A brief interlude resulting from a conversation over rather a nice stout, while we explore Chapter 5 with sword in hand. It is worth thinking about the context for Thibault’s life. Think about some of the other people and masters:
| Who | Birth | Death |
|---|---|---|
| Thibault | 1574 | 1627 |
| Narvaez | 157? | 1640 |
| Fabris | 1544 | 1618 |
| Giganti | 155? | 1622 |
| Swetnam | ???? | 1621 |
| Carranza | 1539 | 1600 |
| Shakespeare | 1564 | 1616 |
| Ben Jonson | 1572 | 1637 |
| Elizabeth I | 1558 | 1603 |
It is also worth noting that he was roughly contemporaneous with Luis Díaz de Viedma, who we have been looking at with LLA in recent months.
His late life is framed against the Thirty Years War, and the years when he was (probably) studying La Verdadera Destreza saw the publication of Don Quixote, Guy Fawkes’ adventure underneath Parliament, the establishment of the Jamestown, Virginia, and the Dutch East India company beginning to trade.
It is far too easy, and common, for you and I, the modern reader, to view a historical individual or event as a discrete and disconnected entity, forgetting or not observing what is contemporaneous. Take 1969 for example: Nixon became POTUS, Armstrong stepped onto the moon, the Beatles are photographed crossing Abbey Road, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus began to be broadcast.
The cultural milieu of Thibault needs to be taken into account – what is the context of sword play? What contemporary and near-contemporary masters influenced him? What sort of people would have he been teaching, and why? There are direct clues to some of this in his book, even the simple differentiation between “arresting with courtesy”, a thrust, and ramming it through the opponent’s eye suggests the student will be playing, but may expect to be fighting in earnest.
Some entirely context-less links for your additional consideration:
- a survey of the culture around Spanish fencing schools;
- a paper on the accuracy of Thibault’s mathematics;
- Comparison of Thibault’s Circle and the Leiden Circle;
- wikipedia on Thibault;
- wiktenauer on Thibault;