''This article is about an English swordsman; for the Scottish agricultural innovator see George Silver (Scotland)

George Silver (ca. 1560s–1620s) was a gentleman of England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who is known for his writings on fencing. He is thought to have been the eldest of four brothers (one of whom, Toby, was also a swordsman who accompanied his brother in at least one challenge), and eleventh in descent from Sir Bartholomew Silver, who was knighted by Edward II. He married a woman named Mary Haydon in London, in 1580, and was still alive in 1622.

Fencing

Although not a professional fencing teacher (a role mostly played by the middle-class London-based Corporation of Masters of the Noble Science of Defence), he was familiar with the fencing schools of the time, and the systems of defence that they taught. Silver seems to have been very nationalistic, championing the native English martial arts while objecting on ethical and technical grounds to the fashionable continental rapier systems being taught at the time. He particularly disliked the immigrant Italian fencing masters Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo, going so far as to challenge the latter (without result) to a public fencing match with various weapons atop a scaffold.

His major objections to the rapier itself and to its pedagogy were expressed in his 1599 work, Paradoxes of Defence. Silver seeing the rapier as an incredibly dangerous weapon, which did not offer the user sufficient protection during a fight. Silver also bemoans other weapons that do not offer sufficient protection to the user (such as daggers), however the rapier bears the brunt of his attention, as it was seemingly quite common in the day.

He later (probably around 1605) wrote his Brief Instructions on my Paradoxes of Defence in which he explained some of his method for using his preferred weapons (he recommends the shorter backsword as being more versatile and offering better defence than the rapier). This however remained an unpublished manuscript until its publication in 1898 by fencing historian Captain Cyril G. R. Matthey.

Silver recommends a highly dynamic system which he deemed suitable for duelling, street defence and the battlefield, rather than the purely duelling orientation of the rapier.

Martial arts teachings

Silver broke down his ideas about the technical aspects of fighting into the following components:

• The Grounds
• The Governors
• The Four True Times
• The Four False Times

See also

• Alfred Hutton

External links

• Facsimiles of Paradoxes of Defence
• Paradoxes of Defence -(transcription into modern spelling)
• Brief Instructions Upon My Paradoxes of Defence -(transcription into modern spelling)
• Articles discussing Silver's system of fencing

Schools that teach Silver's swordsmanship

• Academy of Arms
• Company for Historical Combat
• Stoccata School of Defence