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Old 28th June 2009, 02:09 AM   #10
Chris Evans
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 661
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Hi Jim,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Nicely done on the Castle reference Chris, thank you!
And thanks to you too for your kind words and initiating this thread.

Quote:
It seems you are extremely well versed in fencing, are you a fencer yourself? I noticed your reference to Angelo in addition to the Castle work.
Not really, though I did learn a bit of the military sabre-sword, as used by infantry, in my teen years, but that was using wands and doing only the basic moves over and over plus some extremely simple pre-arranged exchanges with a partner. No safety gear of any kind and rough or free play was forbidden. Boring and simple stuff at best. However, ever since then I have had a life long armchair fascination with swordplay.

BTW. A bit more information on Spadroons from E.D.Morton:

"...... It was slightly adapted, by the British Army, for use as the standard infantry officer's sword, but proving grossly inefficient in the Peninsular War (1808-14), became the subject of many complaints."

I also had a very hasty look in Norman's and whilst he devotes some space to this weapon, I could not find an answer to the perplexing numbers of balls on the knuckle guards and their curatorial significance.

Cheers
Chris
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