Bringing Fiore to a Knife Fight, with Ian Davis

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.com/podcast/bringing-fiore-to-a-knife-fight-with-ian-davis/ 

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Ian Davis is a historical fencing instructor at Boston Armizare, specialising in Italian fencing from the 14th to the 16th centuries. These days he is almost exclusively interested in wrestling, dagger and harness.

Ian has been testing to discover what it actually takes to stick a sword point through historical maille. Here are some videos of his tests:

Maille testing round 1 (sword): https://youtu.be/CLDcmiF1u1s

Maille testing round 1 (dagger): https://youtu.be/WRE80BpQi7I

Maille testing round 1 (spear): https://youtu.be/51KVNtdKBFY

This is a full year after the first series:

Maille testing round 2: https://youtu.be/RH1zbd0WFPw

We also talk about the contentious topic of bringing Fiore into the modern combative self-defence context. How can wrestling techniques from the likes of Fiore, Vadi and Monte help people defend themselves against an assailant with a knife or a gun? Also, how do you square the murderousness of a knightly combat system with the modern legalities and ethical issues of self-defence?

Click here to see the Vadi headlock image we mention: https://swordschool.com/podcast/bringing-fiore-to-a-knife-fight-with-ian-davis/ 

In the final question of the interview, Ian talks about spending a million dollars on getting manuscripts into the public domain. Here’s the link to the Raymond J. Lord collection we discuss:

Raymond J. Lord: https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/lord