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Category: Talks

All talks from and about our research project

Training skills, acquiring virtues, bodily traits and moral improvement in early printed fencing manuals, 1450-1550

Abstract: German and Italian towns in the 15th and 16th centuries held the notion of a well-armed citizenry in high regard. Citizens were encouraged to exercise themselves in martial disciplines in order to contribute to their town’s defence and create strong masculine virtues. The presentation explores this perceived link between training and moral improvement in the first generation of printed manuals on the art of fighting, contextualizing them with contemporary discourses on the acquisition of virtue.

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The capacity to use armed force was a cornerstone of citizenship in the South-German cities of the 15th and 16th century, and features prominently in historiography.[1] Likewise, the use of arms as an element of masculine culture continued to thrive in Italy, even when authorities occasionally tried to curtail it.[2] The contemporary emergence of manuscripts and books on martial disciplines such as fencing and wrestling connected to these cultural ideals. They were praised by some of their authors for helping young men to avoid sinful pastimes and strive to become virtuous instead. The exact link between training the body and training the virtues remains underexplored, however. This presentation analyses how the adjectives and adverbs used by these authors for describing the body and its actions connect with contemporary ideas on bodily grace and moral character. This will shed more light on the ways in which martial skill equalled social distinction in the late medieval town.

[1] B.A. Tlusty, The Martial Culture of Early Modern Germany, Civic Duty and the Right of Arms (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 6-7.

[2] Peter Blastenbrei, “Violence, arms and criminal justice in papal Rome, 1560-1600,” Renaissance Studies 20, no. 1 (2006): 84.

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Acknowledgement: This poster was presented in the panel: Burghers and Fighters: Social mobility and urban martial culture, during the conference Martial Culture in European Towns (1350-1550), at the University of Bern (11-13 November, 2021)

Military defense in the royal towns of Touraine during the Wars of Religion: a daily martial culture

Abstract: During the Wars of Religion, the urban spaces of Touraine were affected by civil and religious violence, but above all by the presence of soldiers. The rich corpus of administrative sources preserved for the royal towns of Amboise, Chinon and Loches allows us to understand the central place occupied by military issues in these different municipal policies, as effective ways of preserving the urban space and identity.

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The three royal towns of Amboise, Chinon and Loches, spread across the Touraine region, all had fortresses, real royal strongholds, which had to be defended from the crown’s enemies in the context of the Wars of Religion. The three municipal authorities, responsible for ensuring the defense of their urban areas through a system of citizen guards, were therefore in regular contact with the soldiers, whether they were sent by the royal authorities to guard the town and the castle, or
simply as a stopover on their way to a war zone . Military and defensive1 issues are therefore omnipresent in the administrative documents of these three cities and are manifested by the militarisation of urban spaces. This paper proposes, among other things, to compare the military and defensive mechanisms of the three cities, as well as their impact on urban life, in order to understand the place of the martial fact in the political culture of the second half of the 16th century.


1 SOURIAC Pierre-Jean, « Foules et guerres civiles. Mobilisation, présence militaire dans la région toulousaine durant la première décennie des guerres de Religion (1562-1570) », L’effort de guerre, Actes du 127e congrès du C.T.H.S, Nancy, 2002, CTHS, p.31-51, 2004.

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Acknowledgement: This poster was presented in the panel: Martial Urban Space: Defending and safeguarding the town, during the conference Martial Culture in European Towns (1350-1550), at the University of Bern (11-13 November, 2021)

German longswords revisited. Late-medieval south-German sword-makers as brokers of urban martial culture

Abstract: This poster presents a broad-based reconsideration of the available archaeological and archival evidence for sword production in southern Germany in the late 14th and early 15th century. Particular focus is put on physical and dynamic dimensions of preserved swords. This data is then discussed in the wider context and enables proposing important insights on period’s socio-cultural realities, especially the process of emancipation of towns and development of urban martial culture.

