One interpretation of I.33’s techniques that seems to be picking up steam is that the blow to the head that typically follows a shield-strike is a descending, more-or-less vertical strike delivered with the false edge of the blade.

Another is that the change of the sword and the bind preceding the shield strike will occur in the high line; this instead of the usual interpretation that on the shield strike, the enemy’s sword is being transported into a low line so that both of their weapons can be stifled with said shield strike, freeing your blade up for the blow to the head.

Now I’ll say this up front, I do have critique of these specific interpretations here, but it is just that – critique of these specific interpretations, not the interpreters, folks taking up the interpretation, or their work in general. To the contrary, these different groups of practitioners have put blood, sweat, and tears into their reconstructions of sword and buckler, have put a great deal of thought and insight into their work, and have been across the board as far as I can tell earnest, honest, gentlemanly/ladylike, and martial in their work. They seek only to understand the source material better and to do it justice.

So, to return to the matter, both of these interpretations (the cut and the bind) are based in large part – at least to the best of my understanding — on the well-supported idea that medieval illustrations do not follow modern rules of perspective, but are somewhat cubist in their depiction of perspective, oftentimes altering it to show different views of different objects in the same illustration in order to code more information – such as in this drawing of a chess match from the Codex Manesse, where we see the players from a side view but the chess-board from a superior view:

By that token, this illustration from I.33 may not be really trying to show a bind to the low line, it may showing a superior view of the swords and a side view of the fencers, demonstrating merely that one sword is over the other.

But we must also be ready to entertain the idea that these illustrations are showing something intended to be entirely within the side view, which has been the more common interpretation up to date.

So it becomes difficult to choose between the two, unless we can find some other source to provide input.

Let’s go back to the Codex Manesse, which has this image which is universally agreed to be a shield-strike from a fencing system similar to that depicted in I.33:

Interesting. Here, the man receiving the shield strike has his sword held in the high line. So this is certainly good evidence that shield strikes can be, could be, and were practiced in the high line.

BUT, we also have these anonymous later images, from near the turn of the 15th-16th centuries to about the mid 16th. There is unfortunately no accompanying text, and there is an argument to be made that some are influenced by I.33, but these all come from a time when modern perspective had begun to be applied and people still had running knowledge of living sword and buckler traditions. In some of them, the distance is so close and the attacker’s arm so far down, it is hard to see how a high line interpretation of the images is possible:

So, is the shield strike in I.33 involving a transport to the low line or not? Well, let’s hold off on that – let’s look at the accompanying blow first.

In taking the interpretation that the illustrations of the bind before the shield strike are showing multiple perspectives in I.33, we should also be willing to apply this interpretation to the head-blow, which is depicted as such:

Notice that we see the whole flat of the blade and the cross. The false-edge descending blow to the head reproduces this position of the hand and the sword, so it is consistent with the illustrations. But that said, EVERY view of the swords in I.33 shows the flat. So this view can either be a “realistic” view of a descending cut with the knuckles facing up, or the artists’ attempt to show a true edge cut following the convention of the book, which is to always show the sword in the perspective of the flat no matter what (there is a third option, too, but more on that in a bit).

So we ask ourselves again, which is it?

Return to the illustrations above. You will see that in all of them but one (where the sword is on its way and we can’t determine for certain the target, other than to say it seems to be in the high line), the impact is made to the side of the head or the neck, on the left. This is a location where deployment of the false edge is so awkward, and so much more weak in the wrist, as to be essentially a non-choice. No one, but no one shows a vertical, descending cut to the top of the head, except maybe the one from CL 23842 – but in this picture, clearly the leading edge is being used.

Considering the fairly advanced perspective in most of the other illustrations, there is also open the possibility that a different, third option is being depicted: that the combatants are using the flat of the blade to make their strike, in perhaps a training or competitive context.

Now this last is speculation, but I think overwhelmingly that the evidence does not suggest that false edge cuts to the top of the head were frequently used in sword and buckler combat in the high middle ages, nor that they accompany shield strikes commonly in the I.33 system. Here, it is best to take the manuscript at face value.

Think of it this way: I.33 and ALL of these other sources that show a blow landing with a shield strike show the blade on the side of the head or the neck. I.33 does this in ALL of its illustrations. If the blow were meant to be descending to the top of the head, why would the sword not be shown at the forehead? That would be the simplest thing to do, the thing anyone would do– artist or not – if you told them to draw a false edge strike (or any strike) to the top of the head. They wouldn’t show the sword by the side of the cheek.

So, to return to the issue of the bind going into the shield strike, I do think that I.33 is attempting to show a transport of the enemy’s sword and shield to the low line. This makes sense in the context of the mandritto-type cut to the cheek or neck, with the leading edge, that I.33 and other sources seem to be illustrating as the final component of the shield-strike.

But practical experimentation and the illustration in Codex Manesse demonstrate that high-line shield strikes are possible. Since Codex Manesse is clearly not showing a false-edge descending cut to the forehead, but is consistent with other sources showing a left side head/neck target, I think our reconstructions should attempt first to follow the evidence. In the illustration, it seems the shield strike is being conducted such that both shield and sword are being pressed against the body, with the distance between the fighters being very close; this would negate the possibility of the shield being raised to block the incoming cut, and allows success in the leading edge cut to the left side high targets. And I think that this leading edge cut would have a much better chance of dealing serious damage than the false edge cut as currently practiced, which is mostly being articulated around the wrist and is targeting a much harder and more durable part of the head (speaking as an anatomist and anthropologist who has done hundreds of craniotomies). This particular false edge cut is also much trickier to deploy and so more likely to land with obliquities of the blade that would lessen the damage of the blow, as compared to a leading edge cut.

Should the false edge cut be completely removed from the repertoire? No, I do think it clearly has value, but like Cookie Monster once learned that cookies are best only as a “sometimes food,” I think it should be a “sometimes attack,” not the bread and butter of the system. And I do think low line transports on the shield strike open the high line target best and should be more used – I believe that this is what the I.33 authors and artists were earnestly trying to show us.

The contents of this post reflect my own views and opinions, and do not necessarily represent those of my masters at Martinez Academy of Arms. Any errors are fully my own, as I am still in training and have been encouraged to research to further my studies.