A rapier or espada ropera is a type of sword originally used in Spain and Italy. The name designates a sword with a straight, slender and sharply pointed two-edged long blade wielded in one hand. It was widely popular in Western Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries as a symbol of nobility or gentleman status.
A longsword is a type of European sword characterized as having a cruciform hilt with a grip for primarily two-handed use, a straight double-edged blade of around 80 to 110 cm, and weighing approximately 2 to 3 kg.
Arnis, also known as kali or eskrima/escrima, is the national martial art of the Philippines. These three terms are, sometimes, interchangeable in referring to traditional martial arts of the Philippines, which emphasize weapon-based fighting with sticks, knives, bladed weapons, and various improvised weapons, as well as "open hand" techniques without weapons.
The small sword or smallsword is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier of the late Renaissance. The height of the small sword's popularity was during the 18th century, when any civilian or soldier with pretensions to gentlemanly status would have worn a small sword daily.
Maestro Ramón Martínez is an American master of classical and historical fencing. He studied classical fencing with the late Maître d'Armes Frederick Rohdes in New York City for ten years. Maître Rohdes was one of the last fencing masters to teach fencing as a martial art, himself having learned a variety of historical fencing systems from his own master, Maître d'Armes Marcel Cabijos. During that time Mr. Martínez became assistant and protégé of Maître Rohdes and was the only one of his pupils permitted to teach with full authorization at the Rohdes Academy.
Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas, Knight of the Order of Santiago was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, Quevedo was one of the most prominent Spanish poets of the age. His style is characterized by what was called conceptismo. This style existed in stark contrast to Góngora's culteranismo.
Historical European martial arts (HEMA) are martial arts of European origin, particularly using arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms.
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.
Camillo Agrippa was a noted fencer, architect, engineer and mathematician of the Renaissance. He is considered to be one of the greatest fencing theorists of all time.
Anthony Charles De Longis is an American actor, stuntman, and fight choreographer.
Don Luis Pacheco de Narváez (1570–1640) was a Spanish writer on destreza, the Spanish art of fencing.
Fredrico Fabio Ghisliero was an Italian fencer and soldier who wrote his text Regole di molte cavagliereschi essercitii in 1587.
A knife fight is a violent physical confrontation between two or more combatants in which one or more participants are armed with a knife. A knife fight is defined by the presence of a knife as a weapon and the violent intent of the combatants to kill or incapacitate each other; the participants may be completely untrained, self-taught, or trained in one or more formal or informal systems of knife fighting. Knife fights may involve the use of any type of knife, though certain knives, termed fighting knives, are purposely designed for such confrontations – the dagger being just one example.
El Buscón is a picaresque novel by Francisco de Quevedo. It was written around 1604 and published in 1626 by a press in Zaragoza, though it had circulated in manuscript form previous to that.
The oldest surviving manual on western swordsmanship dates back to the 14th century, although historical references date fencing schools back to the 12th century.
GérardThibault of Antwerp was a fencing master and writer of the 1628 rapier manual Academie de l'Espée. Thibault was from the Southern Netherlands which is today Belgium. His manual is one of the most detailed and elaborate extant sources on rapier combat, painstakingly utilizing geometry and logic to defend his unorthodox style of swordsmanship.
The baston is one of the primary weapons of Arnis and Filipino martial arts. It is also known as yantok, olisi, palo, pamalo, garrote, caña, cane, arnis stick, eskrima stick or simply, stick.
The different types of bladed weapons have been of great importance throughout history. In addition to its use for fighting, or in wars, the bladed weapons have been the object of special considerations forming part of funerary rituals, mythology and other ancestral traditions.
Libro de las grandezas de la espada is a 16th-century Spanish treatise on fencing written by Don Luis Pacheco de Narváez, who is considered one of the founding fathers of Spanish fencing (destreza) and the disciple of Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza.
Don Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza,, Jerónimo de Carranza, Portuguese: Hieronimo de Carança; c. 1539 – c. 1600 or 1608) was a Spanish nobleman, humanist, scientist, one of the most famous fencers, and the creator of the Spanish school of fencing, destreza. He was the author of the treatise on fencing De la Filosofía de las Armas y de su Destreza y la Aggression y Defensa Cristiana from 1569, published in 1582. Carranza created the ideal of a poet and a warrior, which became the main guide to life for noblemen.
