modern counterpart of stage
fencing, which is fight choreography in cinema. The magic of editing offers
several advantages in comparison with theatre: the material accuracy, and in
particular the weapons, can be maximal in contexts that allow it, with the
weapons being swapped for safer implements during actual fight sequences. A
larger variety of angles viewing is possible, which, combined with editing
cuts, offers more possibilities to the choreography, making the fights more
dynamic, and to some extent more realistic (by allowing some moves which would
be unacceptably dangerous if actually executed at distance in a theatre).
Buhurt / HMB / Full contact medieval combat
Now this one is actually hard to categorise, as you can see from the
evaluation above - I'm mostly putting it here for the sake of comparison with
stage fencing (above) and reenactment combat (below). In modern buhurt (the
historical activity of the same name would rather refer to team tournaments on
horseback, predecessor to the Kolbenturnier above) technical and
material accuracy are about as good (or rather, as average) as the other,
which is possibly one of the factors why this activity is so popular with the
audience. The armours look "medieval enough", the fights look "real enough",
while the organization of the competitions is closer to sport events (but with
a castle as a background) than to the detailed recreations of historical
tournaments described above. All in all, the visual aspect of this practice is
much more dictated by the modern expectations of what "looks medieval" rather
than by historical accuracy. In addition to that, even in the ideal case of
maximal care for historicity, the equipment differs from what would have been
used in a 15th century tournament melee on foot, because the rules, the highly
competitive nature of buhurt and modern safety requirements have led to a
"darwinian" evolution of both weapons and armours, which are subjected to a
number of regulations and might try to look like their medieval counterpart on
the outside but are functionally significantly different. All
this, mainly driven by the desire to have at each other as hard as possible
without hurting each other too much, has led buhurt to becoming very much its
own thing, somewhat removed from the medieval reality it originated from: the
technical and safety limits imposed by material accuracy were disregarded in
favour of full-contact competition. As for safety, again the highly
competitive nature of buhurt (and to some extent, its rulesets) lead to quite
a high amount of injuries, and in particular concussions, which are mosty
accepted (or even seen are part of the thrill) by both participants and
audience. By the way, buhurt is so much "its own thing" that it
has is own offspring discipline, called "modern sword fighting", which has
retainied the rules and spirit of buhurt while reducing the cost, fitness
requirements and risk of injury to make it more family-friendly: it did so by
dropping totally the "medieval" look of metal armour and weapons and replacing
that with modern, padded materials.
As a side note, I'll mention that buhurt shares a number of similarities with
SCA heavy combat, although the latter is arguable safer, and a bit behind in
material accuracy, in particular owing to the use of rattan instead of steel
weapons.
Reenactment combat
It is difficult to provide a detailed evaluation of reenactment combat in
terms of safety, technical accuracy and material accuracy given the broad
diversity of contexts and events involved. In particular, in addition to the
"armour vs. armoured combat" problem which has different incarnations
depending on the historical context being reenacted, the main differences are
in the level to which the fights are scripted or competitive, and how many
people are involved, from skirmishes to large battles, and from "generic
fights" representative of an era and culture, to detailed replaying of
historical battles. Generally speaking, safety decreases with the
number of participants (more accidents in a crowded mess) and with
competitiveness. On the contrary, safety increases when the technical
repertoire of the fighters is more restricted (usually at the expense of
technical accuracy). Actually, in that view, reenactment combat is a continuum
which joins the gap between stage combat (scripted outcome, strictly defined
set of moves), and buhurt ("full contact" competition). It is also the perfect
illustration, via the diversity of choices made at various reenactment events,
of the challenges of our triangle of combat. This diversity is
made even larger by the diversity of purposes that reenactement events have
for the combat they incorporate: education, competition, spectacular show, or
a mixture thereof with various degrees of priority. In principle it seems
obvious that events whose primary goal is educational would lay the priority
on accuracy (in general material accuracy, given that material culture is the
most obvious visual element for the public) more than events that prefer to
put a big show or to provide a competitive challenge. But even among
educational event, there will be a major difference between the reenactment of
a major historical battle, with hundreds or thousands of reenactors, where the
main focus is on showing accurately the maneuvres and course of events during
the battle (then the individual reenactors play a role similar to extras in
cinema, and it only matters that their "fighting" is vaguely plausible from a
distance), and a small scale (or even duel) context where the focus is on
showing "how they fought", in which case either the focus has be put on
technique over material accuracy (see below), or one faces serious safety
issues (see under that), or the educational display is dishonest (by not
telling that its technical accuracy is not what it claims to be).
