Bareknuckle fighting

[PeteWalsh]

Accepted wisdom has it that "modern" (i.e. post-Roman Empire) Western bareknuckle fighting essentially begins with James Figg, the first recognised champion of England, who set up an academy in Tottenham Court Rd, London, in 1719. It is also often said that the first newspaper report of a "boxing" match was a brief paragraph in 1681 in the Protestant Mercury.
I an convinced, however, that regular bareknuckle contests must have taken place before this, but were not reported for the simple reason that there were no newspapers. Figg cannot have sprung out of nowhere - there must already have been some form of structured or unstructured competitive bouts, probably takng place mainly at games and festivals such as the Cotswold Games.
I'd like to ask if anyone has any information, gleaned from any historical sources, of bareknuckle contests and/or techniques anywhere in Europe before the 1700s?

[Mike Cartier]

Greek and Roman boxing in the classical age was basically BKB with less rules than the later English pugilism.
This was practiced with wrestling and pankration competively all across the greco-roman world for well over a thousand years. Combat sport athletes were professional and some acheived great wealth and fame from it. There is even a few Images from the period with very BKB looking fighting positions. We know they used head movment and defensive actions with the arms just like boxers today do.

[PeteWalsh]

Thanks for the reply Mike
It's really the post-Greek/Roman era I am interested in, that little researched (in terms of martial arts) period from the Dark Ages to the late 17th Century.
Something must have been going on in terms of contested bareknuckle bouts - but is there any info out there about it? And why does it just seem to be England where bareknuckle fighting either survived, or re-emerged. I feel is MUST have been going on elsewhere too.

[Gene Tausk]

Hi Pete:

I have some information on bareknuckled fights that occurred in Moscow in the 17th century.

It's in Russian and I've been meaning to get around to translate it, but never have.

The report describes two contestants involved in a sporting bare-knuckle brawl as part of the maslenitsa (sort of the Russian Orthodox version of Fat Tuesday) festivities.

Pre-revolutionary Russia had plenty of town festivals with fights such as these.

I don't know if this answers your question or not.

Don't forget that the Roman world had the civilization to sponsor large-scale athletics, like the boxing, wrestling and pankration described by Steve. Europe in the MA really did not have this luxury.


------------->>>>>>>>gene tausk
SFS
Study Group Leader - Houston ARMA Southside

[PeteWalsh]

Hi Gene

I would LOVE to read your Russian report, plus any similar info anyone has.

It would be great to start shedding some light on this "Dark Age" of pugilistic research. I am sure there are sources around Europe covering this topic, but would imagine that historians have tended to overlook them because generally martial arts are not what they're looking for. Apart from a few general references, and of course the wonderful Fightbooks on your site and elsewhere, I can find little.

I remember reading a few years ago that the monk St Bernardine of Siena taught a form of boxing in what is now Italy in the 15th century. Unfortunately the source was the author "John F.Gilbey", who turned out to be a hoax promulgated by the American martial arts writer Robert W.Smith, so its reliability has to be doubtful.

Pete

[philippewillaume]

Hello peter.

For what that is worth
I think the issue here is probably what consist bare knuckle fighting.
For example you have strike with a closed fist in ringecks wrestling and you can see a few punches (and kicks) with Pieters.
So that clearly means that striking with the hand and the foot was perfectly legit and practiced. I mean in Ringeck, those strikes have a great tactical importance.

I think the main difficulty is to find when BKB dissociate from wrestling. My understanding of how savate came to be is that it is a summary of kicks found in different local and much older “wrestling” styles.

From what I understand of Mendoza, there seems to be still a residual link with wrestling which he is pretty much against as it is not proper boxing.

