Purpose

In this post, I take a deep dive into a specific cut found in fencing traditions contemporary to Fiore’s art which, in my opinion, does not seem to appear in Fiore’s longsword repertoire. My goals with this post are:

1. To discuss the question of whether Fiore shows such an action
2. To discuss why such an action may or may not appear in Fiore
3. To use this discussion as a jumping off point for discussing “purist” vs “pragmatic” approaches to historical fencing and interpreting with intellectual honesty

I chose the Zwerhau because it is probably the most influential of all the named cuts from the various German longsword traditions on the contemporary competitive longsword fencing scene. Martin Fabian, one of the most successful longsword fencers today, goes so far as to call the Zwerhau “the best Nachschlag” and gives it center stage in the first video of his longsword series. Almost all high-level longsword fencers in modern tournaments use the Zwerhau or something like it.

However, this discussion could equally apply to any technique or concept that exists in one historical source but isn’t (explicitly) mentioned in another.

The Zwerhau

The Zwerhau (there are many spelling variants including, but not limited to, Zwerchhau, Twerhau, Twirhau, Zwerhaw) is essentially a lateral cut made with the hands held high at or above head-height, typically with the thumb on the flat of the blade. The same technique also goes by other names in related fencing traditions.

When I refer to “the Zwerhau mechanic” in this article, I mean a general family of actions where the thumb is on flat of the blade, the hands and hilt are held high, and cuts are made by crossing and uncrossing the arms while keeping the arms high.

As already discussed in the introduction, the Zwerhau (I’ll call it “Zwer” for short) is super useful. Why? The Zwer has several advantages going for it:

• The Zwer can quickly and easily switch sides, switch targets, and feint
• The natural end position of a Zwer is the natural starting position for a Zwer on the other side, so they chain together well
• The Zwer (and other cuts using the same mechanic) can be made while keeping the guard of the sword high and/or in front of you, which gives you a certain amount of cover
• The Zwer can be done effectively at a closer distance than most cuts, giving you a good attack at medium and medium-close distance

The Zwer also has some disadvantages:

• The Zwer is a technically demanding cut
  • If the fencer transitions from one grip to another, the grip change introduces complexity
    • Most people find it non-trivially difficult to smoothly change between a conventional grip and a thumb grip while fencing
    • A lot of people deal with this problem by fencing exclusively from a thumb grip when they plan to use a Zwer-style cut, shifting grips only when out of distance
  • It is easy to have poor edge-alignment with the Zwer
    • The weird cutting planes of the Zwer-mechanic introduce complexity to the cut
    • Especially the non-dominant side Zwer often hits with the flat of the blade
    • The Zwer is generally considered a challenging cut in cutting competitions
  • It is easy to get the body mechanics of the Zwer wrong
    • People with little experience with this cutting mechanic can easily make the cut in a way that puts undue stress on their joints
    • Power generation for the non-dominant side Zwer is trickier than for a normal cut, as the act of crossing your own arms sort of “gets in the way” of the cut
  • Everything is more difficult under pressure, so these problems tend to be exaggerated in high-stress situations
    • You can find tournament footage of even very experienced, very skilled fencers messing up their Zwer
    • Most people find that protective gear like heavy gloves and thick jackets make doing the Zwer more difficult
• The Zwer has less reach than a normal cut
  • This is actually an advantage at medium/close range, however

I want to emphasize that these disadvantages are by no means insurmountable.

• There are plenty of fencers who can consistently do a good Zwer under pressure
• Even a bad Zwer to the side of the head can mess you up if you’re not wearing a helmet
  • a powerful Zwer to the temple hurts and it’s easy to do a powerful Zwer; I wouldn’t want my bare head to get hit with one even with the flat of the sword

The Zwer is undeniably extremely useful – but did Fiore do it?

Arguments for: “Yes, Fiore did the Zwerhau“

1: Mezzani can be Zwerhäue

Fiore explicitly outlines attacks with the sword in two of the four surviving manuscripts: the Getty and the Pisani-Dossi. In the Pisani-Dossi he describes the mezzani, the middle blows, as follows:

“We middle blows, mezzani, go thwarting, from the knee and above we go wounding. And we beat the thrusts out of the way and, redoubling the blow, striking is our deal. And if we of the middle blow enter cleaving, we waste many people with such blows.”

– Fiore de’i Liberi; description of he mezzani, Pisani-Dossi-MS

Although the text states that mezzani can attack anywhere between the knee and the head, the diagrams accompanying the text show the trajectory near the head, which is also the primary target of the Zwerhau (and the Zwerhau can also attack lower targets too).

