One cold evening, sometime between the years 1595 and 1598, a half dozen men of means entered an inn at Wells, Somersetshire. Their guest of honor was a handsome Italian: Vincentio Saviolo, lately of Padua, kept a popular establishment in London, teaching dance, ballistics, and the new-fangled art of the rapier to London courtiers and their fashion-conscious entourage.

The conversation, naturally, soon turned to fencing. And as the wine and beer flowed, the talk grew louder. The Italian, carried along by the enthusiasm of his prosperous claque, was overheard stating that in all his years in England — and he had arrived in 1590 — "there was not yet one Englishman who could once touch him at the single rapier, or rapier and dagger."

To the Elizabethan ear, this was strong stuff indeed. It implied that English-trained fencers — both amateurs and professionals — were so inadequate they could not even score a lucky hit against the man. (Indeed, two hundred years later, a similarly outrageous claim — skillfully planted — would pitch the French masters LeBrun and Lapiere against each other in the salle of Henry Angelo... ending with the resounding defeat and subsequent suicide of Lapiere.)

Naturally, the local team was alerted by a Piqued Englishman.

Less than a half hour later, a tall man entered the inn and, cap in hand, approached the carousing gentlemen. This was Bartholomew Bramble, Wells' own accredited Maister of Defence. And his deference was not at all out of place, since after all, he was a "man of his hands" and the group he was approaching consisted of bonified nobles... and those aspiring to be just like them.

Now imagine their consternation when this fellow not only approached but actually dared to speak to them: If Maestro Vincentio would please to take a quart of wine with him.

Inch-for-inch the patrician, Vincentio leaned back: "Why should you give me a quart of wine?"

"Why, sir, because I hear you are a famous man at your weapon."

And the Piqued Englishman chimed in: "Maestro Vincentio, I pray to bid him welcome. He is a man of your profession."

"My profession?" Vincentio twirled his goatee. "What is my profession?"

"Well, he is a master of the Noble Science of Defence."

"Why," said Maister Vincentio, "God make him a good man." And he turned to resume his conversation.

But Bartholomew Bramble was not to be shrugged off. Not after that One Touch business he was not! So again he pressed his quart of wine on the Italian.

Annoyed, Vincentio looked up: "I have no need of your wine."

"Sir, I have a school of defence in town, will it please you to go thither?"

"Thy school? What shall I do at thy school?"

"Play with me," said the Maister, "at the rapier and dagger, if it please you."

"Play with thee? If I play with you, I will hit thee 1, 2, 3, 4 thrusts in the eye together." And Vincentio demonstratively shifted the gilded hilt of his rapier into plain sight.

"Then, if you can do so, it is the better for you and the worse for me. But surely, I can hardly believe that you can hit me. But once again, I heartily pray you, good sir, that you will go to my school and play with me."

"Play with thee?" Vincentio had had it. "By God," he spat, "Me scorn to play with thee."

That did it for Bramble. The Italian's "scorn" had not yet reverberated through the room when his large fist hit Vincentio squarely in the jaw that he fell over, flipped, and landed with his legs against a buttery hatch. Vincentio, his rapier dragging on the floor, sprang to his feet: His right on his dagger, his left index finger quivering at the Maister, he hissed: "I will cause you to lie in jail for this, one, two, three years."

Bramble, weaponless and facing the heavily armed Italian, grabbed a half-full jack of beer, and with gusto emptied it in his face:

"And well, since you will drink no wine, will you pledge me in beer? I drink to all the cowardly knaves in England, and I drink thee to be the veriest coward of them all."

They left it at that. Saviolo's friends probably pulled him back. And the innkeeper probably made sure Bramble didn't make the illustrious customers spend the cold hard coin of the realm with the competition. A duel proper — even after the double whammy of a physical insult — would be impossible. After all, someone with high social pretensions could not challenge a "base mechanick". And Saviolo was Elizabethan London's resident expert in regards to when and under what circumstancess a gentlemen should consider his honor to have been sullied: His book on Honour and Honourable Quarrels was twice as voluminous as his treatise of fight with the rapier in all its variations...

Saviolo, however, — who had nothing to gain and everything to lose putting his skills to the test against a native master — had an opportunity to prove that he indeed was the ultimate Macchiavellian.

Accidentally running into Bramble the next morning, he plays nice-nice, takes Bramble over to a mercer, buys him some silk buttons:

"You remember how you misused me yesterday. You were to blame, me be an excellent man. Me teach you how to thrust two foote further than any Englishman."

One of the earliest depictions — frequently adduced to be the first proper illustration of the lunge in action — is to be found in Ridolfo Capo Ferros' Gran Simulacro of 1610. Ridolfo calls it the "incredible increase of the long thrust" (l'incredibile accrescimento della botta lunga).

But as Gaugler points out, Viggiani (1575) had already mentioned the large step with the right foot. And Marozzo (1536) included punta lunga, an extension of the arm combined with an additional movement of the right foot after the execution of the pass.

