What are Historical Martial Arts?

The terms Historical Martial Arts, Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), and Historical Fencing, describe the practice of reconstructing the combat skills of varying periods of history primarily using written sources. While not literally martial arts from the middle ages (or any other period) the sources and our methods of interpretation and teaching provide a means through which the fighting skills of ages past can be explored and understood. The primary sources are our source of technical information.

The most common focus for this work is reconstructing swordplay, hence it is often referred to as historical fencing. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, for the most part, even where sources contain fencing with other weapons, they generally focus on the sword as the centre of training. Secondly, it’s relatively easy to take a weapon like a sword, put a tip on it, make it blunt, and take off the edge and have it be vastly safer than a sharp. Making a weapon that relies to one degree or another on mass, such as an axe safe is far more challenging as making it lighter can change the way it’s used.

A great deal of work has gone into researching weapons such as the longsword, arming sword (often with buckler), rapier, basket hilted broadsword, smallsword, duelling sword, and sabre.  The practice is not limited to swords however, and much research has been done on quarter staff, dagger, pole weapons, sword and shield, and also unarmed fighting systems.

The focus of such scholarship begins with the earliest writings from the 13th Century and continues until the beginning of the 20th century, with most practitioners having different specialisations. Methods studied are typically divided by tradition (such as the Liechtenauer tradition from Germany or the Bolognese school from Italy), by period and region (such as with 19th century British sabre or 17th century French smallsword), or by the works of a single author (like George Silver or Alfred Hutton). Our scope of practice can be said to end when and where living traditions of a system continue to be practised, as this renders reconstruction unnecessary.

What’s with All the Acronyms?

Since the current HMA revival started back in the 1990’s, there have been many acronyms used to describe what we do:

  • Western Martial Arts (WMA)
  • Historical European Swordsmanship (HES)
  • Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)
  • Historical Fencing (HF)

Whilst Stoccata is currently only working with the European and European-derived sources, there are others around the world working on the reconstruction of martial arts using similar methodology, and we respect all the work being done by our fellow researchers.

Our Focus

We study and teach the martial arts traditions that arose in Europe and its offshoots. Many different cultures and linguistic groups within Europe developed their own characteristic approaches and we can talk about distinct styles and schools. These styles also change over time with new ideas and applications arising, be they the fighting for honour in private duels, expanding empire at the point of a sword or personal defence while travelling a dangerous countryside.

At Stoccata our focus is on practicing martial arts of bygone eras for the purposes of recreation. While these arts did not survive to the current day, a number of written sources exist that can give us an insight into the way in which weapons were historically wielded. Many works on the Art of Defence, from where derive the word fencing, were published in aid of spreading knowledge of the use of arms. The oldest currently known being the Royal Armouries Fechtbuch I.33, an anonymous 13th century sword-and-buckler manual apparently written by a German priest.

Medieval fighting is often dismissed as crude and clumsy, however these manuals reveal intricate and extremely effective systems of principles and techniques, which place great emphasis the technical aspects of fencing for both recreation and war. These skills evolved with the invention of new weapons and new modes of combat.