Shouldered Guards

One of the largest distinctions I’ve found between how the Bolognese masters approached how to use a longsword as compared to the other European authors is that there isn’t any real emphasis on using a shouldered guard.

In Fiore’s manuals, written roughly 130 earlier, we’re given posta di donna (woman’s position) as essentially the default guard. Look at any school teaching Fiore’s swordplay, this is more than likely the very first guard students are taught how to form as well as where they initially see most blows originate from. Eventually students will start working with his larger corpus, but if Fiore has any default for longsword it’s this.

The German authors have a similar position, that of vom tag (from the day).

Even as the longsword itself changes, this same position remains fairly constant. Makes sense. Longswords don’t offer much hand protection and this guard gives you a way to keep your hands away from your opponent while also allowing you to chamber a fairly powerful blow. Why then do we not see this in the Bolognese texts? Maybe they just prefer more narrow play than Fiore? Well that might be the case, but we still have multi-page assalti (forms) on just gioco largo (wide/unconstrained play) in multiple of the Bolognese texts. Maybe it’s because Fiore built a system for fighting both in and out armor whereas we don’t see any swordfighting (although we do see one chapter with polearms) in armor in the Bolognese tradition? That could be it, but then why do we see a shouldered vom tag being used by some of the lather German authors who also don’t go into armored combat?

While there is no way to know for certain, I believe I figured out the most likely answer the other week when I hit myself right in the neck. Most of the time I fence with one of my more traditionally shaped longswords (40” blade) as they’re closer to what everyone else is using and more importantly, they fit in my case. Lately, though, I’ve been bringing out my even larger Bolognese style longsword as we’ve had some more new folks interested in learning longsword specifically and so I’ve been having to bring all of mine out to my local practice. While waiting for everyone else to finish stretching, I decided to start warming up by swinging my sword around a bit and that’s when it hit me. Lugs!

For reference, here’s a picture of a fairly typical longsword.

You’ve got a pommel, a handle, a set of quillons (crossguard) and a blade with two edges.

Here’s what we see Marozzo swinging around:

Notice the difference? Let’s look a little closer.

Do you see those little protrusions on the side of the blade? Those are called “lugs”. They’re really nice for keeping your opponent’s blade from hitting you in the hand, but are a lot less nice when you bring your sword up to your shoulder and end up stabbing yourself right in the traps. So while I can’t know for certain why this set of authors made the choice they did, the shape of the blade affecting how it was used is by and far my best guess.

But wait, what about gaurdia di spalla (shoulder guard)? It’s literally in the name. How could they not have a shouldered guard?

Well I’m glad you asked. To start with, let’s take a look at how the guard is used. Across the entire tradition the guard itself is never defined and only shows up in two plays, both in Marozzo’s Opera Nova. The first time we see it used is when he tells us that, “From guardia di testa throw a mandritto that will go into guardia di spalla, drawing your right leg behind your left one as you throw the mandritto.”-Page 211 (Swanger translation). For those unfamiliar with some of the terminology, Marozzo has us start with our sword pointing up and being held out in front of us. From there we are instructed to throw a big cut from right to left.

There’s a few things we can gleam from this. To start, just because a guard refers to a specific body part does not mean that the sword necessarily rests against that part of you. Guardia di testa, while guarding the head, is clearly not formed with the blade resting on your skull. Second, the shoulder in question here is going to be your left one (assuming you’re fencing right handed). So while all the other examples here have so far shown the sword resting on the right shoulder, that clearly isn’t the only option here.

The second time we see the guard used, Marozzo instructs us that, “But if he throws' a blow at you, protect yourself in mezzo tempo and swiftly find him with a riverso that goes into guardia di testa, lowers, and rises into guardia di spalla.” - Page 219 (Swanger translation). This time around he has us cutting from left to right going through guardia di testa, goes down, and then back up into our guardia di spalla. So clearly the guard isn’t restricted to just one side or another.

Unfortunately neither of these use cases provides us with a particularly clear explanation of what’s going on. Trying to work through them with my Bolognese-style longsword and also knowing that in the middle of a fight I’m not going to be smart enough to avoid jabbing myself with the extra points on my sword, I’m inclined to believe that guardia di spalla isn’t the Bolognese equivalent to the standard shouldered guard we’ve seen presented by some of the other European authors.

My best guess is that it’s something much closer to Fiore’s posta di donna soprano (high woman’s position).

This solves a few problems for us. First, because the blade isn’t resting on anything, we don’t have to worry about stabbing ourselves with the lugs. Second, because the guard is formed behind you as opposed to on the right or left shoulder, it makes it a lot easier to get into it regardless of which way your cut is coming from.

As a side note, I would observe that Fillipo Vadi also refrains from using a shouldered guard, but as his isn’t a system I’ve spent time studying I’ve decided to refrain from commenting any further on it here.

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If you liked any of the swords I have pictured here, they were all made by my friend Sam Halote over at Seven Ember’s Forge. If you want to look at more of his catalogue you can find his website here: https://www.sevenembersforge.com/