Date: August 2011 Creator: Price, Brian R. Description: During
the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, fighting
books—Fechtbücher—were produced in northern Italy, among the
German states, in Burgundy, and on the Iberian peninsula. Long
dismissed by fencing historians as “rough and untutored,” and
largely unknown to military historians, these enigmatic
treatises offer important insights into the cultural realities
for all three orders in medieval society: those who fought,
those who prayed, and those who labored. The intent of this
dissertation is to demonstrate, contrary to the view of fencing
historians, that the medieval works were systematic and logical
approaches to personal defense rooted in optimizing available
technology and regulating the appropriate use of the skills and
technology through the lens of chivalric conduct. I argue
further that these approaches were principle-based, that they
built on Aristotelian conceptions of arte, and that by both
contemporary and modern usage, they were marti