Guy Windsor - The Medieval Longsword

W elcome to the Art of Arms!

In late 2009 I set out to write a longsword training manual to replace my first book, The Swordsmans Companion, which was published in 2004. Around that time I had moved away from training and teaching Fiores longsword material in isolation from the rest of the system, and had started to incorporate the dagger material into my longsword classes. I wanted to put a chapter on dagger training into my new book, and it was ready in its first draft by mid-2011, but it was clearly getting too big for a single volume. I cut out the one longish chapter on the dagger, and some of the footwork and falling material and used them as the basis for a separate dagger book, which was published in 2012 as Mastering the Art of Arms Volume I: The Medieval Dagger. About the same time it became apparent that the longsword book was still too big, so I carved off another volume, separating out the more advanced techniques and concepts.

While writing the dagger book, I wanted to point out that Fiores original treatise was written in verse so took a small chunk of his text and laid it out as such. The rhyming scheme became immediately apparent. I translated it into English and worked it into a sonnet; this spawned yet another volume, my Armizare Vade Mecum collection of mnemonic rhymes, published in November 2011. The epigraph of this book, The Sword, is taken from there.

What started as one book is now four: The Armizare Vade Mecum, The Medieval Dagger, The Medieval Longsword (this fine tome) and Advanced Longsword: Form and Function, which was published in early 2016.

The Medieval Longsword and The Medieval Dagger are intended to work as stand-alone volumes, which necessitates some repetition of key actions and terminology. I have usually just copied sections such as The Four Steps from one book to another, pictures and all. In Advanced Longsword I have assumed a complete reading of this one, so that the fundamentals of the style are clear in your mind before we look at the really sophisticated material.

One of the most common difficulties readers face is the use of Italian terminology. There is a glossary at the back of this book, but I have also produced a print-friendly pdf version to save you flipping back and forth. You may find that the photos in this book are a bit small; this is thanks to the vagaries of print, and the limits of ebook production. I have uploaded high resolution copies of all the photos for you to download free. You can find them, and a lot of additional free resources including video tutorials and the glossary, here: http://guywindsor.net/blog/welcomelongsword

I hope you find this book useful, interesting and enjoyable, and a helpful guide to your training.

Guy Windsor,

Ipswich, June 2017