Poster – pdfDownloa

Late-medieval and early-modern martial culture can be aptly characterised as the „culture of the sword” (Tlusty, 2016). Although the weaponry in use at the time, both in knightly and urban contexts, was demonstrably more diverse, the sword still held a prominent place in symbolic and pragamtic domains. Symbolically, it was a crucial nexus within period’s conceptualisations of chivalry, masculinity, and power. Pragmatically, in turn, it was still widely used in actual combat, redesigned and improved (Oakeshott, 1996), and considered a central weapon in the curricula of sword-fighting fraternities throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond (e.g. Dupuis, 2014; Jaquet, 2015; Gevaert & Van Noort, 2016). Hence, it should be expected that sword-makers were prominent, even if silent, actors during the transitional period when the military monopoly of knighthood was gradually uprooted by new models based on urban infantry. The proposed poster explores this hypothesis in greater depth on the basis of extensive source review backed up with statistical analyses.

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Referenced works:

Dupuis, O. (2014). Organization and Regulation of Fencing in the Realm of France in the Renaissance. Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 2, 233–254.

Gevaert, B., & van Noort, R. (2016). Evolution of Martial Tradition in the Low Countries: Fencing Guilds and Treatises. In D. Jaquet, K. Verelst & T. Dawson (eds.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books (pp. 376-409). Leiden-Boston.

Jaquet, D. (2015). Fighting in the Fightschools late XVth, early XVIth century. Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 3(2), 47–66.

Oakeshott, R. E. (1996). The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armor from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry. Monaloa-New York.

Tlusty, B.A. (2016). Martial Identity and the Culture of the Sword in Early Modern Germany. In D. Jaquet, K. Verelst & T. Dawson (eds.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books (pp. 547-570). Leiden-Boston.

Acknowledgement: This poster was presented in the panel: Weapons: Production, trade, and exchange, during the conference Martial Culture in European Towns (1350-1550), at the University of Bern (11-13 November, 2021)

[3rd int. conf. Martial Arts Studies] Martial Arts Knowledge on and beyond the Page (Dr. Daniel Jaquet)

Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on Martial Arts Studies (Hong-Kong, 11-12 December 2020). This paper will lead to a publication in the proceedings of the conference.

Abstract: Martial arts are cultural phenomena shaped by the society in which they develop. They were – and still are – transmitted through interpersonal exchanges, from body to body. Martial arts experts use speech for devising these martial skills into complex system of bodily knowledge. Once the systems are complex or vast enough to be verbalised, they are transmitted through bodies and speech with mnemotechnical texts such as poems, codified knowledge canons or a constellation of technical words associated with metaphors or images. Some of these mantras (mnemonic devices) found their way into writing or depiction. This process is a transliteration from speech to the page, or to a depiction. The written word or the depiction of bodies fighting on a wall, a painted canvas or embedded into a sculpture challenged time and survived the masters who invented them. However, in most cases those who wrote the words, painted the images, or sculpted the stone were not the martial experts themselves. The documents, depictions and sculptures preserved for the study of martial arts culture of the past have to be explored while taking into account the perspective of those who created them. Based on previous research on circulation of knowledge in the corpus of European fight books, this contribution allows for a new categorisation of martial arts knowledge, on and beyond the page, with a focus on early modern fight books.

The-3rd-International-Martial-Studies-Conference_bookletDownload

[museum talk] Armour and fashion (Dr. Daniel Jaquet)

On the 24th of February, Dr. Daniel Jaquet was invited to participate to a museum talk at the Old Arsenal of Solothurn (Museum Altes Zeughaus). The museum has one of the largest collections of armour in Europe. The conversation was part of a series of lunch talks at the museum, with a Q&A format. Daniel had the opportunity to present research finds of our current project, as well as of his own research to a broader audience. Through various questions the discussion addressed subjects such as: what are the different types of armour, who possessed it, what was the value of such objects, and when were they worn were addressed. The talk was recorded and you can listen to it following the link below. Interview in German

Click here to open the podcast

Aspects of Urban Military Organisation in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: The Case of Freiburg i. Ue. (c. 1440-1500)

This essay discusses focuses on Fribourg as a case study for military organisation in French-speaking Switzerland in the second half of the fifteenth century. The martial responsibilities of individuals and the city are discussed in a wider context, explaining the background behind the formation and equipment of armed companies. Additionally, the methodology and primary sources used for this type of research are addressed in detail. This presentation was intended for the International Medieval Congress 2020 at the University of Leeds, as one of the three papers of the panel “Martial Culture I: Within the Walls of the Medieval Town.” The Congress was cancelled due to the Covid-19 situation, and only a smaller version was conducted virtually. Two of our speakers decided to release their paper on video format. Watch or listen this paper by following the link below.

Watch the video of the talk here

Abstract of the panel: Our research project (2018-22) considers towns as producers, organisers, and brokers of martial culture within the rapidly changing political world of late medieval Europe. It examines how towns transformed and were transformed by military techniques and urban ‘marti­al culture.’ The latter developed at the intersection of legal prerogatives, political requirements, and the evolving ownership and use of weapons. It integrates a number of historiographical approaches that are usually explored separately: ur­ban institutional, social, and political history; military history; arms and armour; urban martial competitions; knowledge production and dissemination; fighting expertise, and the transformation of the urban space itself. (Paper A : Martial Experts. Experts. Fencers, Gunners, and Arbalesters as Masters in Swiss Towns. Paper B : Aspects of Urban Military Organisation in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. The Case of Freiburg i. Ue. (ca. 1440-1500). Paper C :  The Spaces of Martial Culture in Late Medieval Towns).

This paper is also available on the Bern Open Repository and Information System (BORIS) with the following DOI: 10.7892/boris.145107

[IMC2020] Martial Experts. Fencers, gunners, and arbalesters in Swiss Towns (1350-1550)

This paper demonstrates who was considered to be a martial expert in the fifteenth century, and it presents new perspectives on research revolving around urban and military history. It includes a theoretical part where technical literature is examined, and a practical part where networks of martial experts can be revealed based on archival research in Swiss towns. This presentation was intended for the International Medieval Congress 2020 at the University of Leeds, as one of the three papers of the panel “Martial Culture I: Within the Walls of the Medieval Town.” The Congress was cancelled due to the Covid-19 situation, and only a smaller version was conducted virtually. Two of our speakers decided to release their paper on video format. Watch or listen this paper by following the link below.

Watch the video of the talk here

Abstract of the panel: Our research project (2018-22) considers towns as producers, organisers, and brokers of martial culture within the rapidly changing political world of late medieval Europe. It examines how towns transformed and were transformed by military techniques and urban ‘marti­al culture.’ The latter developed at the intersection of legal prerogatives, political requirements, and the evolving ownership and use of weapons. It integrates a number of historiographical approaches that are usually explored separately: ur­ban institutional, social, and political history; military history; arms and armour; urban martial competitions; knowledge production and dissemination; fighting expertise, and the transformation of the urban space itself. (Paper A : Martial Experts. Experts. Fencers, Gunners, and Arbalesters as Masters in Swiss Towns. Paper B : Aspects of Urban Military Organisation in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. The Case of Freiburg i. Ue. (ca. 1440-1500). Paper C :  The Spaces of Martial Culture in Late Medieval Towns).

This paper is also available on the Bern Open Repository and Information System (BORIS) with the following DOI: 10.7892/boris.145074

[Museum talk] Armour: More than protective clothing. (Prof. Regula Schmid)

On the 24th of June, Prof. Dr. Regula Schmid Keeling was invited to participate to a museum talk at the Old Arsenal of Solothurn (Museum Altes Zeughaus). The museum has one of the largest collections of armour in Europe. The conversation was part of a series of lunch talks at the museum, with a Q&A format. Prof. Dr. Regula Schmid Keeling had the opportunity to present research finds of this current project, as well as of her own research to a broader audience. Through various questions the discussion addressed subjects such as: what are the different types of armour, who possessed it, what was the value of such objects, and when were they worn were addressed. She brought to light many examples of local history from research conducted on documents from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries kept in Swiss archives. The talk was recorded and you can listen to it following the link below. Beware, the ltalk was held in Swiss German dialect.

[click here to open the podcast]

https://museum-alteszeughaus.so.ch/museum/museum-fuer-daheim/