{"id":2803,"date":"2025-05-19T21:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T19:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/?p=2803"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T19:55:13","slug":"intriguing-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/intriguing-reference\/","title":{"rendered":"An intriguing reference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A French version is available here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Browsing again through the work of Sainct-Didier on Gallica, I randomly stopped on a hand-written page<\/a> at the beginning, which suddenly caught my attention by this paragraph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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La Croix du Maine says that this author still lived in 1584 and is a descendant of Guillaume de St Didier gentleman of Provence, who composed a book on fencing in 1174 that is to say 400 years before this one<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I was aware through Olivier Dupuis’s excellent transcription<\/a>, that La Croix du Maine was giving some biographical information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this book on fencing from 1174? That was news to me, even though the first works on fencing history have no shortage of shady references and dubious parallels<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have therefore traced back the reference, firstly in Les biblioth\u00e8ques fran\u00e7oises [the French librairies] de La Croix-du-Maine et de Du Verdier<\/a><\/em>, where it is indeed located (albeit without any genealogical claim, and without a precise publication date, the author just noting the funny coincidence in names):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guillaume de S. Didier, Gentleman, born in the land of Velay, Proven\u00e7al Poet, in the year 1185. […] He has written a very beautiful treatise of Fencing. He died in the year 1185, or thereabout*.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* See Jean de Notre-Dame, Chap.6<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This Jean de Notre-Dame is actually the brother of the famous Nostradamus<\/a>, who compiled The lives of the most famous and ancient proven\u00e7al poets<\/em><\/a>, in which can be read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The monk of Montmajour says that this Guillaume sang with pleasure, but was bereft of love; put the Fables of Esope in vulgar Proven\u00e7al rythm, and also did a beautiful treatise about fencing, dedicated to the count of Provence. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now we get into more tricky territory with this “monk of Montmajour”. I have found articles<\/a> claiming that this character never existed, and was basically only a literary device allowing Jean de Notre-Dame to flesh out his biographies. So the track stops here for the moment. I have not been able to find the source of Jean de Notre-Dame’s claim, if there has ever been one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remains this intriguing reference to what would be the oldest european fencing treatise known to us, predating the famous Ms. I.33<\/a> by more than 150 years. Who knows whether it truly existed or was just a figment of the imagination of Jean de Notre-Dame? Which HEMA researcher would not dream of discovering such a treatise?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lead towards a Proven\u00e7al fencing treatise from the late 12th century…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-2803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-source","tag-sainct-didier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.subcaelo.net\/ensis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}