Honest combat demo
Dishonest combat demo
Hey, we said no judging!!
3. Emphasis on technique and safety
This is basically the opposite of the previous category. Here we will find people who want to live their knightly fantasy not by wearing shiny armour, but by practicing the knightly arts and winning medals for being the best fighter out there. And we will also find nerds who don't care about how they look but rather about whether they "did it right". And arguably the practitioners are less numerous (especially the nerdy variant) than the category above, again for reasons of this material culture thing: there are probably many more wannabe archaeologists than wannabe historians in this world, and it's not only due to Indiana Jones, but also to the (lack of) appeal of spending hours and months among obscure books in forgotten languages, compared to the opportunity of studying ancient artefacts first-hand...
HEMA
The main member of this category is obviously HEMA (Historical European
Martial Arts). The very aim of HEMA is to study and bring back to life the
fighting techniques of the past based on the available historical evidence
(mainly in the form of old fencing treatises written by masters). The proposed
interpretations of these techniques can then be pressure-tested in
non-cooperative sparring or competition. The diversity of weapons
and contexts explored is huge (and it includes non-lethal combat, as per
above), but if we concentrate on the most popular type of HEMA practice, which
is unarmoured single combat, we can see that HEMA solved our triangular
problem by throwing out the window the material accuracy of armour and
equipment. Thanks to the use of modern safety gear, HEMA solves the problem of
"armour vs. armoured combat" by separating the visual and technical aspects
completely: from a technical point of view, the convention is that the fencers
should act as if they were unprotected and the weapons were sharp, while being
actually provided with shock-absorbing equipment (effectively a modern version
of light armour) and with safe, blunt and flexible versions of weapons which
are design to behave (rather than look) as much as possible as their lethal
counterparts - although impact weapons are as usual a problem. Even for a
non-specialist audience, these technical conventions are quite clear: a blow
to the fencing mask is considered to represent a cut to the head, the bending
of a rebatted, blunt blade on the surface of a fencing jacket is considered to
represent a thrust through the torso. Just like for gladiatorial
combat however, the use of safe equipment (often combined with the
interruption of bouts each time a hit has been scored) prevents from studying
and re-creating the aspect of fighting on while injured - despite the fact
that this is a parameter which is explicitly mentionned by a number of
historical sources studied in HEMA.
As a side note, I'll mention that SCA rapier combat shares strong similarities
with HEMA, but with a narrower focus in terms of studied weapons, and a
stronger focus on material accuracy, because why restrict oneself to fencing
in a smelly gym while clad in black polyethylene, when one can wear beautiful period
doublets and if possible fence in a preserved cobblestone street of a Renaissance town.
3. Emphasis on technique and equipment
Some people would like to combine as much as possible the practice of the
skills and knowledge of historically accurate combat techniques with a high
level of material accuracy as well. This can be motivated by technical
considerations (the way one moves in combat is influenced by the shape and
grip of one's shoes, the pattern and stiffness of one's clothes...), or by the
wish to include in their combat practice the enjoyability of the historical
immersion which is provided by reenactment but thrown out of the window by
HEMA. While we've seen above that this is possible to achieve in
the context of non-lethal combat, for any other combat scenario this runs into a
major safety problem. Even the "second safest"
type of combat, which would be for example first-blood duelling (where the
death of the opponent is not necessarily desired - in contrast with non-lethal
combat where it is explicitly avoided), cannot be practiced with full technical
and material accuracy without being highly dangerous: the first drop of blood
in a smallsword duel might a scratch on the arm, or a thrust through the lung
and heart, and the first drop of blood in a holmgang can be from a shield
splinter just breaking the skin, or from a chopped-off leg. If we
ignore people who willingly face the "ultimate challenge of full-contact
combat with sharps" (who are fortunately in limited numbers, and are mostly
idiots whose take on material and technical accuracy is appalling anyway - although they admittedly bring in some data about fighting on while injured), the
only way to bring back some safety in something which otherwise would be
lethal combat is to somehow get rid either of the "lethal" or of the "combat".
