Forschungsforum at 01.08.2025

Masters of Defence: Fencers and Fencing in England, c. 1400-1600 with Dr. Jacob Deacon

Martial prowess was widespread throughout late medieval and early modern England. This talk explores one aspect of it, fencing – broadly defined as the use of edged weapons in hand-to-hand combat – and how it was practised, taught, and regulated from the early fifteenth century to the early seventeenth. By exploring these issues, the talk contributes to modern scholarly understandings of the performance and perceptions of violence in late medieval and early modern society, with a particular focus on non-elite civilian violence.

Particular emphasis is placed on the wide variety of weaponry that featured in English fencing culture, the fight book genre as it existed in England, and the men who used these books and practised fencing.