I would not be surprised if BKB was kind of always there but just part of wrestling. If we take the use of strike in Ringeck as references; we are told to use them when in need or in case of urgency.
Basically those strike are used like atemi in pre and early post war aikido (or daito ryu, aiki-jujitsu). Basically it is to hurt the opponent, control his body position and give us time to apply a wrestling technique.
I would not be surprise that as long as you can wrestle significantly BKB proper can not really emerge as you have easiest way to finish win the fight.
(and match rules i have seen with mendoza are clearly made to prevent wrestling)

phil

[PeteWalsh]

Hi Phil

You're right, of course, it is very hard, if not impossible, to disentangle fist-fighting from wrestling/grappling through the centuries.

The cross-buttock was an acceptable and popular throw in British BKB for a long time, and when James Figg fought his greatest challenger, Ned Sutton, at Southwark in London he beat him not with a knockout but with an armlock.

However, the Greeks had clearly separated boxing/striking and wrestling, as indeed did the masters of the Far East. So what intrigues me is if any style survived in Europe, either as sporting competition, recreation or actual martial self-defence, that relied primarily or exclusively on blows with the fist.

If it did, it is most likely to have been witnessed at the "games" - probably often organised mayhem - held at regular fairs and festivals throughout Europe, as a previous poster has mentioned. That, after all, was where people gathered for entertainment and recreation.

Does anyone know of any fist-fighting tradition among any of the tribes or peoples of Europe in the period 500 - 1700 BC?

Pete

[Jonathan Coupe]

Hi Pete:

Don't forget that the Roman world had the civilization to sponsor large-scale athletics, like the boxing, wrestling and pankration described by Steve. Europe in the MA really did not have this luxury.

I have to disagree somewhat.

The MA probably had a much, much *greater* surplus than the Romans did, due to developments like the effective draught collar, better sea going vessels (much more useful for fishing before fish stocks declined), improved ploughs, better metallurgy - probably even improved banking arrangements, partly due to improved systems for numerical calculations. In judging the MA economically, remember that they had the wealth to dedicate to importing unprecedented quantities of spice from the orient (and no, it wasn't to stop meat rotting!). If you can afford to send fleets of ships to the MA equivalent of Mars just to spice up dinner, you can certainly afford to hire a few guys to punch each other in the face for yucks.

In comparing with classical civilization, it's important to remember that the Greeks and Romans had different motivations for sports, and behaved very differently. Pankration was a gentleman's sports and directly related to hoplite combat - there was a MA equivalent, the tourney. But they were very different *because* of culture, not economics: the tourney was oriented directly towards practicing and displaying skills for war, while the summit of pankration was at Olympia, and therefore religious (something people forget about the classical games).

The Roman gladiatorial sports were different again, and died not because of a lack of economic surplus, but because they were against Christian morality. It's easy to forget how important this was in the MA - most noble/warrior types assumed that they were doomed to hell or purgatory because of their military profession - hence the willingness to crusade and be redeemed. A caste of entertainer-warriors, or the idea that the people might practice martial arts for self-improvement and be admired for it, would both be very alien ideas in the MA.

There is also the matter of social hierarchy element in the MA: fitness to rule was closely linked to competence in personal combat. This militarized elite would probably have felt diminished or rivalled by lower class gladiator combats - or in the case of boxers, that watching people fight without weapons was like eating a meal that wasn't dyed blue and saturated with ginger, cloves, and nutmeg - i.e. bland and colourless.

[Gene Tausk]

Hi Pete:

Don't forget that the Roman world had the civilization to sponsor large-scale athletics, like the boxing, wrestling and pankration described by Steve. Europe in the MA really did not have this luxury.

I have to disagree somewhat.

The MA probably had a much, much *greater* surplus than the Romans did, due to developments like the effective draught collar, better sea going vessels (much more useful for fishing before fish stocks declined), improved ploughs, better metallurgy - probably even improved banking arrangements, partly due to improved systems for numerical calculations. In judging the MA economically, remember that they had the wealth to dedicate to importing unprecedented quantities of spice from the orient (and no, it wasn't to stop meat rotting!). If you can afford to send fleets of ships to the MA equivalent of Mars just to spice up dinner, you can certainly afford to hire a few guys to punch each other in the face for yucks.

