About the Book
Learn to Use the Medieval Longsword
The reconstruction of highly efficient and deadly medieval fighting systems has seen a popular resurgence as students recreate these arts through structured martial arts training and then test their skills in competitive tournaments.
Dr. Brian R. Price, co-founder of one of the largest martial arts / historical fencing schools and author of the immensely popular Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction, presents a new revision for the first English-language book focused solely on the astounding swordsmanship of the late fourteenth century swordmaster, Fiore dei Liberi.
In the Fior di Battaglia the old master recorded an integrated fighting system that includes grappling, work with and against a dagger, baton, the sword in one and two hands, spear, and poleaxe, in and out of armour, on foot and on horseback. This system, based on a set of simple principles, is as effective as any martial arts system since devised.
The second edition of Sword in Two Hands distills this system through the use of the hand-and-a-half sword using a proven approach developed with hundreds of students in the Schola Saint George. It approaches beginning training in a logical, sequential order through original translations of Fiore's text, taught with modern drills, and exercises. The text places Fiore's art in the context of medieval Europe, but presents his fighting system in a modern way. An indispensable reference and training guide for martial artists, historical fencers, SCA combatants, reenactors, and fight choreographers.
About the Author :
Dr. Brian R. Price has been involved in the medieval fighting arts since 1981, fighting competitively within the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), reenactment, and since 1999, within the Western martial arts / historical swordsmanship community. He has experience in several other martial arts and modern fencing as well as in jousting. He is an accomplished armourer, author of the influential Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction.As an author, he has written numerous works in several fields, including the 1996 Book of the Tournament, Ramon Lull's Book of Knighthood and Chivalry, and the forthcoming Eagles, Falcons & Warthogs: Gen. "Bill" Creech, Col. John Boyd and the Struggle to Remake the Tactical Air Forces in the Wake of Vietnam (Naval Institute Press). He has contributed to numerous works including King Arthur in Popular Culture, Medieval Warfare magazine, and the Journal of Medieval Military History.Since the late 1980s he has made studies of the medieval tournament, medieval armour, and knighthood, as well as holding interests in kinesiology, learning theory, intelligence, warfare, and American political history. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval and military history from the University of North Texas (UNT) and a BA in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From 2011-12 he served a double-tour in Afghanistan as a Senior Social Scientist and socio-cultural advisor.Since 2011, the now-Dr. Price writes on strategy, airpower and counterinsurgency, as well as on American military history. But his oldest interest has been in chivalric culture, which he has long exercised, first within the SCA, then with the founding of the Company of Saint George, the first American Tournament Society, and finally with the Schola Saint George (SSG).In 2000 he co-founded the SSG with Dr. Robert Holland, and began working on an interpretation of Fiore dei Liberi's text and on the medieval poleaxe. He has taught classes continually both to the Schola groups and at seminars in North America, in Canada and in Europe. Mr. Price studied with Theodore Katzoff at the Westside Fencing Center in Los Angeles and taught swordsmanship at the same location for two years. He has lectured at Stanford University, at the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan and he taught graduate courses for six years within Hawai'i Pacific University's Diplomacy & Military Studies Program. In 2003 he was admitted to the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame and in Nov. 2018 he joined the faculty at the USAF's Air Command & Staff College, where he offers courses in planning, COIN theory & practice, war theory, and American military history.A native of Texas, Dr. Price now makes his home under an enormous mound of books and armour in Wetumpka, Alabama, not far from Montgomery. He has started a column on Substack, Agincourt to Cyber War.
