Welcome to swordschool!

Where historical accuracy meets practical training. Learn Historical Martial Arts from world-renowned instructor and pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts Dr Guy Windsor.

Online video courses covering everything from beginners’ techniques to advanced practice. Available both in larger bundles and as individual classes.
A selection of paperbacks, hardcovers and eBooks: some packed with detailed historical information and others designed as workbook courses you can take at your own pace.

Listen to podcast episodes or audiobooks on all your favourite platforms – perfect for aural learners, and to supplement our other resources.

Brush up on your theory and terminology as if by magic with Guy’s fun, tactical and secretly educational duelling card game.

Guy frequently keeps his blog updated with thoughts, challenges, interviews and more!

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latest news - 25 October '24

Hi!

The big news this week is that I have hashed out an arrangement with Freelance Academy Press, publishers of my The Medieval Dagger and The Armizare Vade Mecum, that allows me to sell all versions of these two books on my shopify store. Hurrah!

If you’re not familiar with The Armizare Vade Mecum, it’s a series of mnemonic verses for learning Fiore’s Art of Arms. It began when I was thinking about the verse structure of Fiore’s writing, and noticed that one of the paragraphs on folio 9v has about the right amount of ideas in it for a sonnet. Here’s the prose translation:

I am the noble weapon called dagger, I am very much entwined with the constrained play. And he who knows my malice and my art, of every nuance of armed combat will take good part. And I immediately end my cruel battle, there is no man who can go against me. And who will see me in the feats of arms, I cover and thrust with the wrestling. And I take away his dagger with breaks and binds, and against me no weapons or armour are worth anything.
 
And here’s the sonnet, as laid out by the excellent Adam Velez: