Historical European martial arts (HEMA) are martial arts of European origin, particularly using arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms.
While there is limited surviving documentation of the martial arts of classical antiquity (such as Greek wrestling or gladiatorial combat), most of the surviving dedicated technical treatises or martial arts manuals date to the late medieval period and the early modern period. For this reason, the focus of HEMA is de facto on the period of the half-millennium of ca. 1300 to 1800, with a German, Italian, and Spanish school flowering in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (14th to 16th centuries), followed by French, English, and Scottish schools of fencing in the modern period (17th and 18th centuries). The Swedish HEMA Association Svenska HEMA-Förbundet defines HEMA as any martial art predating 1950 and has a living tradition or preserved source material.
Martial arts of the 19th century such as classical fencing, and even early hybrid styles such as Bartitsu, may also be included in the term HEMA in a wider sense, as may traditional or folkloristic styles attested in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including forms of folk wrestling and traditional stick-fighting methods.
The term Western martial arts (WMA) is sometimes used in the United States and in a wider sense including modern and traditional disciplines. Longsword is arguably the most popular weapon trained in HEMA today. In Germany, about 92% of all HEMA clubs offer longsword training.
History of European martial arts Ancient history
The earliest Western book about the fighting arts currently known (c. 2025), , was written into Latin by a Roman writer, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, who lived in Rome between the fourth and fifth centuries. There are no other known Western martial arts manuals predating the Late Middle Ages (except for fragmentary instructions on Greek wrestling, see Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 466), although medieval literature (e.g., sagas of Icelanders, Eastern Roman Acritic songs, the Digenes Akritas and Middle High German epics) record specific martial deeds and military knowledge; in addition, historical artwork depicts combat and weaponry (e.g., the Bayeux Tapestry, the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes, the Morgan Bible). Some researchers have attempted to reconstruct older fighting methods such as Pankration, Eastern Roman hoplomachia, Viking swordsmanship and gladiatorial combat by reference to these sources and practical experimentation.
The Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 (pronounced "one thirty-three," also known as the Walpurgis Fechtbuch or the Tower , and the Walpurgis Manuscript or the Tower manuscript), dated to ,between (by Alphonse Lhotsky) and the early-to-mid-14th century (by R. Leng, of the University of Würzburg) is the oldest surviving , teaching sword and buckler combat.
The Walpurgis manuscript gives instructions on individual combat with the sword and buckler (a small, round shield) featuring the characters of a priest, a scholar, and a female who is named Walpurgis. The system contains seven basic guards and 36 sequences today. There were more but the pages were lost. The priest stands as the lead in most sequences, until the final two sequences where Walpurgis, the female character, stands in as the lead, delivering a shield-strike and a blow to the priest's head.
Significantly, the I.33 manuscript illustrates a distinctive method of using the sword and buckler, which is different from the techniques found in most subsequent fight books.
Post-classical history The central figure of late medieval martial arts, at least in Germany, is . Though no manuscript written by him is known to have survived, his teachings were first recorded in the late 14th-century . From the 15th to the 17th century, numerous (German 'fencing-books') were produced, of which some several hundred are extant; a great many of these describe methods descended from Liechtenauer's. Liechtenauer's (recital) remains one of the most famous — if cryptic — pieces of European martial arts scholarship to this day, with several translations and interpretations of the poem being put into practice by fencers and scholars around the world.
Normally, several modes of combat were taught alongside one another, typically unarmed grappling ( or ), dagger ( or , often of the rondel dagger), long knife (), or Dusack, half- or quarterstaff, polearms, longsword (, , ), and combat in plate armour ( or ), both on foot and on horseback. Some have sections on dueling shields (), special weapons used only in trial by combat.
Important 15th century German fencing masters include Sigmund Ringeck, Peter von Danzig (see Cod. 44 A 8), Hans Talhoffer and Paulus Kal, all of whom taught the teachings of Liechtenauer. From the late 15th century, there were "brotherhoods" of fencers (), most notably the Brotherhood of St. Mark (attested 1474) and the Federfechter.
An early Burgundian French treatise is (The Play of the Axe) of ca. 1400.
The earliest master to write in the Italian language was , commissioned by the Marquis di Ferrara. Between 1407 and 1410, he documented comprehensive fighting techniques in a treatise entitled covering grappling, dagger, arming sword, longsword, pole-weapons, armoured combat, and mounted combat. The Italian school is continued by Filippo Vadi (1482–1487) and Pietro Monte (1492, Latin with Italian and Spanish terms).
Three early (before George Silver) natively English swordplay texts exist, but are all very obscure and from uncertain dates; they are generally thought to belong to the latter half of the 15th century.
Early modern period Renaissance
In the 16th century, compendia of older techniques were produced, some of them printed, notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s). The extent of Mair's writing is unmatched by any other German master, and is considered invaluable by contemporary scholars.
