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Yale University Press, New Haven,
CT, Hardcover, 2000, 400 pages,
US $39.60
into musty vaults in the basements of half-forgotten institutions, and again and again face
disappointment, hardship, and the tedium of academic research. Then, finally, you see the end of your
journey...drenched in evening radiance...with dignitaries and fellow scholars waiting to receive you
into collegial debate. There's only one thing disrupting the afterglow of intellectual achievement. That
little mutt of undetermined parentage you befriended briefly along the way has taken a shine to you.
You can't shake him off. He's come to look at you as his own, as you note with consternation, trying to
keep him from "marking his territory" all over your writings.
And now that you enter the last stretch of the road, with the welcome party already in sight, blast it
if the little monster isn't starting to work on your leg! And you can see it in their faces: The clownish
antics are making them forget why you're here... what you went through... what you achieved... If
you're tempted to judge Sydney Anglo's Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe purely on the merits of it's
carnivalistic reception at the hands of Peter Pans playing pirates with padded swords, let me tell you:
you are making a big mistake. This work is uncontainable within the narrow intellectual confines that
the most vociferous proponents of popular Boffer Bigotry are moving in by choice or necessity.
This is truly the first book of it's kind to put serious, professional academic underpinnings under the
history of western fighting arts. Eagerly awaited by historic combat enthusiasts of all persuasions for
the past two years, the pre-release buzz surrounding Anglo's The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe
may indeed have been characterized by expectant suspense on the one hand, and tacky name
dropping and tail-wagging subservience on the other. But it turned out both attitudes out not only
were warranted but justified!
Sydney Anglo plunges the reader into a hidden world of combat activity whose presentation has no
equal by virtue of it's sheer scope and erudite analysis. Lavish illustrations taken from some of the
most popular and some of the rarest fighting manuals of renaissance Europe combine with carefully
documented and annotated critical commentary to produce a work unparalleled in the field.
The thorough academic approach, combined with Anglo's intelligent and at times humorous personal
style, is providing a backbone of respectability and credibility to a subject matter that frequently does
it's darndest to self-implode any claims to being taken seriously by overvaluing the emotionally
affirmative needs of some modern practitioners. And yet this is a strength of this book Anglo manages
to reconcile the two main currents evident in historical fencing today...even those modern martialists
who so loudly proclaim anything not based in practical application to be of little to no value.
This book begs to differ. Of course, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe is no how-to-manual.
There's no evidence that the dignified professor donned a puffy shirt and pranced around his backyard
trying out the techniques represented in long-lost manuals. In fact, the book does not contain detailed
analysis of individual techniques at all. Nor does the book quite answer the question in which
specific combative scenarios the arts summarized under the modern Anglo-American pop culture
handle "Martial Arts" were applied.
(This particular aspect of mainly legal and extra-legal history might make for a book in itself)
But that's not the point.
Short on brawn and long on brains, Anglo introduces us to the very core of these arts...the masters
themselves... the way they thought... the methods they (and their graphic artists) employed to
transmit complex ideas and sophisticated systems of ethics, philosophy, and physical skill to students,
patrons, readers, and of course to us.
What makes this book relevant not only to the enthusiast of medieval and renaissance arts, but to
the entire Western martial arts community: Anglo foregoes the pat shoe-boxing usually associated
with focus on a particular period. His work doesn't leave the reader stranded in an era that is
hermetically sealed off from the modern period.
While rightfully emphasizing the differences between modern sport and ancient art, Anglo provides
tantalizing glimpses of continuities...manifest in the literary traditions of individual systems that track
the influence of a particular work through its reprints, translations and plagiarisms from the
Renaissance far into the modern period.
This is destined to be one of the most influential European martial arts books of the century!
Fencers Quarterly Magazine, 848 South Kimbrough, Springfield, MO 65806
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