knightly duel | Ars nobilis

My opponent: @ @ Ars nobilis is latin for the art of noble men. Duels with two-handed swords were a popular sport among nobles in tournaments in the late Middle Ages and especially in the early modern period. The book about the largest tournament in history, “Freydal,” shows two knights dueling with two-handed swords. With his sword raised high, one uses the false edge of Posta Bicorno to hit his opponent’s head, while the other rams his blade with crossed hands into the opponent’s visor with a long stab. Even in a tournaments, stabbings were often allowed and deaths were not too uncommon. The duel of my video takes place in the remains of the wall of a large knight’s hall. A gigantic fireplace can be seen behind the combatants. The Fight: After a curt bow, I begin the first strike with a feint and hits the hand of Felix, the red knight. Historical gloves were often poorly protected against heavy blows and hands could break under the plate armor. This is followed by a counter strike against a one-handed stab to the armpit area, which turns into a stab to my hand and just misses the inner surface. From a midget combination, I try to stab again one-handed, this time to Felix privates. With two more counterattacks I manage to push myself out of Felix’s delayed approach and give him a heavy blow on the neck, but it slides harmlessly off his chain collar. Since thrusts from the long sword wern´t successful, I reach for the halfswording, while Felix reaches behind the guard spices and, using techniques from Marozzo, stabs me in the chain mail in the armpit, causing me to stumble. My second thrust from halfswording slides dangerously close to eye level across his visor. While Felix’s blade gets caught briefly in my shoulder. After another shot from above, Felix tries to grab my blade for wrestling. But I hit him in the sights with my guard. Felix switches back to Marozzo’s grip technique and stabs towards the armpits. His third stab lands in my shoulder and pierces my back plate. The training swords have bent tips, but a historical blade would have easily pierced my unprotected shoulder. After his blade comes out, I manage to stab him under his chain collar, luckily he’s wearing an additional neck guard underneath. My shoulder would now bleed heavily and my left arm might become immobile, but the Felix would now be dead, but we continue because we don’t notice during the battle where exactly the point hit. After a short twist with the half sword, I give him another blow with the cross guard on the back of the head and then stab him in the neck when he tries to engage in close combat. As I try to put distance between us, a punch nearly hits me in the back of the head. Felix reaches back into the long sword and strikes me in the face with the tip. He uses my flinching to move past my thrust into wrestling. Felix grabs my weapon arm and I have to drop my sword and glove to free my hand. Now it’s getting dirty. Before Felix can draw his dagger, I manage to stab his neck several times, two of which could have penetrated the chain and leather. While wrestling on the wall, I try to pull his leg with one arm and waste energy and time trying to kick his leg away. Unfortunately, my dagger hand is stuck under his arm so I can’t reach the back of his knees. When I try to pass the dagger into my other hand, Felix is finally able to free his rondel dagger. At the same time we stab each other in the shoulders. Felix mobilizes his last strength and throws me against the wall while screaming: “Die at last.“ He then rams his dagger three times into my thigh. Meanwhile I could have his neck, but in order not to seriously injure himfor real, I stabbed him three times into the cainmail, with the last stab accidentally slipping under. His third stab hit my inner leg severely and I collapse to my knees. Now we would both definitely bleed to death miserably. The fight would probably have been over by now, but in the adrenaline rush, Felix stabbed my armpit again. This stab went straight under the mail shirt and with a sharp and pointy blade it would have penetrated deep into the heart. At least the angle was right. As I fall, I stab him again in the neck and armpit, grab his arm and push him to the ground. Of course, with a blade in my heart, this would no longer have been possible. The fight now ended. Since I was lying on top of him, I first got up limping with three bruises on my thigh. Felix stayed there, heavely breathing but we would both have been dead with sharp blades. If you want to support my videos, please subscribe to my Patreon: