These are the various styles we teach at the Branches of the Stoccata School of Defence. We teach various Italian, British and German systems across our various branches.
Styles
Bolognese Swordsmanship
The Bolognese or Dardi School of swordsmanship comes to us from the early Renaissance. The name is taken from its association with the University of Bologna, and its first recorded master Lippo Bartolomeo Dardi. Dardi, who was Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Bologna, obtained a licence to open a school of…
English Shortsword
English Shortsword (basket hilted sword) according to George Silver George Silver was an English gentleman who lived in the second half of the 16th century and into the 17th century. He wrote two works. Paradoxes of Defence was published in 1599. It is a diatribe against rapier fencing and an exhortation to Englishmen to return…
Scottish Smallsword
The Smallsword was a thrusting-only weapon developed in France in the second half of the 17th century. The hilt consisted of a small shell- or disc-shaped guard much smaller than the hilt of the Renaissance rapier, and blade was relatively short and light, usually triangular or diamond-section, although double-edged flat “smallsword” blades continued to be…
Italian Greatsword (Spadone)
The greatsword is a true two-handed sword that can trace it’s develpment to the end of the 15th Century, and is typically in excess of 5 feet (150 cm). Called Greatsword or two-handed sword by the English, claymore by the Scots, zweihander by the Germans, montante by the Spanish & Portuguese and spadone by the…
English Rapier
Despite Silver’s claims it was through “the strange vices and devices of Italian, French and Spanish Fencers” that the English learned the use of “these Apish toyes”, there is clear evidence the English has their own, long established style of rapier fencing. The first English master to write on the rapier was Joseph Swetnam in…
I.33 Sword & Buckler
Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33 is an anonymous German manuscript now in the collection of the Royal Armouries in Leeds. It is extremely significant as the earliest known surviving fencing manual, having been dated to the late 13th century, and presents a unique window into to world of early medieval combat. I.33 deals exclusively with the…
Italian Rapier
The rapier as a sidearm was a symbol of wealth, fashion and nobility during the 16th and 17th Centuries. This weapon was optimised for the use of the thrust, predominately for civilian self-defence. The works of Venetian masters dominates the surviving treatises for the Italian rapier fencing system, which went on to lay the foundation…
Highland Broadsword
The basket-hilted sword emerged in Britain in the 16th century, and came in two forms; the single-edge English backsword, and the double-edged broadsword, more typically associated with the Highland Scots. The protection the basket-hilt gave to the sword hand allowed the development of a new pan-British style of swrdsmanship, practiced in a recognisable form from…
English Longsword
The European two-handed sword was developed in response to improvements in armour design in the 14th and 15th centuries. Although there are occasional examples of two-handed swords prior to this, during the late 13th century European armour began to incorporate steel plating for added protection, which in return resulted in the development of new weapons.…
English Quarterstaff
The English quarterstaff was a stout, wooden pole, usually of oak or ash, between 1¼ – 1½ inches thick and, according to various Masters, between 7 and 9 feet long. It was thus a solid and relatively heavy piece of wood, designed to disable an opponent with a single effective strike. The English method of…
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