In comparing with classical civilization, it's important to remember that the Greeks and Romans had different motivations for sports, and behaved very differently. Pankration was a gentleman's sports and directly related to hoplite combat - there was a MA equivalent, the tourney. But they were very different *because* of culture, not economics: the tourney was oriented directly towards practicing and displaying skills for war, while the summit of pankration was at Olympia, and therefore religious (something people forget about the classical games).

The Roman gladiatorial sports were different again, and died not because of a lack of economic surplus, but because they were against Christian morality. It's easy to forget how important this was in the MA - most noble/warrior types assumed that they were doomed to hell or purgatory because of their military profession - hence the willingness to crusade and be redeemed. A caste of entertainer-warriors, or the idea that the people might practice martial arts for self-improvement and be admired for it, would both be very alien ideas in the MA.

There is also the matter of social hierarchy element in the MA: fitness to rule was closely linked to competence in personal combat. This militarized elite would probably have felt diminished or rivalled by lower class gladiator combats - or in the case of boxers, that watching people fight without weapons was like eating a meal that wasn't dyed blue and saturated with ginger, cloves, and nutmeg - i.e. bland and colourless.

Hmmm...not sure we are talking about the same thing. What I was trying to describe was that the Romans had a large empire and used part of their tax base and remunerative input to sponsor large scale sporting festivals, including boxing and gladiatorial combat. They also used their state funds for the construction of large-scale arenas and stadiums (Colloseum, Hippodrome). I agree that these events were (in part anyway) religious and state festivals, but the point I was trying to make was that the Romans invested their state resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportsmen such as boxers and gladiators. It is sort of the same today as a boxer or MMA fighter finding a sponsor to pay the bills so they can devote full-time to training. But, given the capitalist system in which these people live (United States), they have to find a sponsor. Or, if you prefer, during the time of the Soviet Union the Soviets used state resources to train, feed and house athletes for Olympic competition. The only "jobs" of these athletes in the Roman world and the Soviet world was to train and win.

AFAIK, societies in the Middle Ages did not do this. Of course, these societies did not use slaves to the same extent (and in the glorious world of the Soviet system, most people were indeed slaves of the state) and yes, Christian morality changed the entire ethos of the worlds of the Middle Ages.

Once again, AFAIK, the tournaments of which you describe occurred later in the MA and certainly were not of the same scale of the games in the Flavian Amphitheater or the horse racing of the Hippodrome, where there would be 50,000 to 100,000 spectators. And, these games were sponsored by the state. This is because of the difference in the economic systems of the Roman world and the fact that the societies of the MA were much smaller in scale.

[Jonathan Coupe]

Hmmm...not sure we are talking about the same thing. What I was trying to describe was that the Romans had a large empire and used part of their tax base and remunerative input to sponsor large scale sporting festivals, including boxing and gladiatorial combat.

The size of the empire doesn't really matter, because gladiatorial combat wasn't restricted to Rome, it was ubiquitous, and most fights took place in shoddy wooden structures (famous for collapsing and maiming spectators). It didn't require a lot of money. Grand buildings for combats were the result of empire, but the combats weren't.

They also used their state funds for the construction of large-scale arenas and stadiums (Colloseum, Hippodrome).

Medieval Europe built cathedrals instead. The prestige structures in Rome *were* a display of the RE's power, but they were *not* necessary for gladiatorial combat. It went on Rome long before in lesser structures, and carried on throughout much of the rest of the RE in structures that were less than circus tents.

I agree that these events were (in part anyway) religious and state festivals, but the point I was trying to make was that the Romans invested their state resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportsmen such as boxers and gladiators.

Yes, In understand this. My reply is that to MA Europeans this would have been at once un-Christian, ridiculous, and against the social order.

