Fencing

Fencing, now a modern sport increasingly practised throughout the world, is an art of the greatest antiquity with centuries of tradition behind it. Swordsmanship has been studied from the dawn of history but so long as man continued to go to war encased in armour, weapons remained heavy and clumsy and there was little skill in their use. In the early fifteenth century, however, the invention of gunpowder led to the disuse of armour and a sudden transformation of weapons to forms better adap...