Historically valid. That's a term I use a lot when discussing the "Historical" part of Historical European Martial Arts, but what do I mean by that? How can something be historically valid as compared to historically invalid? Before I get into that, let me discuss for a bit the way martial arts evolve naturally.
Throughout history, martial arts have always had a somewhat flexible and fluid nature to them. This is true of Asian and European, of ancient and more modern ones. What I mean by this is the process whereby a recognized master takes on students and teaches them his particular art. Some stay with him for years and years, and eventually become masters themselves in that art, and then pass it on to other students. However, a few of those new masters will invariably change some things here, some things there, add new things, take away old things, and in time a new martial art will have developed from the original one.
We very recently saw this when Bruce Lee took the traditional Wing Chun taught to him by Ip Man and modified it to create Jeet Kune Do; however, it should be noted this is just part of a long and rich martial tradition. In fact (if our historical assumptions are correct) the whole reason we have a German tradition and an Italian tradition is because Fiore dei Liberi studied with Johannes Lichtenauer, but then tweaked, twisted, and turned the original teaching into something new. Barton-Wright did something similar when he took various forms of fighting and combined them into a new whole to fit the London of his time, thereby creating Bartitsu. The traditional story of how the martial arts came to Asia tells of the legendary Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, who taught fighting skills even as he spread Buddhism, and it was from these teachings that all the diverse Asain martial arts sprung. Whether this is true or not it emphasizes the way that martial arts have always evolved from the hands of one master to the next.
So historically it is perfectly reasonable, and even typical, for a master to modify the work of previous masters into something new. But here's the kicker for those of us who study HEMA: We are not allowed to do this!
We are very deliberately not trying to create something new, nor are we trying to improve on a previous art. Those of us involved in HEMA are trying to do one of two things: Either reenact what we read from manuals and treatises or recreate the fighting styles that have no particular documentation based upon what we know from later treatises.
This is where the concept of historical validity comes into play. As you and your club mates work through manuals and try to interpret what a master had written you are allowed to give it your personal twist; however, it must be consistent with the words written, the illustrations drawn, or both. You are not allowed to say, "Well, regardless of how they did it then I think this would be an improvement." That is not historically valid.
If you're working through a system in which there is no specific documentary evidence -- for example, how knights of the 1100s fought on foot using the so-called "heater" shield -- then you are certainly allowed more leeway, but your interpretation must still be grounded in historical evidence and logic. You're just not able to say, "Well, I prefer doing it this way even though the manual just 50 years later suggests something totally different." That, too, is not historically valid.
This is a self-imposed limit to we HEMA practitioners. We are intentionally trying to capture not just the essence but indeed the very detail of these various arts, so we have chosen to maintain historical validity. It is the price we pay to claim to be a student of HEMA. If you feel like grabbing a Longsword and combining it with all the lightsabre styles from Star Wars, go for it! I bet that'd be very entertaining to watch; however, don't claim this to be historical Longsword because it is no longer historically valid.
While this may seem like a slavish devotion to tradition, or even a somewhat annoying chain wrapped around our imagination, I think it actually makes our work easier. It can be very hard to figure out how to make the Messer, or the dagger, or the Longsword, or your own left leg work properly when trying to draw from a late Medieval source. The artwork is odd and the text, even when translated, can sometimes be obscure.
So if you aren't following the precept of historical validity you could soon be telling yourself, "It could be this, or this, or this, because all of these work." However, if you maintain proper historical validity and can make a logical argument (to yourself, mostly!) as to how your interpretation is in keeping with the documented evidence then it allows you to focus on what something actually is. Using a historically valid approach with everything you do allows you to focus on what is the most likely interpretation and dispense with all the rest.
So, in what ways to do maintain historical validity? Have you ever been practicing something, and feeling pretty good with it, only to suddenly realize there's no way it conforms to the treatise?
Stay loose and train hard, everyone!
-- Scott
Throughout history, martial arts have always had a somewhat flexible and fluid nature to them. This is true of Asian and European, of ancient and more modern ones. What I mean by this is the process whereby a recognized master takes on students and teaches them his particular art. Some stay with him for years and years, and eventually become masters themselves in that art, and then pass it on to other students. However, a few of those new masters will invariably change some things here, some things there, add new things, take away old things, and in time a new martial art will have developed from the original one.
We very recently saw this when Bruce Lee took the traditional Wing Chun taught to him by Ip Man and modified it to create Jeet Kune Do; however, it should be noted this is just part of a long and rich martial tradition. In fact (if our historical assumptions are correct) the whole reason we have a German tradition and an Italian tradition is because Fiore dei Liberi studied with Johannes Lichtenauer, but then tweaked, twisted, and turned the original teaching into something new. Barton-Wright did something similar when he took various forms of fighting and combined them into a new whole to fit the London of his time, thereby creating Bartitsu. The traditional story of how the martial arts came to Asia tells of the legendary Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, who taught fighting skills even as he spread Buddhism, and it was from these teachings that all the diverse Asain martial arts sprung. Whether this is true or not it emphasizes the way that martial arts have always evolved from the hands of one master to the next.
So historically it is perfectly reasonable, and even typical, for a master to modify the work of previous masters into something new. But here's the kicker for those of us who study HEMA: We are not allowed to do this!
We are very deliberately not trying to create something new, nor are we trying to improve on a previous art. Those of us involved in HEMA are trying to do one of two things: Either reenact what we read from manuals and treatises or recreate the fighting styles that have no particular documentation based upon what we know from later treatises.
This is where the concept of historical validity comes into play. As you and your club mates work through manuals and try to interpret what a master had written you are allowed to give it your personal twist; however, it must be consistent with the words written, the illustrations drawn, or both. You are not allowed to say, "Well, regardless of how they did it then I think this would be an improvement." That is not historically valid.
If you're working through a system in which there is no specific documentary evidence -- for example, how knights of the 1100s fought on foot using the so-called "heater" shield -- then you are certainly allowed more leeway, but your interpretation must still be grounded in historical evidence and logic. You're just not able to say, "Well, I prefer doing it this way even though the manual just 50 years later suggests something totally different." That, too, is not historically valid.
This is a self-imposed limit to we HEMA practitioners. We are intentionally trying to capture not just the essence but indeed the very detail of these various arts, so we have chosen to maintain historical validity. It is the price we pay to claim to be a student of HEMA. If you feel like grabbing a Longsword and combining it with all the lightsabre styles from Star Wars, go for it! I bet that'd be very entertaining to watch; however, don't claim this to be historical Longsword because it is no longer historically valid.
While this may seem like a slavish devotion to tradition, or even a somewhat annoying chain wrapped around our imagination, I think it actually makes our work easier. It can be very hard to figure out how to make the Messer, or the dagger, or the Longsword, or your own left leg work properly when trying to draw from a late Medieval source. The artwork is odd and the text, even when translated, can sometimes be obscure.
So if you aren't following the precept of historical validity you could soon be telling yourself, "It could be this, or this, or this, because all of these work." However, if you maintain proper historical validity and can make a logical argument (to yourself, mostly!) as to how your interpretation is in keeping with the documented evidence then it allows you to focus on what something actually is. Using a historically valid approach with everything you do allows you to focus on what is the most likely interpretation and dispense with all the rest.
So, in what ways to do maintain historical validity? Have you ever been practicing something, and feeling pretty good with it, only to suddenly realize there's no way it conforms to the treatise?
Stay loose and train hard, everyone!
-- Scott
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