(One of the modern McMartialist Meisters haunting the net these days recently claimed to have discovered an even earlier depiction of the Lunge, in the mid-15th-century Gladiatoria. Happily oblivious of the original meaning of the "long point", he contented himself to diagnose a bent forward knee a lunge proper, regardless of the fact that the sword's point in the depicted half-swording technique was anything but "lunga" by definition, and by position (the point digs upward from a bent elbow.)

As far as illustration go, Meyer's Gründtliche Beschreibung of 1570 (illustrations 2 and 3) shows something very closely resembling the lunge being executed at a stationary target with a rapier, as well as during a bout at swords.

So what can we make of Vincentio's conciliatory offer to let Bart Bramble in on his botte segreta? Is it really Bramble's ticket into a new grand world of sophistication and innovation? Or did the lunge already belong in the Maisters' combative repertoire? After all, Bramble felt fit enough to offer Saviolo a chance to play at the Italian's very own weapons of choice...

In an antagonistic combative scenario, the tactical forte of the lunge is the surprise element it adds to working with distance. But it requires full linear commitment to do harm to an opponent: The straight arm is absolutely necessary to transmit the full force of the lunge into and through the target. Which means that as the body weight is propelled forward through the straightening of the back leg, it needs to be tightly focused on the minuscule surface area of the point.

This advantage of the unsuspected strike from distance, however, probably played only a minor role in the native combative culture of Elizabethan England.

An experienced antagonist would be able to take advantage of the linear commitment of the attack, either by removing target area (via a volte or side step), or by taking advantage of the wonderful stability of his True Guardant Ward. (The latter would have provided the opportunity for a powerful and lightning-fast counter-attack against the wrist or lower arm of the lunging attacker.)

In the English system of the Noble Art, the True and False Times provided a simple but accurate grid of classifying offensive and defensive actions according to comparative speed. The lunge, by virtue of the body parts involved in its proper execution, involved the True Times of the hand, the body, and the feet: To reach the opponent, the arm has to be straightened, and the entire body weight has to be accelerated from a standstill to the speed necessary for penetration.

By definition, it could be defeated by the action of the hand (a stop cut), the time of the hand and body (maybe a parry and a leaning back of the upper body), and the time of the hand, body, and foot (a volte). As such, it would not have played a major role in the Masters' offensive repertoire.

No matter if lunge or straight thrust, an épée, saber, or rapier point becomes dangerous only after passing the opposing guard, at which moment the opposing point poses the same threat to your own lower arm that your point poses to his.

With weapons used with one hand only, an extension of True Reach is difficult to obtain indeed. Sir William Hope angrily prohibited his students from gripping the pommel of their weapons to obtain the unfair advantage of a few inches in True Reach. And I have seen some modern saber fencers establish something resembling a pistol grip by pressing the pommel into their palm for the additional inch or two

The combative backgrounds of the Medieval and Renaissance masters of arms, however, was very diverse indeed. The repertoire of any provost or master would include edged weapons, as well as staff and pole arms. And it is exactly in this area that we can find historical precedent for the lunge executed with extension of True Reach in mind.

The German Joachim Meyer's sections on staff, pike, and halberd are some of the most erudite instructions in the usage of these weapons of the period. Staff weapons, due to their considerable weight, are typically managed using two hands. This in fact reduces their True Reach to the (maximum) two thirds of their total length that projects out from the leading hand. (If considered under the auspices of true reach, one of the traditional ways of gripping a quarterstaff — with a third of the length projecting from each hand, actually reduces the True Reach of that weapon to one comparable to that of the rapier...)

Meyer, however, in one of his plates entitled "Fechten mit der Helleparten" ("Fencing with the Halbert") depicts two fencers engaged in one-handed defensive and offensive actions with the staff. The fencer to the upper left has achieved the final extension of the lunge, adding at least three feet to his True Reach by grasping the staff at the butt end with is right hand.

The only way to escape this enormously extended reach is for the right-hand fencer to speedily escape to the rear with what could have been a backward lunge, also grasping his weapon at the butt end, and placing his weapon diagonally between him and the opponent, point on the floor.

This action, of course, puts enormous strain on the right arm of the lunging fighter. And unless the actual speed of the lunge was considerable enough to steady the point in the process, point control was as good as impossible. This was probably not an action that would have been performed with any kind of frequency in practice bouts.

But its pictographic representation in a source that predates Vincentio Saviolo's teachings by 20 years could lead us to assume that his offer to stout-hearted Bart Bramble, "to teach him how to thrust twoo foote farther then anie Englishman..." may not have been all what later authors have come to accept.

In which case, the above anecdote of Vincentio's trip to Wells, Somersetshire, leaves us with probably the most important guideline of how to establish and maintain a reputation of undefeated fencing prowess:

Don't engage in challenges that you could lose.