The "combat" element can be typically removed by transforming the confrontation into
a cooperation, therefore effectively shifting from combat to choreography. The
main distinction between such a practice and a typical
choreographed fight scene, is that the focus of the choreography is put on the
verisimilitude of the moves used, rather than on narration or showmanship.
This can take the form of a technical demonstrations (showing to the audience
the details of historical combat techniques one by one) or of predetermined
combat sequences (which concatenate a number of such techniques). The result
can look very close to maximal technical accuracy, but it
functions very differently because of the intent and physicality
involved (acceleration of weapons, pressure applied in blade contact...).
And because of the techniques involved (which are designed to be lethal in a
confrontational context), the safety is also inherently not as good as in
typical stage fencing. The "lethal" element on the other hand can
typically be removed by finding a way to fall back to some form of non-lethal
combat. Typical solutions involve replacing combat itself by historical forms of
combat training, which can take the shape of drills (these can be performed to
a extremely high level of accuracy and intensity), or in the form of sparring.
The first is not combat at all, but can be a very good representation of some
of its aspects, while the second implies all the issues mentioned for
non-lethal combat, and in terms of safety vs. accuracy depends on the level of
physical damage which was deemed acceptable in a given historical context
(guess what: it's always higher than today). In any case, the frequent lack of
protection and use of very realistic (sharp or sharp-like) weapons involves
serious risk of injury in case of accidental hits. An additional
difficulty arises from the fact that not all historical context provide
sources describing drilling or sparring - or even enough details to accurately
reconstruct combat in earnest. As a result, attempts at re-creating combat
through a hypothetical non-lethal variant thereof actually run the risk of straying
away from the reality of combat: after too much training of "how
to fight with these weapons without killing each other", one can forget that
the original goal was to understand "how to fight with these weapons in the
way they used to kill each other in that given historical context", up to the
point where this training becomes its own made-up thing... Not the best when
the original goal was to aim for maximal accuracy in all respects.
NOW... what can we tell after all that?
(that's the part where I might start being judgemental, but hopefully not too
offensive!)
An attempt at perspectives and conclusion
First, let's remind that when striving for maximal accuracy in re-created
combat, there can be different goals, the two main ones being research
(understanding how it was done) and outreach (showing how it was done). In
these two cases, the priorities are quite different: for the former,
functional accuracy is paramount, for the former, it is visual accuracy that
matters most.
It can be tempting to conclude that regarding
research on historical combat, the highest level of functional accuracy is
simply attained by practicing HEMA. Of course I here mean the most
research-oriented version of HEMA (and my personal favourite), where
historical research on fencing treatises and other sources is at least as
important as practice in fencing gear itself ("embodied research" they call
it). However, it would be narrow-minded to claim that the reading of books
combined with fencing in safety gear, with modern-made training weapons, on the
flat ground of a gym wearing modern high-traction shoes brings the ultimate
answers on the nature of historical combat. In terms of balance between safety
and technical accuracy, it might the best compromise possible
for a single practice, but in order to best understand something which
can never be directly experienced (various forms of historical and often lethal
combat) one should turn to as many sources of information as possible. In that
respect, fencing in period costume allows to feel any possible
movement restrictions, or evaluate the level of protection available;
controlled sparring with sharp weapons gives an idea of how sharp weapons
interact with each other and with other implements; group sparring, even if it
requires more sacrifice on material accuracy for the sake of safety, brings an
experience of how fencing skills can be applied in a skirmish or battle
scenario; practicing forms of historical non-lethal combat, when relevant,
teach how the people of the time actually prepared themselves for the day
lethal combat would happen (that actually often includes the hunt, although
it's hard to compare it to other forms of "combat"); cutting and destructive
testing with sharp weapons against various forms of targets teaches the
biomechanics of the cut in a way no sparring can, and shows how weapons
interact with various elements of equipment, armour, or flesh, etc.
