HEMA Study Group

The Steel Marginalia

Notes in the margins. Truth in the bind.

A group dedicated to close reading of fencing manuals, reconstructing technique from text and image, and turning historical fragments into living martial knowledge.

The method

We work from the primary text: the treatise itself, in the original language and in translation, examined for internal consistency and compared against the broader tradition. Interpretation follows from what the master wrote, not from received consensus or modern reconstruction habit. When the text is ambiguous we say so. When it is clear we follow it.

About the group →
Fig. I
Salvator Fabris
De lo Schermo, overo Scienza d'Arme
Italian Rapier · Copenhagen, 1606
Book I
Salvator Fabris — Single-sword plays [43]–[66]
De lo Schermo, overo Scienza d'Arme · Copenhagen, 1606 · 24 plays

Working through the full sequence of single-sword plays in Book I: cataloguing tactical and mechanical principles, correcting translations, and building a reading apparatus — glossary, lexicon, cross-references — to support the analysis.

The Steel Marginalia · HEMA Study Group Notes in the margins. Truth in the bind.