LongEdge Press

26/06/2026

I've finished the first draft of the huge project looking into the development of the sabre training method for the French cavalry, 1804-1830. It's the biggest text I've attempted yet and I think there's some real history being done here. The core texts include:

- Baron Desmichels' training method for the 31st regiment of chasseurs à cheval
- Major Muller's "Theory on Mounted Fencing" for the cavalry schools at Lunéville and Saumur
- Major Chatelain's seriously anachronistic sabre training manual
- Colonel Durfort's translation of Schmidt's cavalry sabre method for use at the school at Saint-Cyr
- The official cavalerie sabre method from the Ministry of War

Now the real work begins, the editing and refining into something readable.

12/03/2026

Here's a quick update on the Ivanowski translation project. It's changed. A lot. It's morphed into something much, much bigger.

The Ivanowski translation is on hold. There's already a great translation of this text by Maciej Bojarski with an essay on its context within the history of Polish sabre fencing.

In its place, I'm writing a history of how the French cavalry developed its official training manual from nothing, the legal battles and table flipping that occurred as veterans and returning émigrés fought to have their texts chosen by the government as the official training manual, and finally the publication of the Ordinance by the Ministry of War. Some work has been done on this period in French, particularly by that dead-set legend, Garry, but I can find nothing on it in English. It's history which deserves to be remembered.

To give you a brief taste of what will be included in the volume, let's have a quick look at the timeline.

• In 1804, the Napoleonic administration published the "provisional" ordinance for cavalry training, which was roundly criticised for not including exercises for training the cavalrymen to use their sabres.
• After its publication, different folks tried to fill the gap. I've translated the notes of Desmichels, colonel of the 31st Chasseurs-a-cheval, as they were mobilised for deployment to Spain in 1811.
• Alexandre Muller, a Napoleonic veteran appointed as an instructor at the cavalry schools at Luneville and Saumur, wrote a fencing manual which he tried to get accepted as official since he was already teaching it with approval.
• Comte de Durfort, a returning émigré from a family that had a cavalry regiment named after it in the Ancien Regime, was appointed head of the cavalry school at Saint-Cyr. He tried to get his translation of a German training manual accepted as official.
• Others, such as a Napoleonic veteran named Chatelain, fell back on what they knew of fencing salles before the Revolution. Chatelain wrote a training manual in a very classical smallsword style on foot with notes on how it could be adapted to mounted swordsmanship.
• Finally, in 1829, the Ministry of War published the official Ordinance which outlined a method for training mounted swordsmanship which was in service until the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

Translations of the key texts from Desmichels, Muller, Durfort, and Chatelain outlining how to fight with sabres on horseback will be included in the volume along with an extensive historical narrative, an comparison of the different fencing systems, and snippets showing the absolute madness of the very acrimonious 14-year long feud between Muller Durfort.

The translations and comparison will be of vital interest to practitioners and scholars of late Napoleonic and Bourbon Restoration fencing systems.

11/01/2026

Over the next month or so, I'll be closing down this page. I simply dont use it. All LongEdge Press news, posts and information will be moved to LongEdge Fencing. Go there for all your period French translation news.

14/12/2025

A big project coming up for LongEdge Press in 2026.

I'm looking at how the French cavalry, famous for their point-centre style of mounted fencing, resisted all attempts by inidividuals in the first few decades after the end of Napoleon to introduce a more eastern European, cutting style of swordsmanship. It's a heck of a rabbit hole and the only way out is to keep digging.

The French cavalry of the period, as outlined in the official Ordinances (1811, 1829, etc) for cavalry training and a number of other sources, favoured thrust attacks rather than attacking with the edge of the sabre. Several attempts were made to introduce a more cutting style of attack.

The first of these was by the Bavarian cavalryman, Alexandre Muller (1816), who was also an instructor at the cavalry schools of Luneville and Saumur. (Muller also made a hobby of suing anyone who said his manual of mounted swordsmanship was plagiarised from existing German army manuals. His results were ... mixed.)

