I’ve flipped back and forth a few times on this interpretation, but after confirming the meaning of the word “nucken”, and catching something in the text that I previously did not, I think I have reaffirmed my interpretation of what exactly the Nucken is.

Let’s set up the play. Halfshield has besieged 1st Ward. 1st Ward Falls Under Sword and Shield, binding. Halfshield then overbinds, pushing 1st Ward’s sword down and to his (1st Ward) left. 1st Ward does the “mutation”, where his sword goes from being in a left underbind to a left overbind (putting Halfshield into a right underbind). We are then told the following:

Folio 3v: “demum seorsum ducit gladium post capud adversarij sui quod nuncupatur nucken de quo generatur separatio gladij et scuti scolaris.”

roughly translated, it’s basically saying “finally he directs his sword separately toward the head of his adversary, which is called Nodding, from which arises a separation of the sword and shield of the scholar.”

I am now mostly convinced that the word “nücken” does indeed mean “nodding”, as showed in a dictionary of Middle High German (see “nicken”).

http://woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=Lexer&mode=Vernetzung&lemid=LN01522#XLN01522

(credit to James Wran and Michael Chidester for the assistance)

So upon further clarifying the translation and reading it carefully, it seems to me that it is a two-part action. For a while I was thinking that you move your sword towards his head, and THAT separates his sword and shield. This caused some…..uncomfortable ways of doing this cut, and it didn’t really work well. But it seems to be describing two stages. You direct your sword at his head, this then causes a “separation of sword and shield”. So it seems to me that essentially, it’s a feint. From the left overbind, you feint upwards towards his head. His sword is under yours so he will have a hard time using it to defend himself, so he must raise his buckler to defend this attack to his head. Hence, the separation of sword and shield. You feint up to his head to draw his buckler up (of course, if he doesn’t raise his buckler, just hit him in the face), and when he opens up that gap, you cut down between his arms. From the left overbind, this action flows very nicely. The feint could presumably be done with either long or short edge, although I find it seems to flow best if the feint is short edge and the strike to the arms is long edge. The “nodding” can refer to several things, as doing this technique will cause you and your sword to seem to bob up then down, and it will also cause your opponent’s buckler to bob up (as you feint) then down. In fact, the entire motion of both fencers would move up then down.

***I will have to make another post some time about “separation of sword and shield”. It is a relatively common action in I.33, yet it doesn’t represent a single exact technique, but rather seems to represent a concept. There seems to be 2-3 variants shown in I.33, all labelled the same, “Separation of Sword and Shield”, and all showing a strike or thrust that goes between the sword and shield of the opponent in various ways.***

An alternate interpretation would be that from the left overbind, you hook your point in underneath and between his arms, up towards his head. It is basically identical to the same technique done from the right overbind. While I think this interpretation does work in practice, my issue is that it doesn’t seem to fit the description as “nodding”, and I don’t see any reason why this would have a special name and be singled out by the Priest if it is the same as the separation of sword and shield done from the right overbind (Folio 24r). I think this is a case of the interpretation working practically, and maybe even being a logical and good option to do from that bind, but I’m not sure it fits as THE “nucken”.

Another video will be made eventually, just showing the progression from 1st Ward besieged by Halfshield, then Fall Under, Halfshield Overbind, then 1st Ward mutates and does Nucken. I have yet to figure out the grappling that it says can arise if the Priest hesitates to re-establish the bind (what grapple? Is the student grabbing the Priest’s sword between his arms? What bind? Is it re-establishing the bind after the mutation? Or is it re-establishing the bind by pressing the shield into the student after you do the Nucken?), and I will need to look into it more. Maybe I should have waited to post this until I have the video ready, but whatever. My club is closed for the next week and a bit, so idk when I will have a chance to film it.