This series of posts is based on Ridolfo Capo Ferro da Cagli (1610). My aim is to make this practical and to aid in the teaching of basic rapier play, and not to be completely historically authentic. However, it should be fairly close to Capo Ferro's work.
The sword
The rapier is a single handed blade with complex hand protection (e.g. a swept hilt or cup hilt), and in modern usage has a blade of 39 - 45 inches in length. Capo Ferro gives some indications of blade length, suggesting a length somewhat longer than this depending on how you interpret what he wrote, but given HEMA practitioners have to work within the confines of the equipment available, it is pointless arguing over blade length. 39-45 inches is fine, and I personally use a 41 inch blade, and I'm 5 foot 9 inches tall.
I am using a Regenyei standard with swept hilt: “Standard” Rapier – Regenyei Armory. I don't see why you couldn't learn the basics of rapier with any one handed sword of reasonable length, just bearing in mind that weight and length influence how easily you can cut and disengage.
Like all swords, the weapon is divided into a pommel, a grip, a hilt and a blade, and the blade is divided into a strong half (forte) and a weak half (debole), as well as a point. We also have a true edge (the edge facing the opponent when we cut from above) and the false edge.
Capo Ferro says that the weak of the blade is used to attack the opponent, and the strong is used to defend, noting that even if the strong was blunt the sword would still work just as well, so long as the weak was sharp. Of course, we don't use sharp blades in HEMA.
Holding the sword
For a right handed fencer, hold the sword in your right hand. The index finger goes over the crossguard, the thumb sits just below the ricasso (the portion of the blade visible just above the crossguard but below the side rings). The pommel should hug the bottom of your wrist - of course this depends on the size of your grip.
The stance
The basic stance is right foot forward, left leg back, standing in profile to your opponent, with your weight on your left leg, like this dude on the right:
Notice how, like the dude on the left, this stance allows us to lean forwards, and as we will see later, lunge forwards too.
The guards
For single rapier, there are four hand positions, and these together create four guards - although Capoferro is adamant that only one of these is a guard and the others are attacks or parries (or both!).
Prima (1st): Hold the sword so that the knuckle bow (assuming you have one, if not, your knuckles) faces 12 o'clock above your right shoulder. Don't worry about the exact position of your arm, just let your arm naturally move as you turn your wrist into position.
Seconda (2nd): rotate your wrist so the knuckle bow faces 3 o'clock. Your arm will naturally want to lower so your hilt is in line with, or just below, your shoulder height.
Terza (3rd): rotate your wrist so your knuckle bow is facing 6 o'clock. This is the same as your basic stance. The sword should divide you in the middle.
Quarta (4th): rotate your wrist so that your knuckle bow faces 9 o'clock. Your hilt is somewhat level with your shoulder.
These four basic positions are used again and again. However, only terza is considered a guard, with the other positions being attacks or parries.
Note that these positions only refer to the wrist rotation (pronated or supinated); the sword itself can be pointing straight forwards (hilt and tip at the same height), sloping upwards (hilt lower than tip) or downwards (tip lower than hilt).
Footwork
Gathering step: Most footwork is of the gathering step kind. To move forward, the front foot goes forward, and the back foot follows, so that the right foot is always in front. When going back, the back foot goes back and the front foot follows.
Passing step: This is where the left foot comes forward of the right foot, or the right foot goes back behind the left foot, when moving forward or backwards respectively. This is used sparingly. Following a lunge, a passing step is used to quickly move two steps backwards.
Lunge: this is where the left foot stays in place and the front foot is lifted off the ground slightly and extended forwards by about a foot length or more. A combination of gravity and pushing forwards with your left leg, propel your body forwards.
Void of the right foot: This is where you keep your left foot in place and you move your right foot to your right, voiding your body. It is used in a particular type of counter-attack.
Measure
Capo Ferro is quite unclear when it comes to measure. To simplify, measure is the distance between the point of your sword and the body part you are trying to hit. Generally, Italian fencing distinguishes between narrow measure and wide measure. Narrow measure is where you can attack your opponent with a small movement, say of just your arm or by leaning your body. Wide measure is where you need to make a larger movement, by stepping or lunging. Capo Ferro is unclear whether he considers lunging distance to be wide or narrow measure, but I will consider it to be wide measure.
We can also think of measure in terms of tempo, with the narrowest (i.e. closest) measure requiring half-tempo actions to hit, the next requiring one-tempo actions, and the widest measures requiring one-and-a-half-tempo actions.