This is historical combat research too!
Regarding outreach on historical combat, I would start by stressing that like
for any other outreach, it can be good only if the people involved have a
cutting edge (no pun intended) knowledge, or at least a very solid one, of the
research results in that field. So all the above applies before starting to
worry about visual accuracy.
Outreach typically involves
demonstrating elements to the public. There can be a detailed presentation of
the equipment and weapons of a given context, but our focus here is on
demonstrating combat. This can most simply be done in the form of a technical
demonstration: as described above, individual techniques are shown in a
controlled fashion (slow speed, moves interrupted before impact...). These can
be concatenated to form a choreographed combat demonstration, but in order to
be realistic such a choreography must incorporate lethal techniques,
near-misses, plausible intent to hit... which makes the entire display quite
dangerous, and therefore extremely demanding on the performers in terms of
rehearsals to ensure that no mistakes are made. As a result, presenting series
of multiple realistic combat demos (to show a wider variety of techniques,
styles, fights with different paces, or different weapons) becomes
prohibitively demanding, not to mention the option of involving more than two combatants in the demo.
If we leave aside very large re-creations of historical battles, where the main focus is on manoeuvres, the only option left is then to show freeplay (unscripted combat), while trying to mitigate all our usual issues. A first element which can help with safety at no cost is the mindset: it's a demo anyway, not a competition, so it is probably not necessary to risk everything just to land a hit as hard as possible. Sure, the demonstration will lack a little bit of "grit" in the combat, but then again no one can demonstrate how one can fight on after receiving an injury ("It's just a flesh wound!") anyway... Similarly, banning a few specific techniques during a freeplay demonstration (even if they have been shown in a technical demonstration just before) seems like an acceptable compromise to me. Then comes the question of the type of safety equipment (not armour!) being used.
The first category, which I find personally totally acceptable, is that of hidden protective gear (typically modern, thin, shock-absorbing elements worn under the clothing - most commonly a groin protector: no one will check!), and, to some extent, "disguised" weapon-like analogues, if realistic enough and suitable in terms of behaviour and durability for the combat display they will be used in (the most common example being spray-painted, flexible, rubber spearheads as a safer substitute to steel). But unless one goes full LARP, these solutions are insufficient, in particular regarding the safety of the facial area.
The second category is that of pseudo-historical equipment. The aim when incorporating such elements (which are by definition not historical, but are made to look vaguely plausible in a historical context), is either purely visual, to avoid incorporating explicitly anachronistic gear, and/or to retain some of the functional elements of a historically accurate object (for example modifying elements of armour). If the modification is subtle enough that it can fall back into the first category (say you've welded dark, barely visible bars behind the eye-slits of your helmet), fine by me! But in most cases, such pseudo-historical elements are quite off-putting (because they do not blend in as nicely as one would wish into the otherwise historically accurate visual environment), and they can be very misleading for the audience, who might assume that such elements are actually historically accurate, or who might start wondering which elements are accurate and which are made up, and start doubting everything in your demonstration...
Yes, this stuff is ugly, and no, there was never such a thing like Norse leather gauntlets, or visors of perforated plate on 13th century nasal helmets.
And third, there is the category of obviously modern equipment: fencing masks, synthetic training weapons... This time we're talking very off-putting stuff - the presence of such elements totally breaks the feeling of immersion in another time period. Whether that immersion was attained (or expected, or desired) in the first place is another question, but clearly seeing someone putting on a fencing mask and kevlar gloves in a 13th century context won't help with the suspension of disbelief. The main advantages, compared to the previous category, is that there is in principle no comprise made on safety (the best safety gear can be used shamelessly), and no misunderstandings are possible regarding the authenticity of these elements. In a sense, the use of modern safety equipment in plain sight is "more honest" than trying to camouflage them as pseudo-historical gear. But given that material culture is very often much more important (because it's easier to apprehend) than intangible cultural elements, many event organisers will have a hard time accepting such modern gear to be used: the presence of "any modern elements" in most often banned in the organisation rules of historical events, but in practice that does not necessarily exclude the presence of pseudo-historical elements, and, regarding combat, organisers would more readily accept non-realistic combat displays incorporating various amounts of pseudo-historical gear, than realistic combat making use of visible modern safety gear. So that's in practice a difficult debate.
