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raymaehn t1_j6mw0kq wrote

Reply to comment by thisplacemakesmeangr in Medieval Mixed-Gender Fight Club: Behold Images from a 15th-Century Fighting Manual by ArtOak

Well, the guy who wrote the treatise fought judicial duels as a job so I'm not sure if there's a whole lot of trolling going on here. That doesn't mean something like this happened often or regularly but I wouldn't discount it happening at all. It might be a way to even the playing field so to speak. The woman gets the freedom of movement and can play out her range but since the man is standing in a hole his center of gravity is so low he can't be grappled effectively.

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thisplacemakesmeangr t1_j6mxfff wrote

The one with the most egregious lack of sense has the woman upside down. I'm also a clinical massage therapist for the last few decades, there's no way I know of to make physical sense of that picture. The lady is looking at a broken neck if the 2 of them so much as squirm wrong let alone fight.

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raymaehn t1_j6n2dlq wrote

Maybe it's because I've been reading these treatises and attempting to reconstruct the techniques in them for a long time but it makes sense to me. In that image the man has (somehow) managed to neutralize the woman's weapon (possibly by wrapping it around his mace or arm) and gotten her close enough that he could sweep her off her feet and pull her into the hole where she's defenseless.

Also, yeah, that might result in a broken neck. That was the goal. Judicial duels were fought until one side was either dead or had given up. They were only called when there was a stalemate in a case where the death penalty was on the table, this wasn't something people did for petty grievances. Especially since they believed that God would grant victory to the person who had been telling the truth. That meant the loser hadn't been telling the truth, which means they had been lying under oath. Which could be punishable by death.

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thisplacemakesmeangr t1_j6n3bev wrote

Neat! That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks. (From manual I was assuming they were techniques, like teaching a form. Not like circumstances that might occur.)

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raymaehn t1_j6n5nlr wrote

It's kinda-sorta both. Most European fighting manuals don't really work with forms as you would know them from Eastern martial arts, it's mostly scenarios. The text says "If your opponent does X then you do Y" in varying degrees of detail and the picture shows what that's supposed to look like.

The problem with Talhoffer is that it's essentially only images and no text which makes it harder to interpret. Also it's still medieval, and medieval art doesn't follow modern rules of depth which doesn't help either.

Talhoffer shows judicial duels because that's what he knew, that's what he was qualified to talk about. Other manuals depict fighting in the context of self defense or a training hall or a duel of honor depending on where the qualifications of the author were and how they wanted to present themselves.

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thisplacemakesmeangr t1_j6ncwkr wrote

I noticed out of 7 pictures, 6 of them have direct or implied contact with a genital region. Have you seen the other pictures from this manual, did they just pick salacious ones for the article? And the last has the lady grabbing a boob out of nowhere which I'm having a hard time fitting into context. Any guesses?

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raymaehn t1_j6nflj9 wrote

It's this manuscript. You can see contact with genitals not only in this specific setup, it also appears in other areas. Not exactly sure why, maybe it's because the groin is a convenient place to set up a takedown that also hurts when you grab it. AFAIK you get similar situations in folk style wrestling like Turkish oil wrestling or Glima, but I'm not sure. That said, grappling isn't my strong point, I mainly concentrate on the armed stuff.

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thisplacemakesmeangr t1_j6nnsx4 wrote

I guess there are a few too many gratuitous sexual inferences that don't fit combat for me not to wonder if other factors are in play. Sex would've garnered extra attention back then like it does now and the format allows some leeway before any reputations would get tarnished. The boob grab with the guy having his hand clasped at his own crotch doesn't seem to have any potential value added from the pose for instance. I'm under no illusion my tangential experience qualifies me for anything other than a layman's opinion though : )

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centricgirl t1_j6o5n86 wrote

I have zero fighting experience, but I interpret that last pic as the two combatants swinging their weapons with their dominant arm and protecting their vulnerable areas with their other arm.

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Thatparkjobin7A t1_j6na0fc wrote

Are there any medieval self defence manuscripts that depict kicking your attacker in the groin?

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raymaehn t1_j6nawwm wrote

Yup. There's a treatise associated with Albrecht Dürer (yes, that Albrecht Dürer) where groins get kicked, knees get stomped, arms get broken and eyes get gouged.

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