The concept of honour has been featuring quite strongly in my life of late, and I thought perhaps I might address a topic that seems to be fairly contentious: that of the role of honour in the sport of full contact medieval combat.
We will begin as all good discussions begin, not with "once upon a time", but with "the dictionary definition of" honour as a noun, and in the context of our usage, it would be the second definition in the Oxford English
dictionary, "The quality of knowing and doing what is morally right".
Now, when we apply that to the sport of medieval combat, we look at aspects of the sport like not intentionally breaking the rules in order to win or to gain an advantage over one's opponent, not being dishonest or misleading. There are many ways in which the principle can be applied within the lists.
Even outside of the lists, in every day life, the concept of honour should touch the warrior who fights with honour. If you fight with honour, then living with honour should come as naturally as breathing. Of course, the reverse can also be true: if you do not live with honour, then it may be difficult to fight with honour. You will also note that there are different permutations of this statement that can be formed and used as a good topic for debate. But let's leave that for another time.
I have heard many opinions about the role of honour in the present day medieval combat sport. Some have said that it is the fundamental principle on which all tournament fighting should be based, and others have declared that there is no place for honour in medieval combat as a sport.
When I first started fighting, we (steel fighters in South Africa) used the honour system of points scoring, whereby a combatant receiving a clean blow would acknowledge the hit, and his opponent would then be awarded the point. No acknowledgement, no hit; no hit, no point. The purpose of the Marshall in this case was simply to keep count of acknowledged blows and to watch for broken things (rules, arrmour, bones and tempers). It was a system that quite literally relied on the honour of the fighters for validity and efficacy.
So, (as I experienced at one event), if you wanted to win, (or you just couldn't face being beaten by a girl), and your armour was strong, you just kept fighting and ignored the blows. This was considered dishonourable, and you would be reprimanded by the Marshall for such behaviour. But if you did it in such a way that the Marshall did not or could not see for certain, then you could win. We call this "rhino-hiding".
As an opponent of a fighter who was rhino-hiding, your options were either to object after the bout (which would effectively turn you into a whining sore loser), or you could suck it up and deal, or you could just hit harder and harder until your opponent either fell down or took the hit. Head shots are best for that.
At that point in our sport in South Africa, we weren't scoring on time. We were usually fighting to three hits. With the notable exception of one renaissance tournament, where Richard and I were first in the list on a fairly warm day, and were cheerfully told by the Marshall, "okay guys, first to nine hits!"
Richard, who was at that point approaching 60, nearly passed out. We finished the bout, but it was decided thereafter that the Marshall should stick to the accepted format of first to three and not try to kill the combatants. Ah, good times!
The point, though, is that those three points were worth working for. Each bout was only one round, resetting after each point, so you had to be very careful not to give them away.
Then we discovered Battle of the Nations, and when I saw buhurt, it blew my mind. My heart started speeding up and I could imagine myself IN THERE! It had to happen! We needed to go and do that!
At this point, we as fighters actively discouraged the public viewing what we did as re-enactment or entertainment, but (and I say this coming from a "rugby country") it was kind of difficult to convince people that what we were doing was actually a sport, when we walked around in suits of full plate, moving like we were underwater and constantly seeking the shade. I think that the people we drew to the sport at that time were attracted to what we were doing, then.
Once we adjusted our training and gear to be more in line with the HMB and IMCF rulesets, there was no longer any need for the honour system to continue. We had people to count points, and so the fighters just went balls to the wall at each other for three rounds of a minute or 90 seconds. The question of loss of skill is also something that we can talk about another day, because that is also a whole discussion on its own. But there was definitely, in my opinion at least, a loss of honour with which the sport had previously been invested.
It also became apparent in the kind of people we drew to the sport. Because the armour we were wearing was lighter and we could move faster, combat was faster and looked more "sport-like", and so instead of drawing the older, more historically-oriented recruit, we drew the younger, more Counterstrike-oriented recruit. I'm not sure if first person shoooter games foster the concept of honour in their code, but I know that where there was an intrinsic grasp of the notion before, there is less so in the fighters we see today.
And this is where I hedge my statements: it is not about the quality of the fighters that we have in South Africa, or their quality of character, for that matter. I'm saying that we don't focus on honour as a principle in fighting as we used to, and I think it is a bi-directional effect: the newer people have not been exposed to the concept, and the older fighters don't often expose them to the concept. It is largely regarded as redundant, I think.
A number of historians such as Ashmole have claimed that the chivalric code (which includes honour as a primary element) was based in military discipline, derived from the conduct of Charlemagne and his horse soldiers. Thus developed the rules for tournaments and knightly conduct on and off the field, because "they" believed, as do I, that if you want to fight with honour, you should live with honour.
But honour in combat and in daily life was not invented by the knights. Snorri Sturluson explained that honour in ancient Norse society played a crucial role in how a person was viewed. A drengr was a person of integrity and honour, whose actions offered an example of how people should conduct themselves. The name is also found in the word for honour, drengskapr.
Since our modern day tournaments are based in the same historical rulesets as those of Medieval times (and I am admittedly being very broad in terms of period), surely some of the abstract principles, such as honour, which informed those rulesets should come to the fore in our sport today? Is there still a place for honour in a combat sport? Does FCMC as a sport today focus on winning to the exclusion of all else?
I am interested to know from those of you who read this blog, what role does the concept of honour play in your combat training, your club ethos; how the sport is presented and conducted in your country or area; is honour acknowledged as a principle in your club or team; and how does it feature in your everyday life? Are you conscious of how you conduct yourself with honour?
For myself, having had my honour questioned a couple of times this year, it has become an aspect of my life of which I have become acutely aware. I wrote this entry not looking for sympathy, but to get an idea of how other people view the concept, in and out of the lists, and to discover whether my notion of honour is antiquated and rigid, or not rigid enough, in relation to others.
