Musings on Priority and its Relevance to Historical Fencing
The ‘Priority’ system, i.e. the (apparently complex) rules for who gets a disputed point, is of course well entrenched in ‘sport’ fencing. It is used in modern foil and sabre fencing, but not epee, and has contributed in part to the present form the sport takes. The majority of historical fencers, I am sure, would declare that Priority has no place in historical fencing. But does it?
If we outright reject the knee-jerk reaction of some historical fencers that ‘it comes from sport fencing and is therefore bad’ and consider the concept on its merits and historicity, then the answer has to be: yes and no…. and also yes, sort of.
The first yes is because Priority undeniably exists within the body of knowledge used in historical fencing. Alfred Hutton’s sabre is one of the most widely-read of the historical treatises, and few would argue that the military sabre is a historical fencing discipline. Yet Hutton’s own work includes a large segment on foil fencing. Indeed, he advocates that a new fencer should study the foil for several months before moving on to the military sabre.
This is not the foil of modern times, of course; it is the classical weapon whose body of technique is derived from historical smallsword fencing. However, that body of technique is still the basis for modern foil fencing. Competition-specific techniques such as flicked hits are an addition to this groundwork but not a replacement – go to a good sport fencing class and you will be taught the same strokes and parries that Hutton described in the 1880s.
More importantly, if Hutton’s sabre qualifies as historical fencing then his foil must too – it’s in the same book. Since we typically define a historical martial art as one that is described in a recognised treatise, then classical foil is in fact HEMA. Hutton describes a set of rules for judging who should receive a disputed hit, which is probably geared to the foil but is not explicitly stated as such. It appears in the back of a book mainly about the sabre so might have been intended as a universal system. Whatever the weapon in use, this is recognisably the same Priority system that is still used today, though its applications have changed over time.
So yes, Priority has a place in historical fencing. But no, it doesn’t. Not as such, anyway.
Priority was developed at a time when fencing had become almost solely a recreational exercise. With nothing at stake except defeat in the salle, fencers could become reckless. A panicked or cynical counterattack might force a double hit that did not make the fencer’s position any worse – whether doubles annul both hits or count for both fencers, a double does not leave the fencer any worse off in terms of winning the present bout. This has been used to cynically ‘game the system’ since time immemorial.
Priority was developed to enforce good fencing and to ensure that bad fencing was not rewarded. It can look very complex but at its heart is a very simple and sound principle. Priority is established when one fencer makes a threatening action with the weapon. Once Priority (or ‘a line’) is established, the opponent cannot score unless they take Priority away from the opponent or he/she relinquishes it.
Priority is taken by making the opponent’s weapon cease to threaten you, e.g. by parrying it so that it is no longer moving directly toward you, and is relinquished by ceasing to threaten the opponent, e.g. by withdrawing the sword arm or taking the point off target - which by definition happens when the fencer thrusts and misses. Additional rules have been added about certain foot actions breaking Priority, largely to prevent a fencer just charging forward with arm outstretched, but the principle is very simple.
Establishing Priority requires making a threatening action with the weapon, typically defined as ‘a forward motion of the blade relative to the body, threatening the target’, and once this is done the opponent cannot score by simply counterattacking unless he avoids being hit by some means. Likewise, if a fencer thrusts and misses or is parried, and his opponent then makes an offensive action, he cannot score by simply remising the attack. Instead he must defend himself with a parry or perhaps a void.
So Priority exists to ensure that bad fencing is not rewarded and to promote good, clean bladework. If attacked, you must defend or else your ill-advised counterattack will not score. If parried or your attack fails, shoving a remise in regardless avails you naught. Instead you must attack and defend as you would in a fight with sharps.
Priority thus serves a useful purpose, though the advent of electronic judging has muddied the waters in recent years. Since it is no longer necessary to thrust directly at the opponent but merely to touch him with the tip of the weapon, a range of additional actions have become standard, and interpreting which of these is the valid attack can be difficult. Priority remains an elegant and effective concept however, and when properly applied it forces a measure of ‘as if with sharps’ on a bout.
Is this a useful concept in historical fencing? Possibly. Priority as such is a definite ‘no’ for historical freeplay and tournaments as fencers can end up playing to the priority rules rather than fencing ‘as if with sharps’. Besides, a rigid set of rules can be ‘gamed’ by fencers who are chasing medals or who simply do not get the point of historical fencing. But then so can a lack of Priority rules.
I have participated in historical fencing tournaments where some of the fencers paid no regard to fencing as if with sharps, instead simply going all-out to land a hit no matter what. The end result was hugely over-committed attacks combining lousy technique with a recklessness that simply would not happen in a fight with sharps. Such an attack has a better chance of landing a hit than a more reserved one – at least some of the time – but there is no chance of defending if parried. So the fencer does not even try, instead ramming a hard remise in if the original attack fails.
The result of this behaviour – in addition to needlessly hurting and annoying opponents – is that most of the time the reckless fencer either lands the initial hit or forces a double, creating a situation where their position improves or at least gets no worse. It is very difficult to riposte without being hit against such an opponent, unless you engage in the same sort of rushing back and forth. Thus this behaviour drives out historical technique in favour of something that looks remarkably like what most historical fencers would describe as the unacceptable side of modern ‘sport’ fencing. The end result is the creation of some kind of ‘sport rapier’ which has no real basis in historical fencing. It might be fun, but it’s not swordplay any more.
As a slight aside, my disaffection with sport fencing began when match-wining technique evolved from classical parry-and-riposte work to a well-timed overcommitted attack of the athletic rush-and-snipe sort. This is quite a recent thing – within my own fencing career – and was the primary factor in causing me to go over to the historical fencing community. The behaviour of ‘that kind of fencer’ in historical tournaments concerns me for this reason – I’ve seen where this leads and I would prefer it not to happen in historical fencing.
So a Priority system as such is undesirable as it can be ‘gamed’ or can lead to fencers playing to the rules rather than fencing as if with sharps. But a lack of any system to prevent bad fencing (e.g. committing suicide-by-remise rather than parrying) from being rewarded can also be abused by those whose desire to winwinwin outweighs their respect for their opponent and the historical sword arts.
So, Priority as such should not be part of historical fencing, though it can be an interesting exercise to fence a bout under strict Priority rules. However, some system is needed to prevent cynical or just plain incompetent fencers winning medals through reckless aggression. Nobody would behave like that if facing a sharp weapon (not for long, anyway!) but when fencing with blunts there is nothing at stake except a defeat in the salle, and winning through heavy-handedness and over-committed aggression takes a lot less skill than using the art of defence to defeat an opponent.
Priority was invented to deal with a situation where fencers no longer fenced as if with sharps and tended to treat the whole matter as an exercise in landing a hit no matter what. This is the same situation that exists today in some historical fencing groups, and it is tempting to wonder if Priority is the answer. But no, it is not. Priority leads to a different set of problems which we also want to avoid.
So what can be done, so that reckless any-old-how-point-getting does not drive out historical technique? It would be nice to think that historical fencing instructors would stomp on the practice and instead promote authentic historical technique. But that is clearly not the case. Indeed, some schools actively teach what might be termed sport-rapier (or sport-whatever) and seem to think that winning a medal in a historical fencing tournament by abandoning all pretence of historical fencing technique somehow validates the approach.
The danger is that if this behaviour wins medals it will be adopted by more schools, and eventually historical fencing will go down the same road that sport fencing did. I’ve been there once; I don’t want to see it again. However, finding an answer that can be written as a hard-and-fast rule is difficult and may run contrary to the underlying ethos of historical fencing. It may be better to rely on marshals to interpret a situation in the light of historical fencing ethos, and to build a culture where ‘sport-rapier’ is rejected in favour of authentic historical technique or at least a situation where fencers are trying to fence as they would against a live blade.
A policy of not rewarding suicide can work, i.e. if the marshals think a fencer has chosen to remise rather than parry in order to force a double, the remise is not scored. This is unrealistic in some ways but it removes an avenue for exploiting the tournament situation. If it does not win medals, the sport-rapierists will stop doing it.
This is not Priority as such; there is no hard and fast rule about what is valid and what is not. Instead what is required is a robust adherence to the principles of fighting with sharp swords. Priority was an attempt to create this through a formal rule set. We can learn from the experiment and try our own approach, which might be summed up as ‘based on some of the principles informing the Priority system, filtered through the judgement of the marshals’.
