A number of years ago I was criticised by one of the stuffier historical fencers for using the term sparring to describe competitive free fighting. Much better, I was told, was to use the term bouting or freeplay. This seemed altogether foolish to me at the time, part of the same school of thinking that tries to reserve black t-shirts for people who like to be called Maestro or who are proud that they have not reviewed their interpretation for 25 years.
It is with some delight that I read a post by Matt Easton at the Schola Gladiatoria forum which shows an account from 1888 using the word sparring in a martial context.
I had dealings with about six men at different times. I remember stopping the cut of the first man I met and giving him a return blow across the face. Another fellow rode at me with a lance, and I turned it off with my sword when close to my breast; and I believe it was while making a return cut at him than another man, who had come up on my bridle hand, administered a severe ‘smeller’ in the face, which, cutting through my shako peak, hit me halfway down the forehead and passing down, split my nose like a pea and deluged my left eye with blood. Another man whom I met rode close up to my sword hand, and with his teeth set, and standing up in his stirrups, gave a downright cut at my head, which I stopped; and the sword, a Wilkinson, bears the notch in the thick part near the hilt; the metal, being as hard as a diamond, is yet cut into like lead!
In the melee I received a severe cut on the shoulder, but by whom given I never clearly made out. It cut through my jacket and two shirts which I had put on for the bitter cold, and cut a great piece out of the deltoid muscle as well. I had also another wound on my left wrist, the sword having been stopped by the bone, but this was not deep. My curb rein was cut, and my horse ‘Pickle’ received a severe cut on his flank from a footman, who also cut my reins. It nearly cut through the crupper, and extended from thence a good foot down the flank, and so deep had the sabre gone that had it fallen on my thigh it must have cut it to the bone. God be thanked it did not!
The last thing I remember was sparring with a footman, trying to get a cut at him. He had his sword lifted high, and was just going to make a sweeping cut at my horse’s neck, when a bullet struck his sword close to the hilt and snapped it off; on which the fellow sank down, shamming dead.
In your face stuffy sword guys. In. Your. Face.
(Fair disclosure. I’ve been a long term member of both Schola Gladiatoria and the forum. In fact I have some kind of rank within the org. Buggered if I can remember what it is though…)
