European History of martial arts

Antiquity

European martial arts becomes tangible in Greek antiquity with Pankration and other martially oriented disciplines of the Ancient Olympics. Boxing became Olympic in Greece as early as 688 BCDetailed depictions of wrestling techniques are preserved in vase paintings of the Classical period. Homer's Iliad has a number of detailed descriptions of single combat with spear, sword and shield.

Gladiatorial combat appears to have Etruscan roots, and is documented in Rome from the 260s BC.

The papyrus fragment known as P.Oxy. III 466 (2nd century) is the earliest extant literary description of wrestling techniques.

Middle Ages

Pictorial sources of medieval combat include the Bayeux tapestry (11th century), the Morgan Bible (13th century). The Icelandic sagas contain many realistic descriptions of Viking Age combat.

The earliest extant dedicated martial arts manual is the MS I.33 (ca. 1300), detailing sword and buckler combat, compiled in a Franconianmonastery. The manuscript consist of 64 images with Latin commentary, interspersed with technical vocabulary in German. While there are earlier manuals of wrestling techniques, I.33 is the earliest known manual dedicated to teaching armed single combat.

Wrestling throughout the Middle Ages was practiced by all social strata. Jousting and the tournament were popular martial arts practiced by nobility throughout the High and Late Middle Ages.

The Late Middle Ages see the appearance of elaborate fencing systems, such as the German or Italian schools.

In the Late Middle Ages, fencing schools (Fechtschulen) for the new bourgeois class become popular, increasing the demand for professional instructors (fencing masters, Fechtmeister). The martial arts techniques taught in this period is preserved in a number of 15th centuryFechtbücher

Renaissance to Early Modern period

The late medieval German school survives into the German Renaissance, and there are a number of printed 16th century manuals (notably the one by Joachim Meyer, 1570). But by the 17th century, the German school declines in favour of the Italian Dardi school, reflecting the transition to rapier fencing in the upper classes. Wrestling comes to be seen as an ignoble pursuit proper for the lower classes and until its 19th century revival as a modern sport becomes restricted to folk wrestling.

In the Baroque period, fashion shifts from Italian to Spanish masters, and their elaborate systems of Destreza. In the mid 18th century, in keeping with he general Rococo fashion, French masters rise to international prominence, introducing the foil, and much of the terminology still current in modern sports fencing.

There are also a number of Early Modern fencing masters of note in England, such as George Silver and Joseph Swetnam.

Academic fencing takes its origin in the Middle Ages, and is subject to the changes of fencing fashion throughout the Early Modern period. It establishes itself as the separate style ofMensur fencing in the 18th