Daggers of the Mind:
Towards a Historiography of Fencing

 

If historians from Karl Marx to Michel Foucault have dealt with conflict between dominant and subordinate groups as a primary theme in their work, it is arguably because of their European background. The notion of social class, it has oft been noted, is more in the fore of the French or British mind than it is in the American. After all, one often-admired quality of American society is its supposed "egalitarianism." The United States has had a civil war, but never a revolt of the plebes.^[1] Therefore, to the American-born historian, conflict and competition between social equals would seem to be a more authentically pressing issue than conflict between social classes.

Classical fencing-that is, a systematized method of civilian combat with the sword, for sport and for self-defense-is a virtual repository of attitudes, norms, and codes for dealings between social equals. It is, after all, rooted in the reality of the duel, the antagonistic and ritualistic combat between two adversaries, intended to settle a question of honor; that is to say, of social status amongst one's peers.^[2] Through the bourgeois appropriation of aristocratic, chivalric ideals, such as the bearing of arms, the code duello participates in what the medievalist Johann Huizinga called the "identification of an aesthetic concept with an ethical ideal."^[3]

However, though the oldest existing martial tradition in the Western world, the Italian school of fence, reckons itself to be almost five hundred years old,^[4] academic consideration of the subject may almost be said to still be in the Dark Ages. Some of the most well-known and frequently cited works on the history of fencing are more than a century old, and are inundated with attitudes and assumptions that, while typical of their age, are badly in need of reappraisal. Yet, these selfsame attitudes are, in turn, very revealing of the mindset and mentalities prevalent amongst the educated elites in the mid- to late- nineteenth century, and which to an extent, are still current in our own society.

A study of these works would, arguably, be even more revealing of the "spirit of the age" than reading the works of writers such as Nietzche, since it would tell us what was going on not in the mind of the philosopher, but in the mind of the (admittedly well-dressed) man on the street. Since fencing is, perforce, a pastime of the elite, the segment of society most likely to have been schooled in depth in the various mental habits and viewpoints of their culture, it will reflect a "pop culture" version of this culture's biases. This group's perceptions of, and thoughts about, their leisure activity will, logically, reflect their ways of thinking, not only about practical matters, but about their aesthetic tastes, their hopes, dreams, and ideals. An analysis of works on fencing and dueling will, likewise, provide us with the views of this upper crust towards conflict, fair play, and the place of the aggressive instinct in society. In these aspects, it may be broader and even more valuable than a detailed, in-depth analysis of one influential historical writer, such as Ranke or Gibbon.