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RENAISSANCE EUROPE
By the time of the Renaissance, heavy armor, guns, and
masses of disciplined infantry were the norm in warfare. On
the battlefield, arms designed for use by ranked troops overshadowed
those suited to individual combat. In the civilian
world, though, there was a growing need for weapons and
training useful in street skirmishes and duels.
The first important civilian weapon of the period was the
rapier. Its long blade was designed to let the wielder hit with
a thrust before an opponent with a shorter, broader sword
of comparable weight – like a military sword – could attack.
Early rapiers could cut and thrust, but as time went on, tactics
favored the thrust so much that later blades were rarely
edged. Rapiers became the center of an arms race, with
longer and longer rapiers emerging to increase the wielder’s
chances of scoring the first strike. These were unwieldy
against other weapons but their length gave them an edge in
a rapier vs. rapier fight – very useful when dueling!
The rapier’s length made parrying difficult. Most
rapierists relied on the off hand to parry, using a cloak,
main-gauche, or mail glove. Some preferred a second rapier
– not for its parrying ability but for the increased odds of
defeating the foe before needing to parry! Fencers in this
period sought the botte segrete (p. 86), or the secret unstoppable
attack. This might have been the lunge – an extended
thrust that took advantage of the rapier’s length and thrusting
ability.
Long blades eventually went out of fashion as masters
discovered that shorter ones had a defensive advantage.
This led to a cycle of new tactics that inspired even shorter
weapons and necessitated further refinements in technique.
The smallsword was the end result: a short, light, stiff blade
designed solely for thrusting and equally useful for offense
and defense. The quest for the parata universale – the
Universal Parry, which could stop even the botte segrete –
replaced the search for the unstoppable attack. For more on
such “ultimate” attacks and defenses, see Secret Techniques
(p. 86).
MODERN EUROPE
Modern Europe owes much of its martial-arts heritage to
an explosion of interest in combative sports – and later,
Asian fighting styles – that began during Victorian times.
Victorian Europe
The Victorian period saw a great resurgence in sportive
martial arts across Europe. Polite society still regarded boxing
and wrestling as brutal sports of the lower classes – and
indeed these activities were extremely popular with those
classes. This “lower-class” nature didn’t stop the posh from
sponsoring fighters, attending fights, and wagering recklessly
large amounts of money, though; it simply kept them
from participating.
As for armed martial arts, the period witnessed the development
of sport quarterstaff forms (using a far shorter staff
than the medieval version) and the widespread practice of
singlestick (stickfighting based on broadsword combat).
With dueling outlawed and combative fencing no longer
18 HISTORY
acceptable to settle scores, sport fencing began to surge in
popularity. New weapons and rules appeared to make fencing
safer, shifting the emphasis to technique and
sportsmanship.
This renaissance had some unfortunate consequences for
martial-arts history, though. The writings of Victorian historians
and fencing enthusiasts alike painted fencing as the
pinnacle of swordfighting evolution. This myopic viewpoint
helped generate the myth that knights were unskilled thugs
when compared to skilled, elegant fencers – an error that
would poison histories of the European martial arts until the
present day.
20th-Century Europe
Asian martial arts made their European debut near the
close of the 19th century. In the 1890s, several Japanese
teamed up with self-promoter and showman E.W. Barton-
Wright to teach Jujutsu in England. For Barton-Wright, this
was more an exercise in money-making than in teaching a
martial art – but it wasn’t long before Jujutsu and Judo came
to stay for real. The first European Jujutsu instructor opened
a school in Austria in 1904. By the 1930s, Judo had students
across Europe. Even the Hitler Youth trained in Judo; the
Nazis saw it as a masculine sport, worthy of future warriors.
Sport fencing, boxing, and wrestling remained popular,
too. Most people saw these activities as excellent training in
fitness, proper conduct, and gentlemanly behavior – and as
suitable competition between nations. Boxing in particular
surged in popularity as the Marquess of Queensbury rules
removed some of its stigma without dulling its brutal edge.
During World War II, commandos trained in military
martial arts. They needed skills to eliminate sentries and to
fight using improvised weapons – or no weapons – when the
ammunition ran out or circumstances made firearms undesirable.
The knife, in particular, was popular.
After WWII, Asian martial arts continued to flourish.
European judoka helped make Judo a competitive Olympic
sport, and influenced its rules. Meanwhile, other Asian arts –
such as Karate (pp. 169-172), and Pentjak Silat (pp. 189-191)
brought back from Indonesia by the Dutch – became more
popular. The French kickboxing style of Savate (pp. 193-194),
its practitioners decimated by the World Wars, became more
sportive in form.
In the late 20th century, two developments exerted a
major influence on European martial arts. The first was an
increase in academic interest in the martial arts of medieval
and Renaissance Europe, accompanied by the appearance of
hobbyists who wished to replicate those arts. The second was
the rapid spread of mixed martial arts (p. 189). Today’s
Europe is a cultural swirl of martial arts, with traditional
armed and unarmed European arts, Asian imports, and the
increasingly popular mixed martial arts among its mosaic of
styles.
BEYOND WESTERN EUROPE
Many Eastern European and Middle Eastern nations had
or have their own martial arts. These styles receive less detail
here only because they are for the most part either defunct
or extremely new.