Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals

Intellectual historians have rarely attended to the genre of fighting manuals, but these provide a new window on long-debated questions such as the relationship between Scholasticism and Humanism. This article offers a close comparison of the first known fencing manual, the 14-th century Liber de A...

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Main Authors: Hélène Leblanc, Franck Cinato
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Bern Open Publishing 2023-05-01
Series:Acta Periodica Duellatorum
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Online Access:https://bop.unibe.ch/apd/article/view/9115
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author Hélène Leblanc
Franck Cinato
author_facet Hélène Leblanc
Franck Cinato
author_sort Hélène Leblanc
collection DOAJ
description Intellectual historians have rarely attended to the genre of fighting manuals, but these provide a new window on long-debated questions such as the relationship between Scholasticism and Humanism. This article offers a close comparison of the first known fencing manual, the 14-th century Liber de Arte Dimicatoria (Leeds, Royal Armouries FECHT 1, previously and better known as MS I.33), and the corpus of fighting manuals which underwent a remarkable expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries. While the former clearly shows its origins in a scholastic background, the latter is mainly viewed as reflecting its humanist context. To this historiographical division corresponds a linguistic one: MS I.33 is a Latin text, while the rest of the corpus is mainly written in German and Italian. However, exceptions arise, amongst which, Heinrich von Gunterrodt’s Sciomachia et Hoplomachia: sive de Veris Principiis Artis Dimicatoriae (1579), the first text which explicitly refers to I.33. This article will compare these two texts, in order to interrogate their common relation to Scholasticism, namely the traditional frame of the knowledge within the medieval and early modern universities. The intent is to show that (at least some) Renaissance fight books include references to Scholasticism and to provide a better qualification of the nature of such references. The general hypothesis is that a large part of the texts―and products of culture―of the Renaissance that have been read, until recently, exclusively in relation to a humanist intellectual background can valuably be interpreted in the context of a Scholasticism that is still vivid during the period in question.  
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spelling doaj-art-898a1780daaf4538bed59c6aef32ec572024-11-22T03:15:02ZengBern Open PublishingActa Periodica Duellatorum2064-04042023-05-0111110.36950/apd-2023-004Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing ManualsHélène Leblanc0Franck Cinato1UCLouvainUniversité Paris Cité / Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Intellectual historians have rarely attended to the genre of fighting manuals, but these provide a new window on long-debated questions such as the relationship between Scholasticism and Humanism. This article offers a close comparison of the first known fencing manual, the 14-th century Liber de Arte Dimicatoria (Leeds, Royal Armouries FECHT 1, previously and better known as MS I.33), and the corpus of fighting manuals which underwent a remarkable expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries. While the former clearly shows its origins in a scholastic background, the latter is mainly viewed as reflecting its humanist context. To this historiographical division corresponds a linguistic one: MS I.33 is a Latin text, while the rest of the corpus is mainly written in German and Italian. However, exceptions arise, amongst which, Heinrich von Gunterrodt’s Sciomachia et Hoplomachia: sive de Veris Principiis Artis Dimicatoriae (1579), the first text which explicitly refers to I.33. This article will compare these two texts, in order to interrogate their common relation to Scholasticism, namely the traditional frame of the knowledge within the medieval and early modern universities. The intent is to show that (at least some) Renaissance fight books include references to Scholasticism and to provide a better qualification of the nature of such references. The general hypothesis is that a large part of the texts―and products of culture―of the Renaissance that have been read, until recently, exclusively in relation to a humanist intellectual background can valuably be interpreted in the context of a Scholasticism that is still vivid during the period in question.   https://bop.unibe.ch/apd/article/view/9115Heinrich von GunterrodtLiber de Arte DimicatoriaMS I.33HumanismScholasticism
spellingShingle Hélène Leblanc
Franck Cinato
Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
Acta Periodica Duellatorum
Heinrich von Gunterrodt
Liber de Arte Dimicatoria
MS I.33
Humanism
Scholasticism
title Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
title_full Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
title_fullStr Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
title_full_unstemmed Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
title_short Scholastic Clues in Two Latin Fencing Manuals
title_sort scholastic clues in two latin fencing manuals
topic Heinrich von Gunterrodt
Liber de Arte Dimicatoria
MS I.33
Humanism
Scholasticism
url https://bop.unibe.ch/apd/article/view/9115
work_keys_str_mv AT heleneleblanc scholasticcluesintwolatinfencingmanuals
AT franckcinato scholasticcluesintwolatinfencingmanuals