In Germany, fencing had developed sportive tendencies during the 16th century. The treatises of Paulus Hector Mair and Joachim Meyer derived from the teachings of the earlier centuries within the Liechtenauer tradition, but with new and distinctive characteristics. The printed of Jacob Sutor (1612) is one of the last in the German tradition.
In Italy, the 16th century was a period of big change. It opened with the two treatises of Bolognese masters Antonio Manciolino and Achille Marozzo, who described a variation of the eclectic knightly arts of the previous century. From sword and buckler to sword and dagger, sword alone to two-handed sword, from polearms to wrestling (though absent in Manciolino), early 16th-century Italian fencing reflected the versatility that a martial artist of the time was supposed to have achieved.Tom Leoni, The Complete Renaissance Swordsman, Freelance Academy Press, 2010
Towards the mid-16th century, however, polearms and companion weapons besides the dagger and the cape gradually began to fade out of treatises. In 1553, Camillo Agrippa was the first to define the prima, seconda, terza, and quarta guards (or hand-positions), which would remain the mainstay of Italian fencing into the next century and beyond.Tom Leoni, Venetian Rapier, Freelance Academy Press, 2010 From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris (1606).
Antonio Manciolino (1531, Italian) Achille Marozzo (1536, Italian) Angelo Viggiani (1551, Italian) Camillo Agrippa (1553, Italian) Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza (1569, Spanish) Giacomo di Grassi (1570, Italian) Giovanni Dall'Agocchie (1572, Italian) Henry de Sainct-Didier (1573, French) Angelo Viggiani (1575, Italian) Frederico Ghisliero (1587, Italian) Vincentio Saviolo (1595, Italian) Girolamo Cavalcabo (1597, Italian) George Silver (1599, English)
Baroque style
During the Baroque period, wrestling fell from favour among the upper classes, being now seen as unrefined and rustic. The fencing styles practice also needed to conform to the new ideals of elegance and harmony.
This ideology was taken to great lengths in Spain in particular, where 'the true art (of swordsmanship)' was now based on Renaissance humanism and scientific principles, contrasting with the traditional "vulgar" approach to fencing inherited from the medieval period. Significant masters of Destreza included Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza ("the father of Destreza", d. 1600) and Luis Pacheco de Narváez (1600, 1632). Girard Thibault (1630) was a Dutch master influenced by these ideals.
The French school of fencing also moves away from its Italian roots, developing its own terminology, rules and systems of teaching. French masters of the Baroque period include Le Perche du Coudray (1635, 1676, teacher of Cyrano de Bergerac), Besnard (1653, teacher of Descartes), François Dancie (1623) and Philibert de la Touche (1670).
In the 17th century, Italian swordsmanship was dominated by Salvator Fabris, whose of 1606 exerted great influence not only in Italy, but also in Germany, where it all but extinguished the native German traditions of fencing. Fabris was followed by Italian masters such as Nicoletto Giganti (1606), Ridolfo Capo Ferro (1610), Francesco Alfieri (1640), Francesco Antonio Marcelli (1686) and Bondi' di Mazo (1696).
The Elizabethan and Jacobean eras produce English fencing writers, such as the Gentleman George Silver (1599) and the professional fencing master Joseph Swetnam (1617). The English verb to fence is first attested in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (1597).
The French school of fencing originated in the 16th century, which is based on the Italian school, and developed into its classical form during the Baroque period.
Rococo style
In the 18th century, during the late Baroque and Rococo period, the French style of fencing with the small sword and later with the foil (), originated as a training weapon for small sword fencing.
By 1715, the rapier had been largely replaced by the lighter and handier small sword throughout most of Europe, although treatments of the former continued to be included by authors such as Donald McBane (1728), P. J. F. Girard (1736) and Domenico Angelo (1763).
In this time, bare-knuckle boxing emerged as a popular sport in England and Ireland. The foremost pioneers of the sport of boxing were Englishmen James Figg and Jack Broughton.
Throughout the course of the 18th century, the French school became the western European standard to the extent that Angelo, an Italian-born master teaching in England, published his in French in 1763. It was extremely successful and became a standard fencing manual over the following 50 years, throughout the Napoleonic period. Angelo's text was so influential that it was chosen to be included under the heading of in the of Diderot.
Late modern period Development into modern sports
In the 19th century, Western martial arts became divided into modern sports on one-handed fencing and applications that retain military significance on the other. In the latter category are the methods of close-quarter combat with the bayonet, besides use of the sabre and the lance by cavalrists and of the cutlass by naval forces. The English longbow is another European weapon that is still used in the sport of archery.
Apart from the many styles of fencing, European combat sports of the 19th century include Boxing in England, Savate in France, and regional forms of wrestling such as Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling, Lancashire Wrestling, and Cornish Wrestling.