Waster - History

History

Wooden practice swords have been in use since the Late Bronze Age, with an original sword found on Orkney's Mainland in still in existence at the National Museum of Edinburgh. A similar find in Ireland adds historical backing to the Irish myth, the Tain, in which the use of a wooden training sword is mentioned. Egyptian soldiers practiced a sort of sport fencing using blunt sticks as a sort of primitive waster. The Romans used a form of wooden sword, the rudis, for combat training. Translations of Roman poets Horace and Juvenal provide evidence of this training weapon in use. One translation of Juvenal's poetry by Barten Holyday in 1661 makes note that the Roman trainees learned to fight with the wooden wasters before moving on to the use of sharpened steel, much in the way modern reconstruction groups progress. In fact, it is also found that Roman gladiators trained with a heavy wooden sword against a straw man or a wooden pole known as a palus (an early relative of the later wooden pell). Wasters are mentioned in period works, including The Book of the Courtier. A number of Fechtbücher also mention the use of wasters or depict them in use by models showing proper technique.

During the 16th century, the Dussack came into use in German fencing schools. A true waster, the dussack was made almost entirely of wood (in all but one known case) and acted as safe and cheap training weapon. The weapon's unique shape did not lend well to the replication of traditional cruciform-hilted swords like the arming sword or longsword. Instead, the dussack resembled the großes Messer or "great knife", a weapon found more often amongst the common people than longswords, the cost of which allowed only relatively wealthy individuals to purchase them.