88. Sword-Play.—XIII. Century.
These combats bore some resemblance to those performed by the Roman gladiators; for which reason the jugglers were sometimes called gladiators by the early historians; "Mimi, salii, balatrones, æmiliani, gladiatores, palæstritæ—et tota joculatorum copia, &c." [813] It also appears that they instituted schools for teaching the art of defence in various parts of the kingdom, and especially in the city of London, where the conduct of the masters and their scholars became so outrageous, that it was necessary for the legislature to interfere; and, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward I. A. D. 1286, an edict was published by royal authority, which prohibited the keeping of such schools, and the public exercise of swords and bucklers, "eskirmer au bokeler."
It is said that many robberies and murders were committed by these gladiators; hence the appellation of swash buckler, a term of reproach, "from swashing," says Fuller, "and making a noise on the buckler, and ruffian, which is the same as a swaggerer. West Smithfield was formerly called Ruffian Hall, where such men usually met, casually or otherwise, to try masteries with sword and buckler; more were frightened than hurt, hurt than killed therewith, it being accounted unmanly to strike beneath the knee. But since that desperate traytor Rowland Yorke first used thrusting with rapiers, swords and bucklers are disused." [814] Jonson, in the induction to his play called Bartholomew Fair, speaks of "the sword and buckler age in Smithfield;" and again, in the Two Angry Women of Abbington, a comedy by Henry Porter, printed in 1599, we have the following observation: "Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use; I am sorry for it; I shall never see good manhood again; if it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man, that is, a courageous man, and a good sword and buckler man, will be spitted like a cat or a rabbit."
Such exercises had been practised by day and by night, to the great annoyance of the peaceable inhabitants of the city; and by the statute of Edward I. the offenders were subjected to the punishment of imprisonment for forty days; to which was afterwards added a mulct of forty marks. [815] These restrictions certainly admitted of some exceptions; for it is well known that there were seminaries at London, wherein youth were taught the use of arms, held publicly after the institution of this ordinance. "The art of defence and use of weapons," says Stow, "is taught by professed masters;" [816] but these most probably were licensed by the city governors, and under their control. The author of a description of the colleges and schools in and about London, which he calls "The Third University of England," printed in black letter in 1615, says, "In this city," meaning London, "there be manie professors of the science of defence, and very skilful men in teaching the best and most offensive and defensive use of verie many weapons, as of the long-sword, back-sword, rapier and dagger, single rapier, the case of rapiers, the sword and buckler, or targate, the pike, the halberd, the long-staff, and others. [817] Henry VIII. made the professors of this art a company, or corporation, by letters patent, wherein the art is intituled The Noble Science of Defence. The manner of the proceeding of our fencers in their schools is this; first, they which desire to be taught at their admission are called scholars, and, as they profit, they take degrees, and proceed to be provosts of defence; and that must be wonne by public trial of their proficiencie and of their skill at certain weapons, which they call prizes, and in the presence and view of many hundreds of people; and, at their next and last prize well and sufficiently performed, they do proceed to be maisters of the science of defence, or maisters of fence, as we commonly call them." The king ordained, "that none, but such as have thus orderly proceeded by public act and trial, and have the approbation of the principal masters of their company, may profess or teach this art of defence publicly in any part of England." Stow informs us, that the young Londoners, on holidays, after the evening prayer, were permitted to exercise themselves with their wasters and bucklers before their masters' doors. This pastime, I imagine, is represented by a drawing in the Bodleian MS. [818] from whence the annexed engraving is taken, where clubs or bludgeons are substituted for swords.
89. Buckler-Play.—XIV. Century.
The bear-gardens were the usual places appropriated by the masters of defence for public trials of skill. These exhibitions were outrageous to humanity, and only fitted for the amusement of ferocious minds; it is therefore astonishing that they should have been frequented by females; for, who could imagine that the slicing of the flesh from a man's cheek, the scarifying of his arms, or laying the calves of his legs upon his heels, were spectacles calculated to delight the fair sex, or sufficiently attractive to command their presence. The manner of performing a prize-combat, at the commencement of the last century, is well described, and the practice justly reprobated, in one of the papers belonging to the Spectator: [819] but these exhibitions were not without their trickery, as we may find by another paper [820] in the same volume.
XXIII.—PUBLIC SWORD-PLAY.
The following show-bill, dated July 13, 1709, contains the common mode of challenging and answering used by the combatants; it is selected from a great number now lying before me; [821] and, being rather curious, I shall transcribe it without making any alteration.