So, no... Priority as such has no place in historical fencing. However, there is much to be learned from it and from the underlying intent. We can avoid historical fencing being bastardised in the same way that sport fencing was, and maybe doing so should be a… wait for it… priority.
At the very least, we must at least be aware that many of those who are most disparaging about sport fencing are entirely happy to engage in the sort of behaviour that resulted in sport fencing becoming what they despise. If our goal is to land hits by any means without regard to the ‘reality’ of swordplay – which is exactly what happened in sport fencing – then we are headed in exactly the same direction as sport fencing went. If that’s your thing then maybe epee competition is for you. It has no Priority rules and retains more of the spirit of traditional swordplay than foil or epee. Sport-rapierists would find it strangely familiar.
Those of us who prefer to preserve the integrity of historical swordplay need to find an answer to the hit-by-any-means approach. The best prospect seems to be a willingness to annul anything that seems to be a deliberately suicidal hit and to insist on fencing that at least attempts to be historically authentic. A difficult and lofty goal perhaps, but something worth working towards. If you can only win tournament medals by fencing as if with a sharp blade then that’s what will happen.
That seems to be something worth pursuing.
And now, the obligatory plug….
For an examination of fight psychology and a nice collection of unarmed combat techniques (and what makes them work) we have Fight to Win
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fight-Win-Simple-Techniques-That/dp/080484268X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464106571&sr=1-4&keywords=fight+to+win
For a brief examination of European swords and swordsmanship, we have Cut and Thrust
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cut-Thrust-European-Swords-Swordsmanship/dp/1445639661?ie=UTF8&keywords=cut%20and%20thrust%20amberley&qid=1411981247&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
For a guide to putting holes in people with a smallsword, we have A Modern Manual of Smallsword Fencing
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Manual-Smallsword-Fencing-ebook/dp/B00TIWMIYM?ie=UTF8&ref_=zg_bs_362862031_47
And drawing upon my 27 years of coaching experience we have The Historical Fencing Master’s Companion
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fencing-Masters-Companion-Teaching-Historical-ebook/dp/B016PYNFRY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1464106654&sr=1-1&keywords=fencing+masters+companion
If we outright reject the knee-jerk reaction of some historical fencers that ‘it comes from sport fencing and is therefore bad’ and consider the concept on its merits and historicity, then the answer has to be: yes and no…. and also yes, sort of.
The first yes is because Priority undeniably exists within the body of knowledge used in historical fencing. Alfred Hutton’s sabre is one of the most widely-read of the historical treatises, and few would argue that the military sabre is a historical fencing discipline. Yet Hutton’s own work includes a large segment on foil fencing. Indeed, he advocates that a new fencer should study the foil for several months before moving on to the military sabre.
This is not the foil of modern times, of course; it is the classical weapon whose body of technique is derived from historical smallsword fencing. However, that body of technique is still the basis for modern foil fencing. Competition-specific techniques such as flicked hits are an addition to this groundwork but not a replacement – go to a good sport fencing class and you will be taught the same strokes and parries that Hutton described in the 1880s.
More importantly, if Hutton’s sabre qualifies as historical fencing then his foil must too – it’s in the same book. Since we typically define a historical martial art as one that is described in a recognised treatise, then classical foil is in fact HEMA. Hutton describes a set of rules for judging who should receive a disputed hit, which is probably geared to the foil but is not explicitly stated as such. It appears in the back of a book mainly about the sabre so might have been intended as a universal system. Whatever the weapon in use, this is recognisably the same Priority system that is still used today, though its applications have changed over time.
So yes, Priority has a place in historical fencing. But no, it doesn’t. Not as such, anyway.
Priority was developed at a time when fencing had become almost solely a recreational exercise. With nothing at stake except defeat in the salle, fencers could become reckless. A panicked or cynical counterattack might force a double hit that did not make the fencer’s position any worse – whether doubles annul both hits or count for both fencers, a double does not leave the fencer any worse off in terms of winning the present bout. This has been used to cynically ‘game the system’ since time immemorial.