We will begin as all good discussions begin, not with "once upon a time", but with "the dictionary definition of" honour as a noun, and in the context of our usage, it would be the second definition in the Oxford English
dictionary, "The quality of knowing and doing what is morally right".
Now, when we apply that to the sport of medieval combat, we look at aspects of the sport like not intentionally breaking the rules in order to win or to gain an advantage over one's opponent, not being dishonest or misleading. There are many ways in which the principle can be applied within the lists.
Even outside of the lists, in every day life, the concept of honour should touch the warrior who fights with honour. If you fight with honour, then living with honour should come as naturally as breathing. Of course, the reverse can also be true: if you do not live with honour, then it may be difficult to fight with honour. You will also note that there are different permutations of this statement that can be formed and used as a good topic for debate. But let's leave that for another time.
I have heard many opinions about the role of honour in the present day medieval combat sport. Some have said that it is the fundamental principle on which all tournament fighting should be based, and others have declared that there is no place for honour in medieval combat as a sport.
When I first started fighting, we (steel fighters in South Africa) used the honour system of points scoring, whereby a combatant receiving a clean blow would acknowledge the hit, and his opponent would then be awarded the point. No acknowledgement, no hit; no hit, no point. The purpose of the Marshall in this case was simply to keep count of acknowledged blows and to watch for broken things (rules, arrmour, bones and tempers). It was a system that quite literally relied on the honour of the fighters for validity and efficacy.
So, (as I experienced at one event), if you wanted to win, (or you just couldn't face being beaten by a girl), and your armour was strong, you just kept fighting and ignored the blows. This was considered dishonourable, and you would be reprimanded by the Marshall for such behaviour. But if you did it in such a way that the Marshall did not or could not see for certain, then you could win. We call this "rhino-hiding".
As an opponent of a fighter who was rhino-hiding, your options were either to object after the bout (which would effectively turn you into a whining sore loser), or you could suck it up and deal, or you could just hit harder and harder until your opponent either fell down or took the hit. Head shots are best for that.
At that point in our sport in South Africa, we weren't scoring on time. We were usually fighting to three hits. With the notable exception of one renaissance tournament, where Richard and I were first in the list on a fairly warm day, and were cheerfully told by the Marshall, "okay guys, first to nine hits!"
Richard, who was at that point approaching 60, nearly passed out. We finished the bout, but it was decided thereafter that the Marshall should stick to the accepted format of first to three and not try to kill the combatants. Ah, good times!
The point, though, is that those three points were worth working for. Each bout was only one round, resetting after each point, so you had to be very careful not to give them away.
Then we discovered Battle of the Nations, and when I saw buhurt, it blew my mind. My heart started speeding up and I could imagine myself IN THERE! It had to happen! We needed to go and do that!
At this point, we as fighters actively discouraged the public viewing what we did as re-enactment or entertainment, but (and I say this coming from a "rugby country") it was kind of difficult to convince people that what we were doing was actually a sport, when we walked around in suits of full plate, moving like we were underwater and constantly seeking the shade. I think that the people we drew to the sport at that time were attracted to what we were doing, then.
Once we adjusted our training and gear to be more in line with the HMB and IMCF rulesets, there was no longer any need for the honour system to continue. We had people to count points, and so the fighters just went balls to the wall at each other for three rounds of a minute or 90 seconds. The question of loss of skill is also something that we can talk about another day, because that is also a whole discussion on its own. But there was definitely, in my opinion at least, a loss of honour with which the sport had previously been invested.
It also became apparent in the kind of people we drew to the sport. Because the armour we were wearing was lighter and we could move faster, combat was faster and looked more "sport-like", and so instead of drawing the older, more historically-oriented recruit, we drew the younger, more Counterstrike-oriented recruit. I'm not sure if first person shoooter games foster the concept of honour in their code, but I know that where there was an intrinsic grasp of the notion before, there is less so in the fighters we see today.
And this is where I hedge my statements: it is not about the quality of the fighters that we have in South Africa, or their quality of character, for that matter. I'm saying that we don't focus on honour as a principle in fighting as we used to, and I think it is a bi-directional effect: the newer people have not been exposed to the concept, and the older fighters don't often expose them to the concept. It is largely regarded as redundant, I think.
A number of historians such as Ashmole have claimed that the chivalric code (which includes honour as a primary element) was based in military discipline, derived from the conduct of Charlemagne and his horse soldiers. Thus developed the rules for tournaments and knightly conduct on and off the field, because "they" believed, as do I, that if you want to fight with honour, you should live with honour.But honour in combat and in daily life was not invented by the knights. Snorri Sturluson explained that honour in ancient Norse society played a crucial role in how a person was viewed. A drengr was a person of integrity and honour, whose actions offered an example of how people should conduct themselves. The name is also found in the word for honour, drengskapr.
Since our modern day tournaments are based in the same historical rulesets as those of Medieval times (and I am admittedly being very broad in terms of period), surely some of the abstract principles, such as honour, which informed those rulesets should come to the fore in our sport today? Is there still a place for honour in a combat sport? Does FCMC as a sport today focus on winning to the exclusion of all else?
I am interested to know from those of you who read this blog, what role does the concept of honour play in your combat training, your club ethos; how the sport is presented and conducted in your country or area; is honour acknowledged as a principle in your club or team; and how does it feature in your everyday life? Are you conscious of how you conduct yourself with honour?
For myself, having had my honour questioned a couple of times this year, it has become an aspect of my life of which I have become acutely aware. I wrote this entry not looking for sympathy, but to get an idea of how other people view the concept, in and out of the lists, and to discover whether my notion of honour is antiquated and rigid, or not rigid enough, in relation to others.
