Did epic sword fighting duels never really happen?

Question

Did epic sword fighting duels never really happen? Are they impossible?I love fantasy, medieval history, etc and ever since I was young (like every kid) I loved swords. How they looked, how thy sounded, ans most of all the extremely cool sword fights and more specifically, a fight between two people with a european long sword. More recently, I started to look into realism and actual techniques of sword fighting. Hollywood obviously embellished the fights in movies to make them look good, but I never knew how much. There are HEMA groups and historians all over talking about just how much it's embellished. They have demonstrations and fights tp see how they really went, and the longest time before one of the competitors is hit, is like, 6 seconds. This disappointed me a lot more than I can say. None of the fights lasted more than a few seconds. What's exciting anout a duel if there is no climax? It just ends as quick as it stsrted in a very disappointing manner. Since I've found this stuff, swords, duels and epic fantasy has lost a lot of its spark for me. Is there no record anywhere of a duel lasting even 10 minutes?? What are your opinions?

Answer 1

What you are describing is called unarmored combat, which is the early medieval equivalent of a wild west gun fight. It wasn't meant to last more than a few seconds, since both weapons were equally lethal and no shields or additional weapons were used. Basically, the fastest, most accurate and strongest swordsman won. The swords were originally designed with hand-to-hand field combat in mind, so rendering the enemy defenseless with one swipe was the whole idea. When dueling this way, you wouldn't want the fight to last longer since it would mean that both opponents were terrible swordsmen, or weren't trying very hard to win. Armored combat was different. This required tactical skill, technique and the ability to use a heavy shield, pommel and cross. This type of duel was expected to last until one of the opponents tired and was unable to keep his balance or maintain the use of his shield or weapons. This became even more challenging as armor technology and fighting skills advanced to the point where the blade of the longsword could actually be damaged by the armor, rendering it less capable of cutting or slicing through vulnerable areas. The knight had to then rely on the concussive effects of the blow to deter a counter by his opponent or open up another vulnerability. As fencing duels became even more refined, dueling referees doubling as legal witnesses were added and duels were fought to 'first blood' for minor matters of honor using much lighter weight swords and to 'the death' only for matters of greatest honor, involving numerous lethal weapons of various weights including light weight swords, depending on the preference and expertise of the swordsmen.

Answer 2

Sword duels did in fact happen, though they became more common in the late medieval era into the Renaissance. Indeed, we have training manuals put out by teachers of sword fighting techniques, using everything from rapiers to the two handed flamberges.

I am not familiar with accounts of duels in Europe, but in some ways they would be like Samurai duels. The initial phase would be psychological warfare, where each duelist would try to intimidate the other, to shake their confidence. This is actually crucial. A moment's hesitation is all that was needed to gain a decisive advantage.

Once a duel started, it would be a matter of skill. If the fighters were not evenly matched, the duel would indeed normally take only seconds. it would be a simple matter of getting through the other person's defenses, or taking advantage of them when they attacked, and delivering the blow to win the fight.

However, with evenly matched duelists, the duel could indeed last ten minutes or more. The matched skills would mean that it would be a matter of one of the duelists making a big enough mistake for the other to take advantage of. Since each duelist would be struggling to avoid mistakes, it would turn into an endurance test.

Answer 3

I wouldn't say impossible but I would say highly improbable that they went down like they're portrayed in the movies. I feel that ideally you wouldn't be wanting to hit another sword with yours too much because there would be the possibility that you lose your weapon and left wide open, perhaps it would be more defensive (jostling for position etc) than how they always portray.