1289 Kublai Khan issues orders prohibiting Chinese peasants from
possessing swords, spears, and crossbows. Although these bans
are popularly believed to have inspired the development of the
modern Chinese martial arts, that causality is uncertain, as reli-
able descriptions of the Chinese unarmed martial arts do not
become common until the 1560s.
1292 Northern Italian towns start holding pugil-stick fights, bare-
knuckled boxing matches, and cudgeling tournaments. Legend
attributes the creation of these games to the Sienese monk Saint
Bernard, who taught that fists were better than swords or sticks
for deciding arguments. Preparations began shortly after New
Year, and celebrations were in full swing by Lent. (Essentially a
time of institutionalized disorder, the celebration of Carnival
before Lent always placed enormous emphasis on food, sex,
and violent stage plays and games.) Where Carnival was not
held, the Feast of the Innocents and May Day served as substi-
tutes.
1295 A man calling himself “The Snake” (Del Serpente)publishes an
illustrated swordsmanship manual in Milan.
Fourteenth Chinese sources describe methods for attacking the 108 vital
century points of the human body.
About 1300 A secretary to the Bishop of Wurzburg produces a manuscript
depicting unarmored German fighters. Known today as Manu-
script I.33, the text is in Latin, and the technical terms are in
German.
1307 A seafaring Turk named Suleyman Pasha leads forty Muslim
holy warriors on a raid into Byzantium. Two of Suleyman’s
men were mighty wrestlers. (The other thirty-eight were evi-
dently smaller, bowlegged Central Asian archers rather than
mighty wrestlers.) According to legend, these two men were so
well matched that they died wrestling one another. The match
was said to have occurred near Hadrianopolis (modern Edirne).
Be that as it may, Suleyman Pasha (by then the Ottoman em-
peror Orkhan I) organized an annual wrestling tournament in
1342 near Edirne. Known as the Kirkpinar tournament, it soon
became a national festival.
1314 To celebrate the Scottish victory over the English at Bannock-
burn, the people of Fife, Scotland, organize the Ceres Highland
Games, with events including wrestling, stone lifting, caber
throwing, and horse racing; the venue is the archery ground.
The Scots claim the Ceres Games as the oldest annual sporting
contests in Europe.
1325 The black African knights of Mansa Musa, king of Mali, are
described as receiving pairs of new trousers whenever they dis-
tinguished themselves in battle. The greater their exploits, the
baggier their pants.
1332 The world’s oldest surviving bronze cannon is cast in China,
probably for the Mongols.
About 1345 Korean sources describe a wrestling game called ssiru ̆m,similar
to Mongolian wrestling, except that rope belts knotted on the
right are used to show government-awarded grades. The chief
Korean martial art tournament was held annually at Kaesong
Chronological History of the Martial Arts 801