789 The Japanese aristocracy start patronizing kumitachi(sword
dances). Their models were similar Chinese and Korean enter-
tainments, and their methods reportedly set the precedent for
the choreographed fencing depicted in the seventeenth-century
No and Kabuki theaters.
About 790 Rhinelanders develop bellows-driven forges, significantly im-
proving German metallurgy and becoming a factor behind the
subsequent successes of the Danish Vikings, who bought their
swords from the Rhenish Germans.
793 Given a choice between seeing his mother torn to pieces before
his eyes or losing his horse, an Aquitanian aristocrat named
Datus does the only sensible thing: He keeps his horse.
Ninth century The Franks start using the Latin word schola,or “school,” to
describe places where monks study philosophy rather than
places where soldiers wrestle and fence.
About 800 Buddhist monks develop the idea of centering the mind and the
breathing at a spot about three fingers’ width below and a cou-
ple of inches behind the navel. While the practice soon became
popular among sitting Zennists, it did not become popular
among Japanese swordsmen for another thousand years. (Pio-
neers of the idea that training in proper breathing and energy
projection was important to swordsmanship included Shirai
Tôru Yoshinori [1781–1843], whose Heihô michi shirube
[Guide to the Way of Swordsmanship] was widely circulated
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.)
About 820 Members of an Indian monastic order called the Dasnami Naga
are reported practicing archery and other combative sports.
About 840 Sumai(struggle) wrestling, an ancestor of modern sumô, devel-
ops in Japan. Associated with harvest festivals, the wrestlers
were part of a giant potlatch relationship designed to show
their patrons’ ability to squander such mighty energies. The
roots of the sport may lie in Korea.
About 860 The Iraqi mathematician Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn-Ishaq as-Sabbah
al-Kindi (called in Latin Alkindus) writes that the finest swords
in the Islamic world come from Yemen and India. To al-Kindi,
these weapons were known as wootz,after the Indian steel used
to make them; to Europeans, they were known as Damascus, af-
ter the damask cloth that the wootz steel resembled.
863 The Chinese storyteller Duan Cheng dies. His works include a
text called Yu Yang Za Zu (Miscellaneous Fare from Yu Yang, a
mountain in Hunan where great masters had hidden books con-
taining great knowledge). One story describes a young man who
learns that a prospective knight-errant needs to master swords-
manship as well as archery, and another an old sword-dancer
who whirls two swords as if pulling silk, then plants them in the
ground in the manner of the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
About 890 According to David Howlitt of Oxford University, King
Alfred the Great of England has a cleric named Aethelstan
write a vernacular description of proper chivalric behavior
that even Alfred’s grandson will be able to understand. The
result is the untitled poem called by eighteenth-century scholars
Beowulf.
Chronological History of the Martial Arts 795