Swordplay

Tucked away in the Newberry Library of Chicago is an anonymous manuscript entitled Schermkunst ("Art of Swordsmanship"), whose brief text and exquisite watercolours details fencing with the single sword, rapier and dagger, rapier and buckler, halberd, and full pike. Beyond its artistic charms, however, this little book of 1595 is one of the oldest known martial arts treatises from the Low Countri...