Episode 200 with Michael Chidester: sharing hidden treasures

The Sword Guy Podcast

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to: https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-200-with-michael-chidester-sharing-hidden-treasures

To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

For our two hundredth episode it’s the welcome return of Michael Chidester. Michael is the architect of Wiktenauer, the online archive of historical martial arts sources. He's also the founder of HEMA Bookshelf, which produces stunningly good facsimiles of historical sources, such as the Getty manuscript of Fiore dei Liberi’s Il Fior di Battaglia. He also produces a whole bunch of academic books on historical martial arts as well. If you haven’t already heard of him, go back and listen to episode 21 as well.

In today’s episode, we talk about how Michael took on Wiktenauer and saved it from deletion, for which we all owe him a beer. It has changed and grown enormously since its inception in 2009.

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to:

To support the show, come join the Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/theswordguy

We talk about translation, including how to interpret multiple translations of the same source, or even multiple versions of the same treatise, such as the different manuscripts of Fiore’s Il Fior di Battaglia. We discuss the frustration of knowing that there is a manuscript out there, owned and hidden away by the Pisani Dossi family, which we just can’t access.

Michael talks about the process of reproducing manuscripts, and the lengths he goes to to ensure that his versions are as accurate as possible. This includes reproducing the collation, and the rough and smooth sides of the original parchment.

Since Michael’s first appearance on the podcast in 2020, he’s changed his mind a little about what he’d do with a million dollars to improve historical martial arts. We also hear about what he’s got coming up and the huge project he hasn’t started yet.

Wiktenauer: https://wiktenauer.com/

HEMA Bookshelf: https://www.hemabookshelf.com/