AFAIK, societies in the Middle Ages did not do this. Of course, these societies did not use slaves to the same extent

The use of horse power - and even wind and water power - in the MA more than compensated economically for the loss of slavery. The Roman Empire was shockingly poor by the standards of later societies because without proper draught collars it couldn't plough effectively.

Once again, AFAIK, the tournaments of which you describe occurred later in the MA and certainly were not of the same scale of the games in the Flavian Amphitheater or the horse racing of the Hippodrome, where there would be 50,000 to 100,000 spectators.

Concluding that the MA did not stage gladiator contests because it couldn't afford them, and was therefore poorer than the RE, is like assuming that the modern Western world has given up Athenian pederasty because we are too poor to buy engraved goblets and scent for our boyfriends. We're vastly richer than the Athenians, but this particular way of using wealth is abhorrent to us.

If the MA had wanted gladiators, it would have had them - with wood and cloth theatres, or simply crowds of people standing around fields if it couldn't afford anything else - and these were exactly the conditions for most gladiator matches in the RE. (Think of the first fight in Gladiator - in Tunisia or wherever it was supposed to be.)

And, these games were sponsored by the state. This is because of the difference in the economic systems of the Roman world and the fact that the societies of the MA were much smaller in scale.

Again: scale is irrelevant. The RE was large, but gladiatorial contests were many and often found in remote outposts - even London. The MA spent vast amounts of cash on long distance trading and religious activities, not to mention warfare. Having people hit each for fun doesn't cost much money; money was not the problem.

[Gene Tausk]

Hmmm...not sure we are talking about the same thing. What I was trying to describe was that the Romans had a large empire and used part of their tax base and remunerative input to sponsor large scale sporting festivals, including boxing and gladiatorial combat.

The size of the empire doesn't really matter, because gladiatorial combat wasn't restricted to Rome, it was ubiquitous, and most fights took place in shoddy wooden structures (famous for collapsing and maiming spectators). It didn't require a lot of money. Grand buildings for combats were the result of empire, but the combats weren't.

They also used their state funds for the construction of large-scale arenas and stadiums (Colloseum, Hippodrome).

Medieval Europe built cathedrals instead. The prestige structures in Rome *were* a display of the RE's power, but they were *not* necessary for gladiatorial combat. It went on Rome long before in lesser structures, and carried on throughout much of the rest of the RE in structures that were less than circus tents.

I agree that these events were (in part anyway) religious and state festivals, but the point I was trying to make was that the Romans invested their state resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportsmen such as boxers and gladiators.

Yes, In understand this. My reply is that to MA Europeans this would have been at once un-Christian, ridiculous, and against the social order.

AFAIK, societies in the Middle Ages did not do this. Of course, these societies did not use slaves to the same extent

The use of horse power - and even wind and water power - in the MA more than compensated economically for the loss of slavery. The Roman Empire was shockingly poor by the standards of later societies because without proper draught collars it couldn't plough effectively.

Once again, AFAIK, the tournaments of which you describe occurred later in the MA and certainly were not of the same scale of the games in the Flavian Amphitheater or the horse racing of the Hippodrome, where there would be 50,000 to 100,000 spectators.

Concluding that the MA did not stage gladiator contests because it couldn't afford them, and was therefore poorer than the RE, is like assuming that the modern Western world has given up Athenian pederasty because we are too poor to buy engraved goblets and scent for our boyfriends. We're vastly richer than the Athenians, but this particular way of using wealth is abhorrent to us.

If the MA had wanted gladiators, it would have had them - with wood and cloth theatres, or simply crowds of people standing around fields if it couldn't afford anything else - and these were exactly the conditions for most gladiator matches in the RE. (Think of the first fight in Gladiator - in Tunisia or wherever it was supposed to be.)

And, these games were sponsored by the state. This is because of the difference in the economic systems of the Roman world and the fact that the societies of the MA were much smaller in scale.