So what is my personal take on all that? As you might have guessed, it's the combination of technical combat demonstrations with maximal material accuracy (for the detailed presentation of arms and armour, even live blades can be used, although that is rarely necessary) with freeplay demonstrations with the use of modern safety elements (basically HEMA gear). It is of course a very biased point of view: I am basically saying that the best thing to do is to do what I do! Of course as mentioned this requires collaboration and understanding from event organisers, but all events feature modern elements: signposts, toilets, or even the visitors themselves! So the main question for me regarding non-historical elements is not that of immersion (does anyone feel like they really travelled to the 17th century when their neighbour in a T-shirt and sunglasses is filming the unfolding rapier duel with their phone?) but of honesty and confusion. That's why some events, rather than encouraging visitors to come in more or less historical clothes, ban that to make a clear distinction between who provides a realistic and verified portrayal of a "historical person" of a given context (i.e., the reenactor) and who doesn't - because the vaguely historical attire of some enthusiastic visitors could be misleading for others. But just like no one would lump together the T-shirt and the doublet, the signpost and the ensign, the sausage booth and the iron cauldrons of the camp kitchen, likewise people are not stupid and will not lump together the fencing mask and the nasal helmet, especially if explanations are provided on what is being presented and why.
That's a promo picture of ours, taken 8 years ago (!) exactly. Many things were wrong from a material point of view, and from a technical point of view there would be a lot to improve too! But it's all about the concept we had: bringing HEMA into reenactment, showing and explaining accurately not only the weapons but the combat too. And, in all modesty, people liked it a lot.
Speaking about modesty (or lack thereof!), there are two last points that I want to make before wrapping up.
First, whether it is for research or for outreach or for any other purpose, and whether it is for the re-creation of combat or any other challenging practice, modesty is the key to quality. We should always question the quality and relevance of what we are doing, not only in terms of mastery ("I need to practice more to become better at what I do") but even in terms of chosen path ("Before I commit to improving am I even doing the right thing?"). Keeping an open mind, seeing the possibilities brought by different practices, different ideas, different communities, is the best way to keep improving what we do and to avoid being trapped in a bubble which might be much further from what we strive to recreate than what we would like to admit. Some of us have more years of experiences or have won more bouts under given rulesets, but we can all keep improving what we do to help bringing the historical truth back to life.
And second, keep it fun! Many people want to take part in reenactment events (fights included) for the simple enjoyment of it, and many people come to historical events wishing to have fun, and that's all there is to it. Not everyone wants to be educated at any opportunity, and not everyone wants to take the role of teacher - and that's fine. Just like historical movies are mostly made to be entertainment, reenactment is meant to be enjoyable. The main point is, as stated many times: be honest. If the material or technical accuracy is mediocre (for good reasons, as we saw it's not possible to have your cake and eat it too), lay it plainly, tell people that you wear that thing to improve your safety, that you altered the weapon to abide by the rules, that you fight like that to have fun while limiting the number of ER interventions... It's all OK, as long as it's not misleading. That's probably the problem I have with some "historical" movies which claim to depict a given place and era and show absurd things instead, and with buhurt, which bases part of its success on the confusion on the level of historical accuracy of what is presented to the audience. And that's why I enjoy "Chevalier" with the late Heath Ledger much more than "Robin Hood" with the inevitable Russell Crowe, or a troll-ball match more than a buhurt scrum: when the inaccuracies are in plain sight, no one (not even me!) can complain about a lack of historical honestly, because we're in purely for the fun.
But all of that conclusion was, of course, only my personal opinion, and you're free to disagree! I can try to keep the open mind I advocated myself in the case where you'd like to have a debate...
Thank you for staying all the way through if you're reading this last line!
Yours,
Eiríkr
