The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence (Joseph Swetnam, 1617)

Joseph Swetnam published the treatise The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence in 1617. The book covers a wide range of weapons common in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: rapier, backsword, dagger, and staff, emphasizing practical self-defense over the courtly elegance of Italian masters. Swetnam criticized the fashionable import of continental fencing and argued for adapting techniques to English conditions and weapons. The text is one of the few English sources of its time comparing native and foreign fencing schools.