Welcome to Swordschool!

For students of Medieval and Renaissance Italian martial arts.

Where historical accuracy meets practical training.

Books, facsimiles, audiobooks, online courses and t-shirts from world-renowned instructor and pioneering researcher of medieval and renaissance martial arts Dr Guy Windsor.

What's new in store:

From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Dagger Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi

In this volume Guy takes you through all 76 of Fiore's dagger techniques. Each technique (or “play”) is shown with the drawing from the treatise, his transcription and translation of the text, his commentary on how it fits into the system and works in practice, and a link to a video of the technique in action. The book also contains a detailed introduction describing Fiore's life and times, and extensive discussion of the contexts in which Fiore's art belongs.

Find your thing

  • Do you like the theory?

    Want to know how to research, how to train, or how to write about historical martial arts?

    Theory and Practice 

  • Do you want step-by-step instructions?

    Choose to learn rapier or longsword from a workbook with video links. Make notes as you learn with these specially designed books.

    Workbooks 

  • Interested in the original treatises?

    See facsimiles of original sources, translations and Guy's interpretations.

    Treatises, translations, and academic interpretations 

  • Medieval Longsword

    Are you madly medieval? Check out the medieval combat collection!

    Longsword 

  • Renaissance Rapier

    Do you rave about the rapier? Learn Renaissance Italian martial arts, including the rapier fencing of Ridolfo Capoferro.

    Rapier 

  • Video Courses

    Do you learn best from video? Check out Swordschool's extensive selection of online courses.

    Online courses 

Hardbacks and Facsimiles

Fill your bookshelf with beautiful hardback editions of Guy's works and affordable facsimiles of Vadi and Fiore.
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Paperbacks

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Workbooks

Learn Armizare or Rapier in these practical ring-bound workbooks, available in left-handed and right-handed versions, to make note-taking easy.
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Audiobooks

All audiobooks are delivered instantly by email from BookFunnel, to listen to in their dedicated audiobook app.

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Ebooks

All e-books are delivered instantly by email from BookFunnel for you to read on whichever device you like.

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Online Courses

  • Master the Art of Arms

    Access to everything!

    Find out more 

  • Introduction to Historical Martial Arts

    The perfect place to discover the historical martial art that's right for you.

    Coming soon 

  • Medieval Italian Martial Arts

    Everything Fiore and Vadi

    Find out more 

  • Medieval German Martial Arts

    Medieval German wrestling, longsword and sword and buckler

    Find out more 

  • Renaissance Italian Martial Arts

    Bolognese swordsmanship and the rapier.

    Find out more 

  • Solo Training

    Train body and mind in historical martial arts when all alone.

    Find out more 
See all the courses and memberships

Bundles and Box Sets

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T-Shirts

From medieval sword and buckler to the elegant smallsword, and most weapons in between: showcasing famous women in the historical martial arts. Walpurgis? Lady Agnes? La Maupin? absolutely. And now including La Chevalière d'Eon.

And The Sword Guy podcast and Sword People community shirts too!

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Looking for something related to a particular master?

Latest News: 30 January '26

Hi!

Tournament Takeaways
I’m back from a wonderful trip to Potsdam, where I competed in both sidesword and rapier at the Torneo di Spada. I took no action shots at the event, but used it as an excuse to buy a new sidesword. My friends at Malleus Martialis hooked me up with this beauty (their Marozzo no. 3 sidesword trainer): [click Read More button to see]

I’ve written up the tournament experience in a 3000 word post, which went live on Patreon last week, and is now up in the Training and Conditioning section of SwordPeople. I will get it up on my blog as soon as I can, but we’re in migration limbo: the current versions of the Swordschool website, the wiki, and my blog have been downloaded from the current host and uploaded to the new host, but it’s taking a while to get everything working properly. Until the migration is complete it would be foolish to add new material, as it would inevitably introduce errors. This is why there have been no wiki updates lately either.

My main takeaways are:

1. My conditioning is up to scratch.

2. I can still fence.

3. Tournament rulesets reward specific fencing approaches.

4. The organisers are heroes who should be paraded through the streets.

If you want specifics, go read the post!

Read more