Again: scale is irrelevant. The RE was large, but gladiatorial contests were many and often found in remote outposts - even London. The MA spent vast amounts of cash on long distance trading and religious activities, not to mention warfare. Having people hit each for fun doesn't cost much money; money was not the problem.

We seem to agree on the main issue, which is this:

"ME: I agree that these events were (in part anyway) religious and state festivals, but the point I was trying to make was that the Romans invested their state resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportsmen such as boxers and gladiators.

YOU: Yes, In understand this. My reply is that to MA Europeans this would have been at once un-Christian, ridiculous, and against the social order."

AFAIK, societies in the MA (which is still loosely defined as AD 476 - AD 1450) would not have invested their resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportmen.

However, I cannot figure out from where you are stating that the Empire was "shockingly poor" by the standards of later societies. Which societies are you talking about? I want to know to which MA societies you are referring and the time periods involved (don't bother posting if the societies to which you refer are after 1450 and don't bother posting if you are going to talk about the Byzantine Empire which, as I am sure you are aware, was the Eastern Roman Empire. It goes without saying, of course, don't bother posting if you are not talking about a European society from this time period). From all accounts I am aware of the MA, Constantinople was far and away the richest city in Europe from the so-called "Dark Ages" until about 1204 when Latin Crusaders thought it would be fun to take over, in part because they were amazed at the wealth they found there. So, apparently as late as 1204, many Europeans were still impressed by the wealth of the Romans.

Also, not to underestimate the importance of a draft collar (which of course was very important), but you seem to be simplifying the entire economic systems of the ancient world and the medieval one into one invention.

BTW - for point of reference, I am talking about the time period of the "Pax Romana" from appx. 90 AD to 180 AD. So, for your comparison, use this time period.

[PeteWalsh]

Steering things back to the original post, what I was after was any knowledge of sources for bareknuckle combat or fist-fighting in the period after the ending of the Roman Games up to the advent of James Figg in the 18th century.

That's a huge period and there must be material about combat either as organised sport, folk sport, for village/neighbourhood honour, or wahtever, but it is very hard to find. Histories of pugilism almost always begin with Figg, not before. I feel that is wrong.

The ARMA article 'Battling at the Bridge' describes the 17th century Venetian one-on-one boxing matches called mostre, but what else do we know about?

[Jonathan Coupe]

We seem to agree on the main issue, which is this:

"ME: I agree that these events were (in part anyway) religious and state festivals, but the point I was trying to make was that the Romans invested their state resources into training, housing, feeding and keeping trained sportsmen such as boxers and gladiators.

YOU: Yes, In understand this. My reply is that to MA Europeans this would have been at once un-Christian, ridiculous, and against the social order."

That's a good summary of my position.

However, I cannot figure out from where you are stating that the Empire was "shockingly poor" by the standards of later societies. Which societies are you talking about? I want to know to which MA societies you are referring and the time periods involved (don't bother posting if the societies to which you refer are after 1450 and don't bother posting if you are going to talk about the Byzantine Empire which, as I am sure you are aware, was the Eastern Roman Empire. It goes without saying, of course, don't bother posting if you are not talking about a European society from this time period). From all accounts I am aware of the MA, Constantinople was far and away the richest city in Europe from the so-called "Dark Ages" until about 1204 when Latin Crusaders thought it would be fun to take over, in part because they were amazed at the wealth they found there.

You're confusing "possession of glittery metal" with "economic surplus" - which was one of the mistakes that destroyed the Spanish Empire. It's the "economic surplus" sort of wealth that the Romans were poor in.* Poor use of animal wind and water power meant very low economic surplus. Poor ploughs (wheel-less, pulled by an ineffectiveness harness, lacking the weight and strength needed to overcome the strong roots left behind by chopped down northern forests) meant that land in northern Europe that later societies could use weren't available to the Romans.

Put simply, the MA's would have needed fewer farmers to support a single sportsperson than the Romans did, which is what matters.