Looking at the tactical advice offered in the descriptions, we see that mezzani can be used for the following purposes:

• thwarting
• wounding (targets between the knee and the head)
• redoubling blows
• striking
• cleaving

Everything listed here could equally be said of the Zwerhau.

In the Getty, Fiore writes that forehand mezzani use the true edge and backhand mezzani use the false edge. However, the Zwer is most ergonomically made with the short edge (that is, the false edge) from the dominant side (from the right for a right-hander) and with the long edge from the non-dominant side – exactly the opposite of how Fiore recommends we perform a mezzano. Nevertheless, there are various ways to get around this problem. For example, by…

1. Arguing that this comment isn’t a technical instruction, but a definition
   • If you hold a sword in the most natural, instinctive way and wave it horizontally in front of you, your forehand motion leads with the true edge and your backhand motion leads with the false edge
   • Now you know what “true” and “false” edge mean, so when Fiore uses those terms in other contexts later, you know what he means
2. Arguing that “forehand” and “backhand” should be interpreted as referring to the literal motion of the arm, not the side from which the action originates
   • While holding the sword in the thumb grip above one’s head, thumb facing down, a “backhand” strike is a strike from the dominant side (right for right-handers) and done with the false edge, and a “forehand” strike is a strike from the non-dominant side (left for right-handers) and strikes with the true edge
   • While holding the sword in the exact same thumb grip but below shoulder height, thumb facing up, a “backhand” strike is a strike from the non-dominant side (left for right-handers) and done with the false edge, and a “forehand” strike is a strike from the dominant side (right for right-handers) and strikes with the true edge
   • Thus, “forehand strike” is not synonymous with “strike from the dominant side”
   • Counterargument: This is a linguistic argument that can be discredited by looking at the usage of the words in the text. The words that Fiore uses (riverso and mandritto) could be translated as “backhand” and “forehand”, but in terms of usage are more closely analogous to the words “port” and “starboard” which clearly refer to sides. The use of mandritto and riverso to refer to the manner of the blow rather than the side from which the blow originates is not attested.
3. Holding the sword differently so that we can make a Zwerhau-like action while remaining true to the text in the Getty
4. Arguing that Fiore’s comment simply doesn’t apply to all mezzani

2: Fiore was probably aware of the possibility of cutting in the manner of a Zwerhau, and the Zwerhau is good, therefore Fiore would have used it

The Zwerhau is one of the so called “verborgene Hiebe” (“hidden strikes”) or “Meisterhäue” (“master cuts”). From those names, one might think that perhaps these strikes were secret techniques that only a handful of masters had discovered and so Fiore might simply not have known about them.

However, even a person with no experience fencing will “invent” the Zwerhau cutting mechanic (or something very similar) if they play around with a stick long enough. I have witnessed beginners in longsword fencing use a Zwerhau-like cut instinctively during free-play without having been taught it before. The idea that Fiore could have learned fencing over several decades and never encountered the concept of “cross and uncross your arms while holding the sword over your head with the flat of the blade facing the ground” seems absurd. Therefore, Fiore probably knew that it was possible to do something like a Zwerhau.

3: Fiore shows some stuff that somewhat resembles a Zwerhau either mechanically or tactically

For example, Fiore does explicitly describe:

1. Lifting the sword above your head while in Posta di Donna (see the description of Posta di Donna)
2. Throwing a mezzano to block an incoming strike (see the 18th Stretto play)
3. Throwing a high mezzano to the opponent’s head and switching to the other side (see the Punta Falsa)

None of these are a Zwerhau, but they demonstrate a familiarity with similar movements and tactical applications.

4: There is nothing in Fiore’s text that precludes the Zwerhau

Well, that bit about how mandritti mezzani use the true edge and riversi mezzani use the false edge does directly contradict the Zwerhau mechanic. But other than that…

Arguments against: “No, Fiore didn’t do the Zwerhau“

1: The Zwerhau is a mezzano, but done in a way that directly contradicts Fiore’s instructions for the mezzano

In the Getty, Fiore writes that mandritti mezzani use the true edge and riversi mezzani use the false edge. However, the Zwer is most ergonomically made with the short edge from the dominant side (from the right for a right-hander) and with the long edge from the non-dominant side – exactly the opposite of how Fiore recommends we perform a mezzano. We can get around this problem by…

