A Houston man who became a devotee of edged weapons spent years relearning the fighting skills of European swordsmen.....practiced with everything from 1-1/2 handers and bastard swords to the huge two-handed swords used by German Landsknechts under the Hapsburg emperors 500 years ago, to Scottish claymores to rapiers to sabers to epees. His conclusion was that European swordfighting was a truly deadly art in few ways inferior to Japanese swordsmanship, but that it declined severely in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries as the firelock gradually became the queen of the battlefield.
This guy still runs the European equivalent of a dojo for swordsmen. He was written up in Houston's alternative paper, The Houston Press, a few years ago.
European swordsmanship truly reached its peak right around the time that plate armor became common and just before the firelock became popular. You *had* to be very good to get through the few vulnerable points in plate armor, and the techniques developed were also of a correspondingly high level.
In my opinion, assuming a sword fight between an unarmored 16th century samurai and an unarmored Western knight, the samurai is slightly more likely to win - but put both combatants in the best armor of the 16th century from their respective lands, and the Western knight is going to win, hands down. The armor (and reliance on same) makes all the difference.
Very cool.
That's what I've read. Apparently the best European swordsmen were as good as the Samauri. Ever watch any fencing done by a couple of guys who were really good at it?
> This guy still runs the European equivalent of a dojo for swordsmen.
A colleague of mine trains in these disciplines. I would not want to encounter her in a knife fight!
Muskets made their way into Japan in late 16th century. There had become main battle weapon along with their swords. Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 featured a large musket troops(incidentally, quite a few of them were Christians.) However, after Japan lost the war and Tokugawa Ieyas emerged as a new shogun, he banned all muskets. He kept traditional swordsman ship alive by eliminating muskets. This is to protect traditional samurai class. That is why Japanese swordsmanship survived longer.