*If you have lots of glittery metal and little economic surplus, all you tend to get is inflation, and the disappearance of the glittery metal as it buys cabbages. The Byzantines were rich in the gm sense partly because of historical inheritance, and rich in the economic surplus sense because they had a terrific position on trade routes.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

You're confusing "possession of glittery metal" with "economic surplus" - which was one of the mistakes that destroyed the Spanish Empire. It's the "economic surplus" sort of wealth that the Romans were poor in.*

So true. Having studies economics myself, I learned the rather surprising fact that economic surplus consists of all means of production rather than just money and precious metal, and that the Romans had less economical power overall than their medieval successors. This statement is usually held to apply to a "medieval" bracket starting with the 12th century or so and ending at the mid-15th, but some economic historians go so far as to suggest that the Carolingian Franks already had more economical power than the sum of the Roman provinces that formerly occupied their domains. Others argue that the Carolingian Renaissance did represent a boost in economic productivity, but it was beaten down by the Viking invasion and the breakup of the Carolingian empire and the European economy only grew beyond the Carolingian maximum by the 12th century or so. (This argument, of course, largely ignores the economic growth of other regions like Anglo-Saxon England or Muslim Spain.)

Gene might have a point for the period immediately following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West but this economic downturn was quite brief compared to the prosperity seen during the rest of the medieval period. There are even some scholars who think that Visigothic Italy of the 6th century A.D. was more prosperous than the Western Roman Empire at the end of its life because Theodoric the Great was more willing and able to enforce Roman law than the last Roman emperors did!

So, I'd agree with Jonathan in that the medieval culture did not hold large-scale gladiatorial games not because they couldn't afford to, but because they chose not to.

Now, like Pete said, going back to the original:

However, the Greeks had clearly separated boxing/striking and wrestling, as indeed did the masters of the Far East.

I don't think the "masters of the Far East" really did either, at least not until the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty took over in China and prohibited the use of military weapons by the common Han (native Chinese) people. This caused the people to switch to improvised weapons and unarmed techniques as their primary methods of fighting, which led to a greater emphasis on striking techniques in order to substitute for the reach and impact of the weapons they were no longer permitted to use. A similar trend took place in Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate when the authorities ordered a crackdown on the ownership of military weapons by the common people.

Note that in both Japan and China, the military curriculum of martial arts per se still emphasized wrestling and ground-fighting as its primary methods of unarmed fighting. The old martial arts of the samurai produced the grappling techniques of judo and jujutsu--not the striking techniques used by the peasants' art of karate!

[Jay Vail]

You're confusing "possession of glittery metal" with "economic surplus" - which was one of the mistakes that destroyed the Spanish Empire. It's the "economic surplus" sort of wealth that the Romans were poor in.*

So true. Having studies economics myself, I learned the rather surprising fact that economic surplus consists of all means of production rather than just money and precious metal, and that the Romans had less economical power overall than their medieval successors. This statement is usually held to apply to a "medieval" bracket starting with the 12th century or so and ending at the mid-15th, but some economic historians go so far as to suggest that the Carolingian Franks already had more economical power than the sum of the Roman provinces that formerly occupied their domains. Others argue that the Carolingian Renaissance did represent a boost in economic productivity, but it was beaten down by the Viking invasion and the breakup of the Carolingian empire and the European economy only grew beyond the Carolingian maximum by the 12th century or so. (This argument, of course, largely ignores the economic growth of other regions like Anglo-Saxon England or Muslim Spain.)

Gene might have a point for the period immediately following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West but this economic downturn was quite brief compared to the prosperity seen during the rest of the medieval period. There are even some scholars who think that Visigothic Italy of the 6th century A.D. was more prosperous than the Western Roman Empire at the end of its life because Theodoric the Great was more willing and able to enforce Roman law than the last Roman emperors did!
!

Interesting because historians that I have read link the decline of the Roman army and the subsequent fall of the Western Empire with a decline in the tax base. A small and inefficiently used tax base is also thought to be a cause of the rise of feudalism.