On the weekend of April 13 & 14, 2002 a seminar will be given on "The Fior di Battaglia (Flos Deullatorum): Masterwork of Fiore dei Liberi".

The Instructor for the seminar will be the founder of St. Martins Academy of Medieval Arms, Bob Charron.

Info:

Fiore dei Liberi was born in Northern Italy in the middle of the 14th century, and spent 40 years learning techniques of combat from many masters and at great expense. He fought in the battles and duels of his time, and eventually became an instructor himself. He trained many knights and squires for combat in tournament, war and duel, and in 1400 was appointed by the Marquis of Ferrara as the trainer to his personal knightly household with duties as a military advisor. It was the Marquis, Niccolo D'Este, for whom Fiore wrote down all he knew so that his art would not be lost to those who came after.

Fiore's manual, the Fior di Battaglia (Flos Duellatorum in Latin) includes wrestling, knife attack and defense, one and two handed sword, pollaxe, spear, and mounted combat both armoured and unarmoured. It is a complete, coherent and brutally effective system of self defense that can apply to any situation armed or unarmed. He distilled the art down to its essentials, and created an integrated, sequential and self-referential system that is easy to teach and learn.

The Seminar:

Wrestling and Dagger: the first day of the seminar will begin with a brief introduction to Fiore, the Marquis d'Este, the internal structure and coding of the surviving copies of the manual, and Fiore's prologue and segno page. Then focus will shift to the wrestling and dagger techniques from the manual, and will include a slide presentation accompanied by a physical demonstration by the instructor and an assistant. Each illustrated technique from the manual will be demonstrated and explained. Following a lunch break the remainder of the day will be spent in hands-on and training. This training will include performing the techniques and participating in drills that reinforce the major concepts within the system.

One and Two Handed Sword, Spear, and Pollaxe: The second day will be structured similarly, beginning with a slide presentation and demonstration of each of the techniques, followed by hands-on practice, drill and training from Fiore's system for these weapons. This day will also include discussion and training of armoured combat techniques.

Participants should wear comfortable clothing and sneakers or shoes with a non-skid surface.

Wooden practice swords will be used.

Accommodations can be found via the following link:

Bob Charron here, just giving this thread a bump, as in less than a month I'll be seeing you all for this symposium, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

I remain yours for any questions, requests or comments you may have.

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I'll be attending your class at the Schola St George Symposium in June in Livermore CA. (I decided to opt for an 8 hr drive rather than a 6 hour flight)

A couple of questions for you about the June event:

• What will be your approach for that class?
  
• Will it be similar to what you taught at the class you presented at Caltech a year or two ago?
  
• Will your book be published by then?
  

I very much look forward to learning more from you. Your Caltech class was the most useful instruction I've had on a medieval topic. I wait with keen anticipation for your translation.

The Caltech class was a way-too-fast one-day overview, but thank you for your kind words concerning it.

The one in New Hampshire will be a two-day overview, with greater attention to detail and much, much more hands-on time.

The class in Livermore will be limited only to Fiore's one-handed sword, as that is all time will allow.

So, three very different beasts indeed.

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All the best,

Bob

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To give a brief review of the seminar, It was fantastic, and very well recieved by all who attended.

With the two day format, we weren't quite as hurried as in the first seminar we attended. We were also able to cover all of the material, including seeing how the equestrian techniques are theoreticaly supposed to work. We seem to have been the first class to work through some of the pollaxe techniques, and our ploughing through the material was apparently helpful to Bob.

We will be organizing several more intense two day seminars, the first to be entirely concentrated on the wrestling and dagger techniques, since this is the foundation of the entire system. By focusing on this one aspect, this will allow for the repetative drills neccessary to get a real mental grip on the system. The second we plan on organizing will be a two day seminar on armoured combat, and while attendees will be encouraged to bring their own, we will have some harness to share.

Some points that worked out very well were firstly, we were able to serve breakfast & lunch at the seminar, which made it easier for attendees to get back into the schedule quicker than would have been had they had top go offsite. Secondly, the facilities had an extensive outdoor area that enabled us to go outside into the decent weather to do the hands-on for the aspects of the system dealing with weapons.

Bob & Kristy were excellent teachers, and were delightful company. The response by the attendees to a second seminar in the formats described above was so overwhelming that it is with confidence we set about organizing a second and third seminar.

Thanks to them both for making the event the success it was.

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