How to Win an 18th-Century Swordfight

Duelling makes a comeback

- BY SANDRINE RASTELLO

ON A GREY NOVEMBER afternoon, clad in a borrowed—and somewhat smelly—fencing outfit, I spent two hours going through the basics of the aspiring duellist: saluting before putting on the protective mask, pinching the grip of the sword with the thumb and index finger, gliding back and forth while keeping the feet planted. But this wasn’t the kind of fencing you see at the Olympics—the dazzling speed of the athletes, electronic scoring, and seemingly nonsensical rules. The instructions came with a twist: our back hand, we learned, could be used to grab the opponent’s sword and disarm them, or even to wield a second weapon. We could move in whatever direction we chose. We could aim for pretty much any part of the body.

This was historical fencing, an approach that seeks to recreate the way people fought centuries ago by interpreting ancient documents. Also known as Historical European Martial Arts, or HEMA, it simulates the life-or-death feel of combat that would have been commonplace in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and up to the early modern era.

I had been cast in an amateur theatre production of The Three Musketeers, playing a guard of the scheming Cardinal de Richelieu. To make our stage fighting look convincing, the actors had committed to training weekly for the next four months. Understanding the strange blend of decorum and brutality that defined historical duels was exactly what we needed.

Teaching us that day was David Farley Chevrier, a medical librarian with degrees in medieval and classical studies and a passion for Scottish dress. In his free time, he oversees a small historical section at a Montreal fencing club, Escrime Mont-Royal, specializing in the smallsword, a weapon introduced in the seventeenth century.