.....There are three known documents dealing with English two-handed sword play before the time of Silver (that is, from the 15th and 16th centuries), all of them notoriously obscure and debatable, and of uncertain date. They are Harleian Ms. 3542 (also known as "Man Yt Wol"), Additional Ms. 39564 ("Ledall"), and Cotton Titus A XXVa fol. 5 r/v.
.....I have retyped these texts with modernized spelling and translation of some of the more archaic words. Please note that I am not a student of early English and some of my choices may be mistaken. Also, you will notice that the modernization does not really improve the situation; the texts are full of obscure technical terms (e.g hauke, quarter, rake). The reason for this is that while the general meaning of most of these terms is known, the specific technique intended is not, and interpretations vary widely. Also, the punctuation runs from dreadful to nonexistent.
.....Over time I have found a few leads on the possible definitions of the various terms, and other analytical information which may be of interest to those who are studying these texts (though it will no doubt be familiar to anyone who has looked into them for some time).
.....Unless further material comes to light giving us solid evidence of the nature of these actions, in my opinion all this is little more than playing at swords and word puzzles. There are simply too many different interpretations which could be drawn from what vague information we have, and the end result is likely to reflect the preferences of the researcher more than the historical facts of English longsword play. I hope to be proven wrong in this.