Priority was developed to enforce good fencing and to ensure that bad fencing was not rewarded. It can look very complex but at its heart is a very simple and sound principle. Priority is established when one fencer makes a threatening action with the weapon. Once Priority (or ‘a line’) is established, the opponent cannot score unless they take Priority away from the opponent or he/she relinquishes it.
Priority is taken by making the opponent’s weapon cease to threaten you, e.g. by parrying it so that it is no longer moving directly toward you, and is relinquished by ceasing to threaten the opponent, e.g. by withdrawing the sword arm or taking the point off target - which by definition happens when the fencer thrusts and misses. Additional rules have been added about certain foot actions breaking Priority, largely to prevent a fencer just charging forward with arm outstretched, but the principle is very simple.
Establishing Priority requires making a threatening action with the weapon, typically defined as ‘a forward motion of the blade relative to the body, threatening the target’, and once this is done the opponent cannot score by simply counterattacking unless he avoids being hit by some means. Likewise, if a fencer thrusts and misses or is parried, and his opponent then makes an offensive action, he cannot score by simply remising the attack. Instead he must defend himself with a parry or perhaps a void.
So Priority exists to ensure that bad fencing is not rewarded and to promote good, clean bladework. If attacked, you must defend or else your ill-advised counterattack will not score. If parried or your attack fails, shoving a remise in regardless avails you naught. Instead you must attack and defend as you would in a fight with sharps.
Priority thus serves a useful purpose, though the advent of electronic judging has muddied the waters in recent years. Since it is no longer necessary to thrust directly at the opponent but merely to touch him with the tip of the weapon, a range of additional actions have become standard, and interpreting which of these is the valid attack can be difficult. Priority remains an elegant and effective concept however, and when properly applied it forces a measure of ‘as if with sharps’ on a bout.
Is this a useful concept in historical fencing? Possibly. Priority as such is a definite ‘no’ for historical freeplay and tournaments as fencers can end up playing to the priority rules rather than fencing ‘as if with sharps’. Besides, a rigid set of rules can be ‘gamed’ by fencers who are chasing medals or who simply do not get the point of historical fencing. But then so can a lack of Priority rules.
I have participated in historical fencing tournaments where some of the fencers paid no regard to fencing as if with sharps, instead simply going all-out to land a hit no matter what. The end result was hugely over-committed attacks combining lousy technique with a recklessness that simply would not happen in a fight with sharps. Such an attack has a better chance of landing a hit than a more reserved one – at least some of the time – but there is no chance of defending if parried. So the fencer does not even try, instead ramming a hard remise in if the original attack fails.
The result of this behaviour – in addition to needlessly hurting and annoying opponents – is that most of the time the reckless fencer either lands the initial hit or forces a double, creating a situation where their position improves or at least gets no worse. It is very difficult to riposte without being hit against such an opponent, unless you engage in the same sort of rushing back and forth. Thus this behaviour drives out historical technique in favour of something that looks remarkably like what most historical fencers would describe as the unacceptable side of modern ‘sport’ fencing. The end result is the creation of some kind of ‘sport rapier’ which has no real basis in historical fencing. It might be fun, but it’s not swordplay any more.
As a slight aside, my disaffection with sport fencing began when match-wining technique evolved from classical parry-and-riposte work to a well-timed overcommitted attack of the athletic rush-and-snipe sort. This is quite a recent thing – within my own fencing career – and was the primary factor in causing me to go over to the historical fencing community. The behaviour of ‘that kind of fencer’ in historical tournaments concerns me for this reason – I’ve seen where this leads and I would prefer it not to happen in historical fencing.
So a Priority system as such is undesirable as it can be ‘gamed’ or can lead to fencers playing to the rules rather than fencing as if with sharps. But a lack of any system to prevent bad fencing (e.g. committing suicide-by-remise rather than parrying) from being rewarded can also be abused by those whose desire to winwinwin outweighs their respect for their opponent and the historical sword arts.
So, Priority as such should not be part of historical fencing, though it can be an interesting exercise to fence a bout under strict Priority rules. However, some system is needed to prevent cynical or just plain incompetent fencers winning medals through reckless aggression. Nobody would behave like that if facing a sharp weapon (not for long, anyway!) but when fencing with blunts there is nothing at stake except a defeat in the salle, and winning through heavy-handedness and over-committed aggression takes a lot less skill than using the art of defence to defeat an opponent.
Priority was invented to deal with a situation where fencers no longer fenced as if with sharps and tended to treat the whole matter as an exercise in landing a hit no matter what. This is the same situation that exists today in some historical fencing groups, and it is tempting to wonder if Priority is the answer. But no, it is not. Priority leads to a different set of problems which we also want to avoid.
So what can be done, so that reckless any-old-how-point-getting does not drive out historical technique? It would be nice to think that historical fencing instructors would stomp on the practice and instead promote authentic historical technique. But that is clearly not the case. Indeed, some schools actively teach what might be termed sport-rapier (or sport-whatever) and seem to think that winning a medal in a historical fencing tournament by abandoning all pretence of historical fencing technique somehow validates the approach.
The danger is that if this behaviour wins medals it will be adopted by more schools, and eventually historical fencing will go down the same road that sport fencing did. I’ve been there once; I don’t want to see it again. However, finding an answer that can be written as a hard-and-fast rule is difficult and may run contrary to the underlying ethos of historical fencing. It may be better to rely on marshals to interpret a situation in the light of historical fencing ethos, and to build a culture where ‘sport-rapier’ is rejected in favour of authentic historical technique or at least a situation where fencers are trying to fence as they would against a live blade.
A policy of not rewarding suicide can work, i.e. if the marshals think a fencer has chosen to remise rather than parry in order to force a double, the remise is not scored. This is unrealistic in some ways but it removes an avenue for exploiting the tournament situation. If it does not win medals, the sport-rapierists will stop doing it.
This is not Priority as such; there is no hard and fast rule about what is valid and what is not. Instead what is required is a robust adherence to the principles of fighting with sharp swords. Priority was an attempt to create this through a formal rule set. We can learn from the experiment and try our own approach, which might be summed up as ‘based on some of the principles informing the Priority system, filtered through the judgement of the marshals’.
So, no... Priority as such has no place in historical fencing. However, there is much to be learned from it and from the underlying intent. We can avoid historical fencing being bastardised in the same way that sport fencing was, and maybe doing so should be a… wait for it… priority.
At the very least, we must at least be aware that many of those who are most disparaging about sport fencing are entirely happy to engage in the sort of behaviour that resulted in sport fencing becoming what they despise. If our goal is to land hits by any means without regard to the ‘reality’ of swordplay – which is exactly what happened in sport fencing – then we are headed in exactly the same direction as sport fencing went. If that’s your thing then maybe epee competition is for you. It has no Priority rules and retains more of the spirit of traditional swordplay than foil or epee. Sport-rapierists would find it strangely familiar.
Those of us who prefer to preserve the integrity of historical swordplay need to find an answer to the hit-by-any-means approach. The best prospect seems to be a willingness to annul anything that seems to be a deliberately suicidal hit and to insist on fencing that at least attempts to be historically authentic. A difficult and lofty goal perhaps, but something worth working towards. If you can only win tournament medals by fencing as if with a sharp blade then that’s what will happen.
That seems to be something worth pursuing.
And now, the obligatory plug….
For an examination of fight psychology and a nice collection of unarmed combat techniques (and what makes them work) we have Fight to Win
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fight-Win-Simple-Techniques-That/dp/080484268X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464106571&sr=1-4&keywords=fight+to+win
For a brief examination of European swords and swordsmanship, we have Cut and Thrust
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cut-Thrust-European-Swords-Swordsmanship/dp/1445639661?ie=UTF8&keywords=cut%20and%20thrust%20amberley&qid=1411981247&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
For a guide to putting holes in people with a smallsword, we have A Modern Manual of Smallsword Fencing
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Manual-Smallsword-Fencing-ebook/dp/B00TIWMIYM?ie=UTF8&ref_=zg_bs_362862031_47
And drawing upon my 27 years of coaching experience we have The Historical Fencing Master’s Companion
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fencing-Masters-Companion-Teaching-Historical-ebook/dp/B016PYNFRY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1464106654&sr=1-1&keywords=fencing+masters+companion
