Fencing History and Tales
Introduction | Literary Allusions | Famous Duels and Duellists | Women and CombatFamous Duels and Duellists
The Butcher and the Shoemaker
London May 27, 1667 from the diary of M. de Sorbière
"Then again by the water to the Bear-Garden, where now the house
full of people, and there most of them seamen striving by force to get
in, and I was afeard to be seen among them, but got into the alehouse,
and so by a back way was put into the bull-house, and was afeard I was
among the bears too, but by and by the door opened, and I got into the
common pit, and there, with my cloak about my face, I stood and saw the
prize fought, till one of them, a shoemaker, was so cut on the wrists
that he could fight no longer, and then they broke off, his enemy a butcher.
The sport was very good, and various humours to be seen among the rabble
that is there."
This excerpt is taken from Aylward's The English Master of Arms published in 1956 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