We could also think of a third measure, where you must take multiple steps to hit the opponent. This is basically 'out of measure'.
Tempo
Tempo is one of the core concepts of Italian fencing theory. A tempo can be three things.
Firstly, tempo is an action that does not require a stop or change of direction. A tempo can also be a period of inaction. This isn't as confusing as it sounds: two fencers not moving are not doing anything, therefore 'time has stood still'. When one fencer takes an action (say, they step forwards), we can say that this action is a tempo (a unit of time). While they were stepping forward, the opponent did nothing, therefore the opponent used this tempo to stay still: Capo Ferro writes something like: "The movement of my blade measures my opponent's stillness. The stillness of my blade measures my opponent's movement", or in other words tempo is relative to your opponent. If you can complete your action (your tempo) before your opponent can react to it or complete theirs, this is all that matters. If your action takes too long, your opponent can react to it and counter it.
Secondly, tempo is the length of time that an action takes. Capo Ferro simplifies actions as taking half a tempo (e.g. a movement of the arm only, like a thrust from narrow measure), a full tempo (e.g. movement of the arm together with a lean of the body), and a tempo-and-a-half (e.g. a movement of the arm, body and a step/lunge all done together). I don't think the exact definition matters here, so suffice to say that some actions can be done quickly, others take more time, and this corresponds to how much distance the action needs to travel, but also whether the action is done with the arm, the body, or the foot, with the arm being quickest and the foot being slowest.
Lastly, a tempo is 'the correct time' to take an action. The correct action done at the wrong time is the wrong action. Capo Ferro steals from Bolognese fencing master Dal'Agocchi to clarify that there are 5 tempos in which you can safely attack your opponent: after you have parried their attack, as they prepare their own attack, as they are stepping forwards to attack, after their sword has passed you by following their attack, and as they are changing guard position. It is not only attacks that have correct tempos; there are correct tempos to parry, to move, to disengage the blade, etc., and, generally speaking, the correct tempo is while your opponent is committed to their own tempo, i.e. you act during your opponent's action.
Therefore, when fencing, you need to be aware of the following:
Is it the right time for me to perform my action?
What is the shortest action I can take that achieves my goal?
Can I perform my action before my opponent has time to counter that action?
Lines
If you hold your rapier in the guard of terza, the blade divides your body into four quarters: above the hilt, below the hilt, left of the hilt (the 'inside') and the right of the hilt (the 'outside'). Because rapier is predominantly thrust-based fencing, and the thrust is made in a straight line from your opponent to your body, these four quarters are called 'lines' (or lines of engagement). This basically means that, when attacking your opponent, you can either attack them to the left of their sword (from your perspective) - the outside line, or the right of their blade - the inside line, and this can be above their hilt (the high line) or below it (the low line).
Importantly, these lines are always relative to the sword, so if the sword moves, this may close a line, meaning you can only attack to the line on the opposite side of the sword. This video explains this concept well:
Attacks
There are two types of attack: a cut, or a thrust.
Cuts
Cuts are the same as in Bolognese fencing, so if you want the full details of the cut, read here.
As cuts aren't used very much in rapier, you only need to know that there are cuts from above (Fendente) and these come from the right (mandritto) or the left (reverso), made with the true edge. There are also false edge cuts from from below (left or right) but they are only really used as parries. If you want to learn to fight with (and defend against) a larger variety of cuts, I suggest you also learn some basic Bolognese fencing on the side.
Thrusts
Thrusts are stabs, and are made with an extension of the arm, with or without a lean of the body, and with or without a lunge or a step. When making a thrust, the arm is always extended first, then the body then the foot, in that order.
There are three types of thrust: the stoccatta (a straight thrust from below, made in terza), the punta riversa (a thrust made in quarta), and the imbrocatta (a high thrust made in seconda or in prima).
Capo Ferro explains that, when we thrust, we thrust at the height of our opponent's point, meaning if our opponent's tip is at the height of our face, we thrust them in the face, and if at chest height, we thrust their chest. This is so that our hilt displaces their point when we thrust so we are not simultaneously struck.
Target
Assuming our opponent is a right handed fencer, the targets for our thrusts are the right breast, right flank, neck or face. Capo Ferro says don't bother targeting the left side as it will be too far away from us, assuming our opponent is standing in profile rather than square on.
Also, be wary of targeting your opponent's legs in single rapier, as your will be outreached by someone targeting your head or your sword arm:
Stringeren (stringering)
Rapier fencing is based upon a concept called stringeren (I will use the terms stringer, stringered, and stringering). To stringer means to constrain your opponent's weapon. Or rather, it means to place your strong in between your opponent's weak and your body, so that your opponent is unable to thrust at you in a straight line.
You can think of stringering like performing a parry before your opponent has had the chance to thrust. Let's demonstrate this below with a series of images.
Firstly, let's a assume that both opponent's are in terza. This means their hilt is held lower, their point aimed at the face of their adversary, like this:
If both opponents were to step forwards and thrust, they would both stab each other:
Blue needs to stringer orange's blade. This is done in two ways, and in increments. First, blue tries to get their 'half weak' over a potion of orange's blade about 3-4 inches from the tip. This is done by pointing their blade a little to the left, turning their hand a little towards quarta (getting the true edge towards orange's blade), and stepping forwards:
Different rapier masters differed on whether the swords should be touching, with Capo Ferro saying 'No! Otherwise your opponent knows what you are doing', and other masters saying 'Yes! But only lightly'.
This can be considered a 'weak stringer' - blue has stringered the weak of orange's blade with the weak of blue's blade. It can also be considered 'finding the blade' - meaning you are close to their blade but not yet in control of it.
Notice how, if blue's blade was straight forward, the swords wouldn't cross. However, because blue's sword is pointing a little to the side, over orange's blade, blue has 'more' of their blade over 'less' of orange's blade. This, along with the slight pointing to the side, gives blue an advantage of leverage.
Blue now steps forwards again, turning their hand more into quarta, and placing the middle of their blade, or even their strong, over orange's weak:
This has gained blue a strong stringer. Even more so than before, if orange was to thrust forward at blue, they would miss completely, and even worse they would skewer themself on blue's point. This can be considered 'gaining the blade'.
From here, blue can step forward again, or lunge, or even lean forward (depending on how far away they are), and thrust orange in quarta.
The above sequence is shown with blue stringering orange on the inside line, but it is exactly the same from the outside with the only difference being that blue has their sword on the left of orange's blade, and thrusts in seconda instead of quarta.
In one of Capo Ferro's more confusing passages, he explains that the straight line is stringered by the oblique line, and that the obligue line is stringered by the straight line. This is best illustrated by the image below, which shows that:
On the left, blue's sword is on the oblique line (i.e. pointing at orange's shoulder), whereas orange's is pointing straight forwards. However, because blue's sword is on top of orange's sword, blue has stringered orange and so is in control and can thrust safely.
On the right, blue's sword is still on the oblique line and orange's sword is still on the straight line, but because orange's sword is now on top, orange has blue stringered. This means orange is in control and can thrust safely.
Capo Ferro does suggest that you can approach your opponent without a stringer (for example, if your opponent has their body uncovered, or if your opponent is in the straight line), and that you do this to seek measure (but not seek a tempo), and this is done with your sword on the straight line (I guess so as to present a threat with maximum reach). However, in the same passage he also suggests that you must stringer, which I take to mean that you can't attack unless you have first gained their weak with your hilt. He says you can thrust at someone who has the straight line so long as get your hilt one 'palmo' (about 8-9 inches) from the their tip and thrust with your hilt as high as their point is relative to your body (so if their point is level with your face, you thrust them in the face). He says that you must gain their weak with one tempo, and do not aim to gain their hilt and thrust in one tempo as this creates a tempo for the opponent to counter-attack. This is seen in the counters in part 3. Now, I might have misinterpreted this passage a little, as Capo Ferro wasn't the clearest writer...
Stringeren is explained nicely in this series of four videos:
End
If there is any more theory that I deem important, I will add this here.
Contents
This blog series will explore all of Capo Ferro's single rapier plays. I will start with the stringer on the inside line, and the counters that can be done. Then I will look at the stringer to the outside line, and the counters that can be done. This should then give you a complete repetoir of techniques and when to use them.
Here are the other post in this blog series:
Rapier 101 - part 2: Counter to the stringer on the inside - the 'disengage'
Rapier 101 - part 3: Counter actions to the disengage from the inside line
Rapier 101 - part 4: Clever counters to being stringered on the inside line
Rapier 101 - Part 4.5: Hierarchy of actions for the inside stringer (complete)
Rapier 101 - part 5: Hierarchy of actions for the outside stringer (complete)