1. Arguing that this comment isn’t a technical instruction, but the definition of the true and false edges
   • …which is possible, but then why does Fiore say it in a way that sounds like a technical instruction and not like a definition? Is this even a good way of defining the true and false edges? (It seems to me that it would be less ambiguous to define them in relation to a vertical cut, for example)
2. Arguing that forehand and backhand should be interpreted as referring to the literal motion of the arm not the side from which the action originates
   • …but, to my knowledge, there aren’t any examples of Italian fencing sources that use the words mandritto and riverso in this way. Everywhere else, mandritto and riverso refer to the side from which the action originates, so Fiore would have to be the exception for this argument to be valid.
3. Holding the sword differently so that we can make a Zwerhau-like action while remaining true to the text in the Getty
   • …but this results in a more awkward body mechanic for a cut that is already technically challenging. Which is more likely: that Fiore would insist on a more difficult mechanic for an already technically demanding cut, or that Fiore didn’t have the Zwer-mechanic in mind when he wrote this text?
4. Arguing that Fiore’s comment here doesn’t apply to all mezzani
   • …which might be true, but doesn’t have textual support and is therefore simply speculation (whereas the opposite opinion does at least have some textual support)

2: When Fiore mentions using the false edge, it is always a strike from the non-dominant side

Fiore never explicitly discusses attacks from above with the false edge nor does he ever mention an attack from the mandritto (forehand) side with the false edge. By contrast, every time Fiore does explicitly tell us to use the false edge, the action shown is originating from the non-dominant side. Fiore’s silence on the subject of false edge cuts from above and from the mandritto side is not proof that these techniques are absent from his art, but it is evidence that Fiore didn’t consider them worth mentioning, which is at odds with the idea that Fiore considered such techniques to be important.

3: The “secret sauce” of the Zwerhau is in its tactical application and this is absent in Fiore’s texts

Sources that explicitly have the Zwer detail the tactical significance of this strike, when and why one might employ it, and discuss follow-up actions from binds resulting from it. Fiore neither discusses these topics nor does he depict situations that are likely to emerge from a hands-high lateral strike (except the Punta Falsa in which a lateral strike to the head is used, but only to provoke a reaction). Although Fiore does not explicitly say that such binds are the norm, the binds Fiore illustrates are depicted around chest or waist height, not above the head. Fiore does mention pushing the opponent’s hands high in one play of the longsword, but this is to facilitate a grapple, not because the initial strike ended with the arms high. If the Zwerhau were a typical technique in Fiore’s toolbox, we would expect him to discuss over-the-head binds more.

4: All actions that Fiore shows that resemble a Zwerhau bear only a superficial resemblance to it

The actions listed unter item 3 in the “pro” section do share some mechanical and tactical characteristics with the Zwerhau, but are also clearly very different actions. We cannot derive a Zwer from these actions.

5: Even if nothing in Fiore’s text precludes the Zwerhau, that is not evidence that Fiore knew about it or taught it

“It’s not impossible!” is not a good epistemic standard. When we are confronted with uncertainty, the question we need to answer is “What is probable?” not “What is possible?”

My Opinion

I believe that the arguments against the Zwerhau being in Fiore’s system win on the balance.

• I believe Fiore was probably aware of the Zwerhau mechanic (i.e. thumb on flat, hands high, crossing and uncrossing arms)
  • As detailed in the “Pro” arguments above, there is nothing so deeply mysterious or counterintuitive about the Zwerhau as to make it unlikely for a person to discover it on their own and (if his testimony is to be believed) Fiore traveled far and wide and studied fencing for decades making it unlikely that he never encountered the idea.
• However, I do not believe that Fiore taught something like the Zwerhau as part of his fencing system
  • If we did not already know about the Zwerhau from other fencing sources, we would not arrive at the idea of the Zwerhau by reading and interpreting Fiore’s texts
  • There is no need to import the notion of the Zwerhau in order to interpret Fiore’s texts; there is no “Zwerhau-shaped hole” in an interpretation of Fiore that excludes the Zwerhau.

This raises an interesting question:

If Fiore was aware of the Zwerhau mechanic, and the Zwerhau is good, why would he not show it?

There are many hypotheses one could offer to answer this question, all of which are somewhat speculative.

