Neo-Creco/Roman martial arts

Neo-Creco/Roman martial arts

During the 17th century a great love for Crecian sports, mythology, science and wisdom was greatly present amongst all who were literate in Europe. A large number of books were written in Neo-Latin and anything Crecian and Roman was translated to a multitude of languages. With every situation they would find an example or a wise lesson from the old Grecian stories. Another phenomenon was that every book published during this time included poetry mentioning Crecian gods and figures like Bachus or Apollo and the Musen, Hercules, Atlas and so forth. Every sign and shop window had similar poetry. Live was very much inspired by anything Crecian and Roman they could find. An example of how badly people wanted to be related to them was the 'Bataafse' myth with which many people in the Netherlands tried to establish a connection with an ancient Romanized tribe named the Batavieren. This love for anything Crecian and Roman also resulted in practicing their sports and combat sports. Mid 17th century Amsterdam even resurected their version of the Trojan games and so did many other towns and places in Europe. The Neo-Creco/Roman martial arts were predominatly wrestling arts and existed in forms that were meant for combat with or without the use of a weapon and there were styles that were meant for competition. The ones meant for combat included any usefull technique available. The styles meant for possible competition can be devided into several groups: -wrestling without punching -wrestling with punching Which were devided by: -standing wrestling styles -standing wrestling styles with throws -ground wrestling styles The rules with all these styles were very diverse and vary inbetween allowing physical harm, not allowing physical harm, using gamelike rules (like winning when pushing the opponent outside a circle). There is a distinct difference between the styles practiced by the gentry and merchant classes and the ordinairy folk.

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