Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

670 Women in the Martial Arts
About 1300 A secretary to the Bishop of Wurzburg produces a manuscript
depicting unarmored German fighters. Known today as Manuscript
I.33, the text is in Latin, while the technical terms are in German. Most of
the work, however, involves a series of watercolor drawings showing students,
monks, and even a woman training in a variety of sword-and-buckler
techniques.
1354 The Islamic traveler Ibn Battuta reports seeing female warriors
throughout Southeast Asia. Although many of these women were probably
sword dancers, others were royal bodyguards. (Southeast Asian princes often
preferred female bodyguards to eunuchs.)
1364–1405 Tamerlane’s armies ravage Central and Southwest Asia.
Although Tamerlane was a devout Muslim, and non-Muslims took the
brunt of the Timurids’ legendary cruelty, his use of female archers in defense
of baggage trains appalled orthodox Muslim opponents.
1389 Sixty aristocratic women lead sixty knights and sixty squires
from the Tower of London to the lists at Smithfield. The thought of females
actually fighting during a tournament was, in the words of a near-contemporary
German author, “as impossible as a king, prince, or knight plowing
the ground or shoveling manure.” (Contemporary tales of female jousters
appear most often in erotic fantasies and satires.) Women did sometimes
compete in ball games and footraces. Many wealthy women also enjoyed
hunting with crossbows and falcons.
1409 Christine de Pisan, the Italian-born daughter of a French court
astrologer, publishes a book called Livre des Faits d’Armes (Book of Feats
of Arms), a vernacular study of military strategy and international law. It
includes original work, alongside translations of Vegetius and Frontinus,
classical authorities in the field. It is also a reminder that medieval females
could be as knowledgeable about military and political matters as was anyone
else within their social or economic class.
1431 The English burn a 19-year-old Frenchwoman named Jeanne la
Pucelle (Joan the Maid) as a witch. Her actual crime was rallying peasants
to the French flag. (She and some Scottish mercenaries had won some important
battles, thus giving the peasants hope.) Jeanne la Pucelle was renamed
Jeanne d’Arc (Joan the Archer) during the sixteenth century. The
modern cult of Saint Joan dates to the 1890s, when French politicians decided
to use the woman’s martyrdom to create a unifying national holiday.
(Bastille Day, which the Catholics viewed as godless, and the Royalists
viewed as an insult, was too controversial for this purpose.)
1541 While going up a river in Brazil, the Dominican monk Gaspar
de Carvajal reports being attacked by a band of armed females. The story
causes the river along which Carvajal was traveling to be called the
Amazon.