1. Cross-weapon compatibility: Fiore seems to emphasize similar techniques across weapon types and keeping the toolbox of techniques small. The Zwerhau mechanic isn’t really useful with a dagger or a polearm, so maybe Fiore didn’t find it worthwhile to include due to its application being limited only to the sword. By contrast, Fiore’s prescription to use the true edge from the mandritto side and the false edge from the riverso side works well with polearms and the two-handed sword. Fiore might have thought it was better to have one consistent body mechanic across weapon types.
   • Counterargument: Fiore includes a somewhat impractical dagger play in the dagger section (where you pull the opponent’s dagger hand between their own legs to trip them up) where he writes in the accompanying text “Although it is not usual to come to this point in the art, I wanted to show this play as evidence of the completeness of my knowledge”. This suggests that Fiore would include some fringe stuff just to show that he is aware of it.
2. Armour: Fiore seems to emphasize techniques that work well both in and out of armour. He shows some specialization for combat in armour
   (i.e. he sometimes says “You should only do this in armour” or “This technique is better in armour”), but no specialization for combat out of armour (i.e. he never says “You should only do this out of armour” or “This technique is better without armour”). The Zwerhau loses a lot of its usefulness once your opponent is wearing armour, so maybe Fiore thought that it was a good technique for sword fighting without armour, but he wanted to emphasize techniques that work well even if the opponent is wearing armour.
3. Less emphasis on middle measure: Fiore seems to emphasize playing at wide measure where you can wound and escape or entering into close measure where you can control your opponent with grapples. He does not seem to seek out the middle distance where the Zwerhau really sings. Maybe Fiore though the Zwer was good, just not for the strategy he prefers.
4. More emphasis on closing to grapple: Fiore seems to emphasize grapples as follow-ups to middle-range actions, perhaps because he believes the fight won’t end after the first hit or perhaps in order to train habits that will serve the student well in armoured combat (where a single hit is less likely to wound). Perhaps he thought that it was more important to gain control in a grapple than to engage in bladework at the middle distance and the Zwer did not harmonize with this strategy.
5. Preference against entering with high arms: Fiore seems not to like actions that end with the arms high – perhaps because the undersides of the arms and the armpits are weak points in most suits of armour and because raised arms can be taken advantage of in grappling. Perhaps he excludes the Zwerhau because it keeps the arms high at medium/close distance and Fiore thought that was a bad habit for the context he had in mind.
6. Too complicated: Fiore seems to emphasize gross body movements and instinctive bladework. He never describes changing grips during the fight, and – frankly – his techniques with the sword strike me as pretty vanilla. This leads me to think that Fiore preferred a very technically simple repertoire of actions. As mentioned above, the Zwerhau is easy to do badly. Maybe Fiore thought that the Zwerhau was really good for fencing, but too technically demanding for the target audience or context he had in mind.
7. Fiore didn’t think of the Zwer as something distinct: Maybe Fiore’s text is simply a set of illustrative examples designed to communicate what Fiore thought was most important for the knightly art of combat and shouldn’t be understood as prescriptive in any way. Maybe Fiore expected that once the learner is familiar with how to fight, the learner will simply do what is necessary to protect themselves and offend the opponent in the moment and sometimes this will automatically result in what we today would call a Zwerhau, but Fiore didn’t think of that action as being a distinctive kind of action and so he didn’t present it as such.

If I had to venture a guess, I would say that Fiore’s target audience imagined a “real fight” as a fight in armour and this culture influenced how Fiore wrote about fighting. Nevertheless, all of this is speculative and there are reasonable arguments to be made against all of these hypotheses.

Motivated Reasoning: Why are we even asking this question?

“…the motivation to arrive at particular conclusions enhances use of [those beliefs and strategies] that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion. There is considerable evidence that people are more likely to arrive at conclusions that they want to arrive at, but their ability to do so is constrained by their ability to construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these conclusions.”

– Kunda, Z. (1990), The case for motivated reasoning

If we want to understand Fiore, why are we talking about a technique from a completely different fencing tradition? The Zwerhau is not a missing puzzle piece that we need to get a full picture of Fiore’s art, so why are we asking whether this puzzle piece fits in the first place?

Well, because we historical fencers have multiple competing goals for our fencing:

• One goal of historical fencing is to fence in the manner of an actual evidenced historical tradition
• Another goal of historical fencing is to fence effectively and the Zwerhau is undoubtably a really good technique in the our contemporary longsword fencing meta

It would be nice if there were no tension between these goals. If we can convince ourselves that “Fiore totally did <insert your favorite technique here>”, then that resolves the tension.

By contrast, if <insert your favorite technique here> is not a tool in Fiore’s toolbox, a fencer who fences according to Fiore is missing out on that tool.

If I fence according to Fiore, but I also like using techniques that are clearly not evidenced in Fiore’s works, does this make my fencing “unhistorical”? What if those “ahistorical” techniques are a core part of the competitive longsword fencing meta? Does this mean that I have to choose between being an effective fencer and being a historical fencer?

I won’t offer an answer to these questions, but I do believe it is important to be intellectually honest about what we’re doing. If you’re doing one or more of the following, you’re probably not being intellectually honest:

• Starting with a desired conclusion, then looking for evidence to support that conclusion
• Arguing about what is possible rather than assessing what is probable
• Making up a story that accommodates problems rather than accepting that problems represent evidence against a hypothesis

If my goal is to use historical sources to become a better fencer in the contemporary longsword fencing environment, that may lead me down a different path from someone who wants to embody a specific historical fencing tradition.