
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.
Also new in store:

Facsimile AND translation in one volume
Il Fior di Battaglia by Fiore dei Liberi
This book reproduces the Getty manuscript in its entirety, in full colour, and as close as possible to the size of the original.
The second half of this volume is a second reproduction of the manuscript with the original Italian text replaced by my English translation. This recreates the experience of reading the original Italian as closely as possible. The book also includes an introduction to Fiore and his life and times, the provenance of the manuscript, and suggestions for further study.
This way, you get the original, and the translation, in one volume… for the same price as the original facsimile-only edition.

Don't miss the companion volume to the facsimile:
The Flower of Battle
If you buy the facsimile you will get a free ebook copy of the companion volume, which includes a complete transcription of the manuscript. Or you can order it as a paperback (with a discount if you get both facsimile and companion volume together).
Audatia the game (Print at home)
Swords are cool. Fighting with swords is the most fun you can have with your clothes on, but it’s hard work and dangerous. So we have distilled Guy Windsor’s decades of research and training into a duelling card game: AUDATIA.
We have provided the cards as print-at-home PDFs, which will be sent to you by instant download. All rules are included.
Looking for ready made cards? We'll be adding them to this store soon, but in the meantime you can find them here: Drive Thru Cards
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Audatia Bundle - print-at-home PDFs
Regular price £29.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per£47.94 GBPSale price £29.99 GBPSale -
Audatia Card Game - Agnes Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Card Game - Galeazzo Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Card Game - Boucicault Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Card Game - Nikodemus Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Card Game - Armour Expansion Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Card Game - Liechtenauer Expansion Deck (Print at home PDF version)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Audatia Wallpapers
Regular price £2.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Find your thing
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Do you like the theory?
Theory and PracticeWant to know how to research, how to train, or how to write about historical martial arts?
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Do you want step-by-step instructions?
WorkbooksChoose to learn rapier or longsword from a workbook with video links. Make notes as you learn with these specially designed books.
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Interested in the original treatises?
Treatises, translations, and academic interpretationsSee facsimiles of original sources, translations and Guy's interpretations.
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Renaissance Rapier
RapierDo you rave about the rapier? Learn Renaissance Italian martial arts, including the rapier fencing of Ridolfo Capoferro.
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Video Courses
Online coursesDo you learn best from video? Check out Swordschool's extensive selection of online courses.
Hardbacks and Facsimiles
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The Swordsman's Companion 20th Anniversary Edition (Hardback)
Regular price £44.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Get Them Moving: How to Teach Historical Martial Arts (Hardback)
Regular price £44.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi (hardback)
Regular price £44.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
From Your Head to Their Hands: How to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial arts (hardback)
Regular price £44.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Paperbacks
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The Swordsman's Companion 20th Anniversary Edition (Paperback)
Regular price £28.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Get Them Moving: How to Teach Historical Martial Arts (paperback)
Regular price £28.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Medieval Dagger (paperback)
Regular price £28.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Medieval Longsword (paperback)
Regular price £28.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Workbooks
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The Armizare Workbook: Part One: The Beginner's Course, Right-Handed Version (spiral bound workbook)
Regular price £23.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Armizare Workbook: Part One: The Beginner's Course, Left-Handed Version (spiral bound workbook)
Regular price £23.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Complete Rapier Workbook, Right-Handed Version (spiral bound workbook)
Regular price £23.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Complete Rapier Workbook, Left-Handed Version (spiral bound workbook)
Regular price £23.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Audiobooks
All audiobooks are delivered instantly by email from BookFunnel, to listen to in their dedicated audiobook app.
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De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi in audio (in Italian and English)
Regular price £16.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
From Your Head to Their Hands: How to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial arts (audiobook)
Regular price £12.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Principles and Practices of Solo Training: A Guide for Historical Martial Artists, Sword People, and Everyone Else (audiobook)
Regular price £12.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
The Theory and Practice of Historical Martial Arts (audiobook)
Regular price £12.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Ebooks
All e-books are delivered instantly by email from BookFunnel for you to read on whichever device you like.
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The Swordsman's Companion 20th Anniversary Edition (Ebook)
Regular price £0.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Get Them Moving: How to Teach Historical Martial Arts (ebook)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Wrestling Techniques of Fiore dei Liberi (ebook)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
From Your Head to Their Hands: How to write, publish, and market training manuals for historical martial arts (ebook)
Regular price £7.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Bundles and Box Sets
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The Rapier Bundle (ebook)
Regular price £13.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per£15.98 GBPSale price £13.99 GBPSale -
The Right-handed Rapier Bundle (paperback)
Regular price £47.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per£52.98 GBPSale price £47.99 GBPSale -
The Right-handed Rapier Bundle (hardback)
Regular price £89.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per£99.99 GBPSale price £89.99 GBPSale -
The Medieval Combat Training Bundle (hardback)
Regular price £161.99 GBPRegular priceUnit price per£179.96 GBPSale price £161.99 GBPSale
Online Courses
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Introduction to Historical Martial Arts
Coming soonThe perfect place to discover the historical martial art that's right for you.
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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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Swordschool unisex T-Shirt
Regular price From £19.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
Swordschool Classic T shirt
Regular price £22.50 GBPRegular priceUnit price per -
La Chevalière d'Eon T-shirt dress, dark
Regular price £27.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price perSold out -
Judith Women's T-shirt
Regular price From £19.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price per
Looking for something related to a particular master?
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Fiore dei Liberi
In the late 14th century Fiore dei Liberi, an Italian knightly combat...
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Philippo Vadi
In the late 15th century Philippo Vadi wrote De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi (The Art...
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Ridolfo Capoferro
Legendary Italian swordsman Ridolfo Capoferro published the most famous fencing book in...
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George Silver
George Silver was an English gentleman who published his book Paradoxes of Defence in...

Latest News: 4 July '25
Hi!
I do weights with my wife on Tuesdays and Saturdays. We normally do classic weight training, but last week she thought it might be fun to do a follow-along “posterior chain” workout from Roxanne Russell (an Australian fitness person on the tubes of you). It was so much “fun” she immediately wanted to do a dumbbell shoulder workout from Caroline Girvan. Caroline was using 8kg weights, I used 5, my wife was on 3. I quite like workouts where you just stick to one weight, it simplifies things. There were of course exercises where I could have gone a lot heavier, but also moments where 5kg felt more than enough.
So my hamstrings are toast and my triceps hate me. But it was fun! So much so that we repeated it (and I moved up a weight or two).
Why am I telling you this? Because it’s no bad thing to cross train, and it’s no bad thing to change things up every now and then. And if I can suffer through it, so can you. It’s honestly a refreshing change not to be making all the training decisions in a session.
Speaking of cross training, I’ve been having a go at “rope flow”, which seems quite fun and useful if you don’t take it too seriously. I cut the sound on this video because there was a lawn mower running nearby, and I was swearing a lot:
https://vimeo.com/1096945046
It’s not all suffering through kettlebells and chonky bits of iron. I also ended up shooting a couple of sword videos. This is me getting into a longsword frame of mind:
https://vimeo.com/1096538105
And this is a very useful exercise for learning when to pass and when to lunge, with a rapier or any other weapon: