ABOUT SCHOLA GLADIATORIA

Schola Gladiatoria is an historical European martial arts group with its HQ in Ealing, West London, Great Britain, founded and led by Matt Easton.

Schola Gladiatoria was formed and named officially in 2001, but was a practicing group before this.

We have 5 chapters offering classes each week:

What is HEMA?

Historical European martial arts, HEMA, also known as WMA (western martial arts) are the study and practice of Europe's indigenous historical fighting systems.  Some of these have living traditions, whilst most have died as lineages (many people are surprised to learn that Europe has complex martial arts systems), and so we must use the various detailed historical combat treatises, and our experience and experimentation as martial artists, to breath life back into them. Many of us have previous martial arts experience (Asian and European), and through years of working with the historical European treatises written and illustrated by ancient combat masters, and pressure-testing our interpretations of them, under various conditions with accurate copies of the equipment they used, we hope to be able to approximate an understanding of the fighting systems taught in Europe in bygone periods.

What are we not?

We are a martial arts group, using historical sources.  We are not a re-enactment or stage-fighting group and do not conduct choreographed, theatrical 'fighting'. We do not try to recreate historical events for public display. We train as martial artists, to theoretically be able to fight in a life or death situation with or against historical weaponry. We do engage in competitive martial arts tournaments with other HEMA/WMA groups.

Who are the students?

We have members from many varied training backgrounds, all ages and both sexes - people come to us from Asian martial arts, modern sport fencing, re-enactment and so on, and most people come into historical European martial arts with no previous related training at all.

What about these historical sources?

Schola Gladiatoria HQ's (SG1) primary area of research and training is the fighting system of the renowned medieval Italian Master of Arms Fiore dei Liberi, as explored in the three surviving versions of his treatise 'Fior di Battalglia', or 'Flower of Battle'.  His manuscript was a treatise or study of the art of combat for an experienced lord, not an instruction manual for the novice, yet what we have left to us is an amazingly clear and complete system of combat, with well illustrated techniques and text which explains the techniques and principles of the system.  You can quite literally recreate medieval fighting techniques straight from an original medieval book, but what is required from us is academic honesty, martial honesty, experience, training and testing of our interpretations over a long period of time.

Fior di Battaglia, by Fiore dei Liberi, covers unarmed fighting techniques, defence against a dagger and the use of dagger, dagger against sword, one-handed and two-handed sword use, spear, poleaxe and even mounted combat, in armour and out of armour (although we do not train in the mounted techniques currently).

Other chapters of Schola Gladiatoria may concentrate on other sources - for example, SG6 in Bradford concentrates on medieval German sources in the Lineage of Johannes Liechtenauer, who was roughly contemporary to Fiore dei Liberi.

'Fior di Battaglia' has been translated from facsimiles of the originals by Eleonora Litta and Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria, and together with another HEMA group they worked on the interpretation of these techniques since 2000.

We have secondary side-lines of interest in Vadi, the 16thC Bolognese traditions of 'Anonimo', Marozzo, Manciolino and Viggiani, and the study of 18th and 19th century gentlemanly and military martial arts.  Some members of the group choose to specialise more or less in different sources, even up to WWII and modern hand-to-hand combat, while Fiore's treatises provide the heart of our regular Ealing classes. To see glimpses of more medieval and renaissance combat treatises see here. If you are more interested in English swordsmanship of the 17thC then visit our Enfield Chapter.

Are other people doing this?

The historical European martial arts have grown in popularity considerably in the last decade, and Schola Gladiatoria enjoys friendly and co-operative relations with groups in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Norway, USA, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. We enjoy a very close 'sister-school' relationship with the Boar's Tooth Fight School in Folkestone and South London and STMF in High Wycombe.

Schola was a founding part of HEMAC and in 2006 joined the BFHS.

Since 2001 we have been actively involved in presenting at, teaching at and organising national and international martial arts events.  You can see photos from some of these in our gallery. Attendance of these events is totally optional for members, as is frequency of training, though we find that once a member goes to a big event they generally want to go to the next one!

If you want to find a group closer to you then have a look at our links page, or the groups listed on the HEMAC and BFHS websites.

If you want to ask us more questions please feel free to use our forum, or send us an email.

To read more about our training please go here.

Photos from Schola Gladiatoria events.

A publication from the 2003 International Arms & Armour Conference in Florence, ART AND ARMS - FLORENCE, CITY OF MEDICI, including an article by Matt Easton about Fior di Battaglia and Fiore dei Liberi, containing information never published in English before - ISBN 0954163311

Contact: schola-gladiatoria@hotmail.co.uk