Hi everybody - so I closed the old blog because I just didn't have the time to do it justice, but having drafted in help from the guys, I've reinstated it! So here's the first post, courtesy of our member Dave Phethean, all about a manuscript in the Royal Armouries in Leeds (video after the text). This is the earliest 'fechtbuch' or 'fight book', earlier than the more famous 15th century Talhoffer and was written in the C14 [currently dated approx 1320 - 1330], not long after the end of our period. This, in fact, is the earliest fight book in known still to exist. It gives us an insight on how these weapons would have been used, though not necessarily on the battlefield, during the end of our period. The buckler has been around since antiquity, possibly becoming popular during the 11th century. An interesting point is that one of the protagonists is a priest. Does this suggest that the clergy of the time were using edged weapons, dislodging the idea that the clergy were restricted to blunt weapons and not shedding blood? My take on it is that the illustrator was just using two identifiable characters, the scholar and the priest, to make it easy to relate to the figures in the text, like say red and blue, and the reader could know who the expected winner of the play will be so the priest is the master.
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