HEMA research bibliography for historical fencing, fight books, and treatises
Search authors, publication dates, countries, languages, manuscripts, articles, and printed treatises in a single HEMA research catalog built from a bibliographic investigation of the 19th-century works of Thimm, Gelli, Levi, Castle, Leguina, and Vigeant.
Browse the most common source categories for HEMA and historical fencing research, from treatises and fight books to articles and manuscripts.
Explore the archive by weapon and see how many catalogued works are associated with each tradition.
Explore the schools, methods, and technical traditions represented in the archive.
Explore the bibliography by source type and review the latest HEMA books, treatises, manuscripts, and historical fencing records added to the archive.
Teotónio Rodrigues de Carvalho
Works
Authors
Types
Countries
ARMORUM ARCHIVE is a public research catalogue dedicated to HEMA, historical fencing, and the written heritage of European martial arts. It brings together structured records for treatises, fight books, manuscripts, articles, and related works, making dispersed bibliographic evidence easier to discover, compare, and study.
Covering sources from 1300 to 1920, the archive grew from a systematic investigation of the major 19th-century fencing bibliographies compiled by Carl A. Thimm, Jacopo Gelli, Camille Levi, Egerton Castle, Enrique de Leguina, and Arsène Vigeant. Their references are reviewed, reconciled, and expanded through documentary research, authority control, and historical contextualisation.
The project is developed by Stafffighters, an initiative of the Portuguese Staff Fighting Historical Research Centre. Its purpose is to support researchers, practitioners, libraries, and collectors while contributing to the identification, preservation, and critical study of European martial culture.
The Stafffighter's Library is dedicated to the recovery, critical editing and republishing of manuals on stick fighting — from the 19th to the 21st century — with a special focus on Portuguese stick fighting. It produces academic work with documentary recovery, technical notes and historical contextualisation.
