Introduction to rapier and dagger

As I mentioned in the previous issue, the dagger was a companion weapon to the sword throughout the Renaissance and throughout the 17th century. By the time the Northern Italian manuals I’m teaching from were published, they were such an accepted pair that sword smiths were making matching sets of rapiers and daggers - some of which can still be found in museums.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC - ca. 1580

In this article, we will get familiar with the off-hand or parrying dagger, exploring how to hold it, how to use it in a very general sense, and what it adds to a fencer’s fight and options.

This will be an introduction to how I teach the use of the dagger in the offhand, and I’ll follow up with a series of posts/issues covering some plays from Capoferro’s manual, broken down like I did with several solo sword plates (7, 14, 16, and 8).

Working off the same page

This series on rapier and dagger assumes you already have some familiarity with the single sword actions of Capoferro, Giganti, maybe Fabris, and the Vienna Anonymous. If you need, here are the articles I’ve published that will bring you up to speed, at least academically.

• How to hold the rapier

• Northern Italian Postures, Part 3: The four primary postures of Ridolfo Capoferro

• The lunge and its mechanics - part 1

• Gaining the opponent’s blade - part 1

• On movement

• Digging into the cavazioni

• The ideal fight

• Breaking down Capoferro’s plate 7

• Breaking down Capoferro’s plate 16

Remember that to really understand and internalize this content you need to drill the lessons, sword in hand, with a willing partner.