Historical European Martial Arts in its Context: Single-Combat, Duels, Tournaments, Self-Defense, War, Masters and their Treatises

This book is a fantastic resource that places arms and techniques in their historical context. The section that lists the most well known arms manuals by country and date is a great jumping off point for anyone wanting to get a start in HEMA.

Richard has done something that historical european martial arts has needed for a long time - context. The fencing cultures of old weren't just affected by the people wielding the sword, but by their worldviews, fashion sense, and ideals surrounding decorum. To better understand not just how they fenced, but *why* is to understand the world around them.Richard's experience as a history teacher shines through - he knows how to combine disparate facts into a narrative that's engaging and human.If you are interested in swords or sword culture, this book is required reading.

Of all the HEMA related books I've ever owned, this is by far the most fun one to read. It combines the history of the arts themselves with the history of our current movement to revive them. And I'm not just enjoying it because I'm in it. :) It really is a great book. If you're in HEMA, or want to know more about medieval and Renaissance martial arts (and their modern revival), then don't think twice. Get the book. It's well worth the price.

This is like a condensed and abridged history of the time periods that the most referenced historical European fighting manuals in HEMA schools were written during. The first-hand accounts were stellar, and the ease of access can't be beaten. It's like having just the chapters out of several history books that I otherwise would have had to hunt down separately. Highly recommend. Contextualizing the techniques is invaluable.

Beautifully printed book for a very reasonable price - lots of full size color pictures to complement the well-written summary of Historical European Martial Arts and its context (just like it says in the title). Chock full of anecdotes and useful summaries of a wide variety of sources and time periods. This belongs on the shelf of any HEMA practitioner or in the hands of any new student of historical fencing wishing to get an informative, substantial introduction.

Whether you’re a practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) or an enthusiast of medieval and renaissance history, this book is for you. Read it straight through or casually, this book contains wonderful gems of history that will enlighten and entertain you. Marsden has done his research and delivered it!Excellent book, highly recommended!

I gave this 5 stars only because I couldn't give more. This is an excellent book. It is well researched, informative and very readable. I got it for Christmas and have only put it down when compelled to do so.

The information in the book is very superficial, and for the price, you expect something deeper and with much more research and sources. As an introduction for an absolute beginner it's OK, not for readers with some background in martial arts and fencing.

This seems to be a well researched book about HEMA in its context. I'm enjoying the contents of the book when I can focus on them, but the presentation is so distracting that I keep finding myself getting withdrawn from the details of the text to marvel at the poor typography choices. In a hardback book costing 50 GBP, this is not good, and this is why serious book authors should hire or bribe a designer or typographer to advise them on these matters (note: I'm neither).Examples of typography problems:Page numbers are bafflingly printed in orange, in a decorative kind of font that is also outlined. I wish I knew the thought process here. "Let's distract the reader from the actual text" perhaps? I've never seen this done before. It's usually not done for a reason.The main text is a serif font, but block quotes/passages are printed in a san serif font that clashes distractingly with the main body font. (And in at least one place some main body text has leaked into the block section.)At some points in block text, the size of the text seems to vary slightly for no reason. At other points, the text colour changes subtly (mostly in footnotes it seems).Small blocks of caption text next to images is justified, rather than left or right aligned, resulting in massive distracting gaps in some lines.I appreciate the author must have put a lot of work and research into making this book. That's why it's so frustrating to find these distractions in the final product.Make a second edition, perhaps? And pay a designer next time.

This is a great book for HEMA practitioners as well as people interested in Europe's martial arts. Obviously, Richard Marsden has put a lot of time in researching this theme (same can be said for his Polish Sabre book). No matter what discipline of HEMA you're practicing, this book will be of interest to you.Even though I believe this book deserves its 5-star score, it does have its flaws. There are a lot of anecdotes, which are by themselves quite interesting, but they do interrupt the reader from the main theme. Also, there are A LOT of pages filled with photographs from modern HEMA practitioners, which are (imho) quite irrelevant to the history of HEMA, and a bit irritating to the reader. Instead, the book would be even more appealing if Marsden had included more original pictures from the treatises.

I really liked the contents of this book. Fantastic context for Historical European Martial tradition. I loved the description of warfare, a context we rarely explore in the context of HEMA or WMA. I also love the way the book explores the different core texts and situates them in the various geographic regions and lineages.The reason I can't give this book 5 stars is because of the amateur layout, font choice, and the irrelevant pictures included. Great book but hopefully a second edition will be released with a different publisher or layout editor. Its a shame that a book as interesting and important as this was done in this style.

Realmente esperaba un poco más sobre el libro por la cuestión de precio-calidad. No esta mal, es una gran explicación histórica del HEMA, si buscan técnicas o reglamentos, pues no encontraran mucho aquí.

A great resource for anyone looking to better understand where HEMA sources come from and why they are written the way they're written. If I had to nitpick to help improve a possible second edition, the chapter formatting could use polishing. Some typos also lead to inconsistent information (e.g., 500 per 100,000 in one instance vs 50 per 100,000 in all others), but these are rare and easy to ignore given the wealth of information the book provides.