The History Of Sabre Fencing
This section will give a brief overview into the history of sabre fencing and how it became a sport. I incorporated this section because every sabre fencer should have an idea as to how his or her sport was made and the history behind it, like a baseball play should know something about the origins of baseball a sabre fencing should know the origins of sabre fencing.
- Middle Ages and The Renaissance
Sabre fencing has been played as a sport since back in the 12th century. In these times teachers were hired by rich nobles to teach and write many books on the art of sabre fencing, these were called treatises. The oldest recorded treatises is a German document which dates way back to 1300 AD. After this date many more of treatises have been found, showing how sabre fencing’s popularity peaked during the middle ages, even those most of these treatises also had in depth descriptions on how to use daggers, longswords, spears, pollaxes, and a description on how to be successful in battle on horseback and while wearing heavy armor, but the art of sabre fencing has always been the most sought after topic. During the sixteenth century the creation of treatises skyrocketed and were no longer only written by teachers but anybody who thought that they could wield a sabre. This dramatic increase was most likely due to the creation of the printing press and its ability to mass manufacture books. Also during this period the carrying of swords has become illegal so the amount of fencing schools declined but seen after this law was lifted and many fencing schools re-opened, and fencing was from then on seen as a gentlemen’s sport. One famous fencing school which resides in England is “Hanging Sword Lane” which actually incorporated many sabre fencing schools into one.
- Early Modern Period
During these times the sabre also known as a rapier became the only weapon used in duels. This fact caused the amount of people interested in learning to fence sabre to dramatically increase. This advance was due to the invention of toughness steels which made a thin blade like the sabre to be able to hold up, literally, against a broadsword and many other weapon. Also during this time in England many fencing masters would challenge other sabre fencer masters to duels which often ended in the death of one of the teachers, these bouts caused a huge crowd to gather due to the fact that sacrificing can be extremely exciting and heart pumping. These newly developed rapiers, or sabres were used mainly to puncture the lungs or belly of the opposing sabre fencer therefore killing him. Today this had changed and fencing has been turned into a sport but the same major idea has stuck with it.
