Review of Michael Chidester's HEMA Bookshelf Reproduction of the Morgan Fiore

We live in a golden age for the accessibility of historical sword sources for English-language readers.  Take Fiore, for instance.  In addition to Hatcher's excellent version of the Getty manuscript we have Marsden's translation and interpretation of the Paris manuscript and this - Michael Chidester's HEMA Bookshelf edition of the Morgan manuscript.  The only known Fiore that doesn't have an English-language release is the privately held Pisani Dossi.

Reviews should tell you what you need to know up front, so this is the headline: the Morgan isn't my favorite Fiore manuscript (I think Getty's progression is better for training, and it's more complete), but I think this is probably my favorite of the modern Fiore manuscript editions.  That is a very tight race, but Chidester wins.

Chidester is not a Fiore partisan, unlike, say, Windsor, but has a deep western sword background, such that he is the chief editor and director at Wiktenauer.  His background reaches back into the early days of the western martial arts renaissance and he is one of the first figures, along with Windsor, Mondschein, Marsden, and a few others, that one encounters in modern sword studies.  Perhaps his greatest contribution to the field is making accessible editions of foundational texts like Fiore or Meyer; knowing that Hatcher already had a version of the Getty manuscript, he chose the Morgan, as the one probably closest to Fiore's own heart.

Because accessibility was one of Chidester's prime considerations when producing this book, I feel it important to note that the book comes in three different formats.  First is what I have, the hardback - I keep my notes separate from the book out of habit - and then there are perfect-bound paperback and spiral-bound versions.  The spiral-bound is especially useful because it allows the collation of notes and lesson plans with the book.  In theory, you could develop an entire program of instruction binder out of Chidester's book simply by splitting the pages and splicing in the lesson plan and notes where relevant.  Given the price of the spiral edition (about $40) that might be an expensive proposition for most study groups, but my impression is that it would be worth it, as long as the author's rights are respected - Chidester and company put in some serious work on this thing, and deserve recognition for it.

Let's start with the parts most likely to interest a sword student, because those are the ones that interested me to begin with - the actual technique pages.  The translation this most directly compares to is the Hatcher translation of the Getty manuscript; where the Hatcher translation attempts to capture the feel of the original by putting the English translation and the Italian in different colors directly attached to the specific folio, this one keeps the original Italian on the folio, and puts the transcription and translation for each image on the facing page.  Thus, each folio becomes an image and a facing page, and the folio layout is preserved by having the image pages back-to-back, including the empty folios at the end.  This means that the book takes up marginally more shelf space, but also means that, if you are keeping a working copy as opposed to a shelf copy, there is much more room to scribble notes on the page.

This layout is important, because preserving the layout of the Morgan was part of Chidester's goal.  Unlike all of the other manuscripts, which start from wrestling and move through progressively larger weapons to mounted lance, the Morgan moves in reverse, in the actual progression of a deed of arms.  There is reason to believe that this was Fiore's preferred layout; the Morgan is the only one without a dedication suggesting that it was written for a patron.  This also means that the pages about mounted fighting get more attention from the casual reader, and I learned more about mid to high-level jousting technique from this manuscript than I'll probably ever use, what with being in my forties and never having been a horseman.  Unfortunately, it means that we lose the dagger and wrestling material, as they were the last folia in the manuscript, and therefore the ones most likely to be lost to time.  Thus, the Morgan is incomplete, or at least less complete, compared to the Getty.

There is one additional touch that allows us a little more insight into the author, in that the Morgan pictures clearly show which of the players is supposed to have the advantage.  The player with advantage, in addition to master's crown or scholar's garter (or remedy master and counter-remedy master's garter and crown), has their weapon decorated in silver leaf, which has blackened with age.  One gets the feeling that Fiore had listened to someone ask once too often which of the two players the student was supposed to emulate, and had decided that he needed a clearer marking.

Now, on to the Chidester-original parts of the book.

There is a section on dueling in the 14th and 15th Centuries that includes detailed descriptions of three passages of arms, including the one between Fiore's student Galeazzo Gonzaga de Mantova and the French marshal Boucicaut.  The discussion focuses on three major aspects of the pas d'armes: that it was a judicial proceeding rather than a murder because it took place under the aegis of a prince or magistrate; that it was a major spectator undertaking, because it had to be pre-arranged and take place in front of witnesses; and that the rules of the list were generally such that the prince or magistrate could step in to prevent escalation, as he did in the case of Boucicaut.  This is, of course, in addition to the usual options for de-escalation in matters of honor, but Chidester also shows that, in the absence of a tournament or other opportunity to gain fame, the pas d'armes was sometimes not a matter of honor, but of display - his most vivid example is not even a ride between two knights, but between a pair of squires, one of whom first arranged the event, then arranged an opponent.  To me, the most remarkable part of the chapter is the Italian legal reference that covers one of my favorite passages from Fiore (using Chidester's Morgan translation from Wiktenauer):

And most of all have I been wary of fencing masters and of their scholars. And they (that is, the masters), out of envy, challenged me to play at swords of sharpened edge and point, in arming jacket but without any other armor save for a pair of chamois gloves, and all of this was because I did not wish to practice with them, nor did I wish to teach them anything of my art.

And this incident, that I was so required, occurred 5 times. And 5 times, for my honor, I convened to play in strange places, without relatives and without friends, having no hope in anything other than in God, in the art, and in me, Fiore, and in my sword. And by the grace of God, I, Fiore, remained with honor and without lesions in my person.

That is not the description of a duel, or at least not of a legal duel.  Chidester actually pulls out the 15th Century Italian legal references to explain this; this was considered "butchery" by legal authorities.  What Fiore is describing here is a lot like a dojo storming of the post-Sengoku period, and the fact that he survived five as a master without serious injury is somewhat remarkable.  Chidester describes it as not too different from "let's you and me go out to the woodline," right down to the Italian term being "going to the woods," with all the legal standing that such an engagement implies.

There is one additional chapter, and an appendix concerning the Pisani Dossi manuscript, and I consider them impressive in their thoroughness, but they deal with subjects that I lack the expertise to properly evaluate, specifically scribal and art-history components.  Again, though, just as with Guy Windsor's Vadi gloss, he makes the point that preparing a manuscript is an expensive proposition.  All of the other manuscripts that we can directly trace to Fiore himself - the Getty, the Pisani Dossi - are dedicated to Niccolo d'Este, and therefore written for a patron; the Paris manuscript looks like it came from a different workshop entirely, and is written in Latin, as opposed to the Italian of the others; the Morgan, meanwhile, is the one laid out according to Fiore's own preferences according to him.  We can thereby surmise that he was a successful enough man that he was able to afford writing and possibly keeping a book that required no patron.  Chidester also spends some time in discussion of scribal ligatures and abbreviations (the ampersand, &, is the most common ligature that most of us know, for the Latin et, followed by @ for circa), which is an essential component for anyone who wishes to test his translation.  If there is a standard ligature for per and pro, for instance, and there is (I specifically remember this one), this means that context will be an important determinator for which of those two words applies.

So - in summary, Chidester's Fiore is useful both for students seeking to understand swordsmanship, and to place Fiore in his appropriate context, both legal and scribal.  The fact that this translation is useful to a variety of students, that it is deliberately as all-inclusive as possible with original scribal hand, transcription, and translation, and that it is so thorough in its supplementary materials and consideration for student needs means that I consider this an essential for the Fiore student.