George Silver

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This article is about an English fencer; for the Scottish agricultural innovator see George Silver (Scotland)

George Silver (ca. 1560s–1620s) was a gentleman of England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who is known for his writings on fencing. He was the eldest of four brothers (one of whom, Toby, was also a swordsman who accompanied his brother in at least one challenge), and eleventh in descent from Sir Bartholomew Silver, who was knighted by Edward II. He married a woman named Mary Haydon in London, in 1580, and was still alive in 1622.

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[edit] Fencing

Although not a professional fencing teacher (a role mostly played by the middle-class London-based Corporation of Masters of the Noble Science of Defence), he was familiar with the fencing schools of the time, and the systems of defence that they taught. Silver seems to have been very nationalistic, championing the native English martial arts while objecting on ethical and technical grounds to the fashionable continental rapier systems being taught at the time. He particularly disliked the immigrant Italian fencing masters Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo, going so far as to challenge the latter (without result) to a public fencing match with various weapons atop a scaffold.

His major objections to the rapier itself and to its pedagogy were expressed in his 1599 work, Paradoxes of Defence.

He later (probably around 1605) wrote his Brief Instructions on my Paradoxes of Defence in which he explained some of his method for using his preferred weapons (he recommends the shorter backsword as being more versatile and offering better defence than the rapier). This however remained an unpublished manuscript until its publication in 1898 by fencing historian Captain Cyril G. R. Matthey.

Silver recommends a highly dynamic system which he deemed suitable for duelling, street defence and the battlefield, rather than the purely duelling orientation of the rapier.

[edit] Martial arts teachings

Silver broke down his ideas about the technical aspects of fighting into the following components:

  • The Grounds
  • The Governors
  • The Four True Times
  • The Four False Times

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Schools that teach Silver's swordsmanship


Persondata
NAME Silver, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION British fencer and martial arts author
DATE OF BIRTH
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH >1622
PLACE OF DEATH London