 George Silver, an English fencer who wrote two books (1599, 1605) including lengthy sections on staff fighting does not use the term "quarterstaff", but instead calls it a "short staff" (as opposed to the "long staff").Joseph Swetnam, writing in 1615, distinguishes between the "quarterstaff" of in length and the "long staff" of .The oldest surviving English work giving technical information on staff combat dates from the 15th century – it is a brief listing of "strokes of the 2-hand staff", which shares terminology with the preceding "strokes of the 2-hand sword" in the same manuscript.