The second concerted attempt was that of Stanislaw Ivanowski (1834), a former officer of Polish lancers in Napoleon's Grande Armée. He advocated for changing the shape of the cavalry sabre as well as the introduction of a form of Polish cross-cutting fencing on horseback.

Both attempts were soundly rebuffed by the establishment, current instructors and former cavalrymen. Why and how this happened is a fascinating tale. And one very much worth the telling.

This may also make sense of some other texts about sabre fencing on foot, such as Joseph Tinguely's "Contre Pointe" (1856), roundly criticised in HEMA circles as a sabre manual with almost no cutting actions.

This project is bound to result in at least one text, translations of period material, maybe a bunch of side articles, and definitely some videos of stepping through the cavalry exercises, both on foot and mounted.

If you'd like to help out or want to keep up with whats happening on the project, drop me a line here or at either or [email protected].

22/06/2025

Want nineteenth century French sabre manuals? LongEdge Press has you covered.

- "Manual of Contre-Point Fencing," Joseph Tinguely, 1865
- "Fencing Manual 1877, " French Ministry of War, 1877
- "Fencing Manual: Point and Counterpoint," Romuald Brunet, 1884

All your nineteenth century sabre manual needs are at www.longedgepress.com.

For HEMA training in French sabre, visit www.longedgefencing.com.

15/06/2025

Melbourne Workshops

Hi team

I'll be in Melbourne 5-6 July to present workshops on period French fencing at the School of Historical Fencing, Preston.

On Saturday, we'll cover late nineteenth century gymnasium sabre as it developed from the Joinville and army training tradition into its final pre-Olympics form.

On Sunday, we'll cover seventeenth century rapier and off-hand weapon (dagger, cape, fry pan, etc....) as taught to Louis XIII and the French royal court for about fifty years.

Bookings - https://www.trybooking.com/CYNGV
More Info on the website - https://historicalfencing.com.au/2025/01/french-fencing-with-chris-slee/

See you there.

Martial Arts Workshops

23/03/2025

This looks fascinating. Understanding the pas d'armes in the later middle ages is a useful way of understanding the context of civilian fencing in later centuries. These forms continued, in modified form, for a long time.

https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781835537664

OPEN ACCESS🏆
Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry. A Casebook, eds. Rosalind Brown-Grant, Mario Damen (Liverpool University Press, March 2025)

https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781835537664

From the early fifteenth to the early sixteenth century, the pas d’armes—a highly ritualised and theatrical form of tournament—flourished across regions such as Anjou, the Burgundian territories, France and Iberia. This Casebook, the product of an international and interdisciplinary research group funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, offers the first comprehensive examination of this chivalric phenomenon in its political, cultural, and performative dimensions.

The volume is structured in two parts. The first presents sixteen key sources, newly translated and contextualised, including narrative texts, administrative accounts and illuminated material. The second part brings together seven original essays exploring the pas d’armes from the perspectives of heraldry, gender, literary and artistic culture, manuscript production, urban-court relations and the circulation of chivalric ideals. A glossary of key terms (arms, clothing, rituals) and a map and table of known tournaments between c. 1420 and c. 1520 enrich the volume. Supplementary materials, including two additional sources from recently discovered manuscripts, are available online.

This volume offers essential insights into the transmission and transformation of courtly ideals, the intersection of performance and politics, and the imaginative landscapes of late medieval knighthood. It is intended for both scholars and students of medieval chivalry, performance culture, manuscript studies and cultural history.

CONTENTS:

Introduction: Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry -- Rosalind Brown-Grant, Mario Damen, Catherine Blunk

Note to the translations

Part I: Sources

Le Roman de Ponthus et Sidoine (The Romance of Ponthus and Sidoine) -- Rosalind Brown-Grant, Christina Normore

The Paso de la Fuerte Ventura (Paso of the Daunting Adventure), Valladolid, 1428 -- Mario Damen

The Paso de Valladolid, 1440 -- Mario Damen

The Pas de l’Arbre Charlemagne, Marsannay-la-Côte, 1443 -- Rosalind Brown-Grant

The Pas de la Joyeuse Garde / Pas de Saumur, 1446 -- Catherine Blunk

The Pas de la Bergère, Tarascon, 1449 -- Rosalind Brown-Grant, Christina Normore

The Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs, Chalon-sur-Saône, 1449–50 -- Rosalind Brown-Grant

The Paso de El Pardo, 1459 -- Mario Damen

The Pas du Compagnon à la Larme Blanche, Le Quesnoy, 1458 -- Klaus Oschema

The Paso de Jaén, 1462 -- Mario Damen

The Pas du Perron Fée, Bruges, 1463 (a) -- Michelle Szkilnik

The Pas du Perron Fée, Bruges, 1463 (b) -- Mario Damen

The Pas de l’Arbre d’Or, Bruges, 1468 -- Ralph Moffat

The Pas des armes de Sandricourt, 1493 -- Rosalind Brown-Grant

The Pas of Brussels, 1503 -- Mario Damen

The Pas of Carignano, 1504 -- Thalia Brero, Rosalind Brown-Grant

The Emprise of the Wild Knight of the Black Lady, Edinburgh, 1507 -- Alan V. Murray, Rosalind Brown-Grant

Part II: Essays

The Pas d’armes in Europe (15th–16th Centuries): The Transfer and Transformation of a Chivalric Event -- Thalia Brero, Mario Damen, Klaus Oschema

The Relation du Pas de Saumur: Text, Image, and Context -- Anne D. Hedeman, Justin Sturgeon

The Social and Literary Environment of a Chivalric Event: The Case of the Pas du Perron Fée, Bruges 1463 -- Mario Damen, Michelle Szkilnik

‘In the Way of the Knights-Errant’: The Sixteenth-Century Legacy of a Roleplay Game from the Pas des armes de Sandricourt (1493) -- Marina Viallon

The Pas d’armes in Scotland: King James IV and the Tournaments of the Wild Knight of the Black Lady (1507–08) -- Alan V. Murray

Pas d’armes and the Construction of Chivalric Masculinity: Ethics and Erotics of Knightly Combat -- Rosalind Brown-Grant

Exceptional Bodies in the Relation du Pas de Saumur -- Christina Normore

Glossary -- Ralph Moffat

21/03/2025

Brunet's "Fencing Manual: Point and Counterpoint" (1884) is a very clear and understandable outline of French foil and sabre fencing in the moments before the creation of Olympic fencing. Like several key texts of the period, it follows the Joinville Academy style of fencing and teaching. A noted cavalry officer, Brunet trained under the Joinville style then made it his own on retiring from the arrmy.

The book is available in paperback from Lulu (https://www.lulu.com/shop/romuald-brunet-and-chris-slee/fencing-manual-point-and-counterpoint/paperback/product-yv8wnwr.html). It will be available from all other common online bookstores in coming weeks.

12/02/2025

I'm at a crossroads. I cannot decide what my next translation project will be. What do you think of these?

1. Iwanowski's 1834 manual for using sabres on horseback, "Nouveau Système d'Escrime pour la Cavalerie" (New Fencing System for Cavalry). There's precious little Napoleonic and immediately post-Napoleonic material available in english. This would be a major gain for the community.

2. Completing the translation of all six of Brunet's 1884 pamphlets on "Life in the Cavalry". These give an overview of the battlefield use of cavalary in the period, information about the fitness required and how troopers trained with sabre, lance, and carbine.

3. I have a collection of ordinances from early modern kings of France which outline the legalities of civilian and military use of swords, duels, and related topics. This would be of interest to those wanting more information about the social context of these weapons during the Renaissance.

4. Jean Savaron's 1610 "Traicte contre les duels" (Tract Against Duels) in which he argues against the practice as something destructive to social order. This is a large book and will take some time to translate. But it would provide a great counter balance to, say, Beraudière's procedural guide on how to legally duel.

29/11/2024

This is a bit of a giggle.

https://longedgepress.com/pdfs/capus-aduelbetweenfencingmasters.pdf