English Quarterstaff Fencing
The English tradition of fighting with the quarterstaff. It is attested in writings from 1599, 1617 and 1711 and in Victorian manuals from 1883 and 1890.
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About English Quarterstaff Fencing
Fencing with the English staff is not a school with a name and a lineage but an attested tradition of staff fighting in English writings on fencing. Neither a founder nor a year of origin is known. George Silver in Paradoxes of Defence (1599) writes about the short and the long staff and calls the short staff usually the best of all weapons. Joseph Swetnam, in a work printed in 1617 according to Acta Periodica Duellatorum, states that the staff has a great advantage against an opponent with rapier and dagger. Zach. Wylde in 1711 called the quarter-staff a true British weapon of great antiquity. According to Green, the public trials of English masters of defence usually included fighting with the staff as well. In the 19th century manuals appeared written by Thomas A. McCarthy (1883) and by the pair Allanson-Winn and C. Phillipps-Wolley (1890). They recommended staves of ash or bamboo and equipment borrowed from fencing, boxing and cricket. Today, according to the English Wikipedia, the staff is taught in stage combat, and Green states that several groups preserve or revive it.
History
Tzouriadis and Deacon (Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 2020) draw attention to an English text from the 15th century on the two-handed sword and the staff, preserved in the manuscript Cotton MS Titus A XXV in the British Library. According to them, in his list of true weapons Silver gives markedly more weapons on a shaft, and this testifies to how highly he valued them. Eighteen years after Silver, Joseph Swetnam wrote that the staff has a great advantage against an opponent with rapier and dagger. The book The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence by Swetnam was published in 1617 in London (printer Okes).
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Zach. Wylde published in 1711 in York the book English Master of Defence, whose title promises all the guards in fencing with the broad-sword and the quarter-staff. In it he calls the quarter-staff a true British weapon of great age, formerly much practised and admired, and wonders that in his time it is not more in favour. Green writes that the quarterstaff became a favourite weapon of free farmers and peasants, and relates the story of a British sailor who at the end of the 17th century defeated three opponents with rapiers before the Spanish court. The English Wikipedia states that the name quarterstaff is attested from the middle of the 16th century, and cites an instance from 1590. Thomas A. McCarthy wrote in the preface of his manual Quarter-staff: A Practical Manual (London, 1883) that there is no special treatise on the once popular art, and in the introduction that the quarter-staff had almost gone out of use. According to the title page, McCarthy was for sixteen years an instructor and earlier a sergeant instructor with regiments. In 1890 the book Broad-sword and Single-stick, with chapters on Quarter-staff, Bayonet, Cudgel, Shillalah, Walking-stick, Umbrella and other weapons of self-defence was published, by Allanson-Winn and C. Phillipps-Wolley. The English Wikipedia states that a modified staff of bamboo or ash with protective gear from fencing, boxing and cricket returned as a sport to London fencing schools in the late 19th century.
Technique
Silver does not use the word quarterstaff and writes of the short staff (short staffe) and the long staff. He sets the correct length of the short staff or half-pike by having a man stand upright, hold the staff vertically beside his body, reach as high as he can with his right hand and add room for both hands. It usually comes to eight or nine feet. In his view, thanks to the strength and narrow space of its four defensive guards, the short staff has the advantage over the long staff of twelve to eighteen feet and over any other length. It is usually the best of all weapons, especially against several weapons at once, because it is nimble and quick, and falls only a little behind the forrest bill.
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In Bref Instructions Silver has separate chapters on the short staff against the short staff, the short staff against a longer staff, and the forrest bill against the staff. When the short-staff fighter beats the long staff out of the direct line, he can, according to Silver, enter safely, because the opponent must shift his staff back in his hands to recover. Wylde (1711) gives the usual quarter-staff length as seven feet and divides it into three parts: the handle or thick end, the middle, and the rest. According to him the fundamentals of fighting come from the broad-sword, from which they take blows, cuts, slides and shifts, and from the small-sword they borrow only the thrust. He names four guards: Inside, Outside, Medium and Pendent. Swetnam, according to the transcription published by ARMA, gives a low guard for the quarter-staff of seven or eight feet, for the long staff of twelve feet and for the pike of eighteen feet. In the high guard the staff, he says, should not exceed eight feet, otherwise it would hit the ground when parrying a thrust. Allanson-Winn quotes Chambers's Encyclopaedia, according to which the quarter-staff was a stout pole of heavy wood about six and a half feet long and shod with iron at both ends, and adds that a modern staff should be a little longer. Green describes the staff as six feet long with a diameter of about one and a quarter to one and a half inches and states that together with the singlestick it apparently prevailed among British stick fighting systems in the 19th century.
Training
McCarthy (1883) recommended a staff about eight feet long with a circumference of four or five inches, made of ash or bamboo, and equipment consisting of a helmet, a jerkin, leg guards, gauntlets and padded gloves, the same as for sticks and the broad-sword. He considered nine and a half feet too much, and younger players could play with a six-foot staff. Allanson-Winn (1890) advised forbidding thrusts with the end of the staff in a friendly bout, because an eight-foot staff, even a bamboo one, can break a collarbone or a rib. As protection he lists a broad-sword mask, a thick leather jerkin with a high collar, boxing gloves, padding from waist to knees and cricket pads on both legs.
Today
Green states that the British Army still played quarterstaff as a sport in the 20th century, that scouts in the United Kingdom and the United States were taught it until the end of the sixties of the 20th century, and that staff techniques were taught to police in the United Kingdom, the United States and India for handling batons against riots. Today, according to Green, several groups preserve or revive it. The English Wikipedia lists quarterstaff as one of the main disciplines of stage combat, taught by the Society of American Fight Directors, the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat and the British Academy of Dramatic Combat.
Did you know
Wylde claimed that a long pike, half-pike or pitchfork is mere folly against the quarter-staff and that whoever understands it properly can laugh at any other weapon. Allanson-Winn thought the name quarter-staff comes from holding it with one hand a quarter of the length from the center and the other at the center, but he himself preferred hands about three feet apart. In his view the quarter-staff takes the reader back to the times of figures such as Friar Tuck, Robin Hood and Little John. Green prints an engraving made by William Hogarth. It is a business card on which James Figg teaches self-defense with the backsword and the staff.
Frequently asked questions
How long was the English staff?
Sources differ. Silver set the length of the short staff by the person's height and says it usually comes to eight or nine feet. Wylde (1711) gives seven feet and McCarthy (1883) about eight feet.
Did George Silver use the quarterstaff?
Silver does not use the word quarterstaff. He writes of the short and the long staff and calls the short staff usually the best of all weapons, especially against several weapons at once.
Where is English staff fencing taught today?
The English Wikipedia lists it as one of the main disciplines of stage combat, taught for example by the Society of American Fight Directors. Green states that several groups preserve or revive it.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.