Jaime Pons de Perpiñan

Jaime Pons de Perpiñan
Born	date of birth unknown Majorca
Died	after 1474
Occupation	Fencing master
Nationality	Spanish
Movement	Esgrima común
Genres	Fencing manual Wrestling manual
Language	Catalan (?)
Notable work(s)	Lost treatise

Jaime Pons de Perpiñan (Jayme Pons de Perpinyà) was a 15th century Spanish fencing master. According to various sources he was born in Majorca, but eventually moved to Perpiñan. In ca. 1474, he is believed to have written a treatise on grappling and fencing with various weapons, including the side sword, both alone and with secondary weapons (buckler, cloak, dagger, shield, and double side swords), the dagger, and the montante. This treatise is described as being "published", though given the date it seems likely that it was a manuscript rather than a book. Unfortunately, no extant copies of Pons' work are known to exist, but there are several excerpts of it in later works on Iberian fencing, as well as those of his contemporary, Pedro de la Torre, and the later Francisco Román.

Treatises

Though Jaime Pons' treatise is lost, Tim Rivera has created a partial reconstruction of it based on excerpts by later authors. He offers the following speculative description:

The work is a minimum of 66 folios long, and covers sword and buckler, montante, sword and dagger, sword and cloak, dagger alone, trips and disarms (including one named “quail's wing”), and sword alone against spear or pike. Sword and buckler appears on the first page and throughout the pages referenced, so it is possibly the primary weapon combination. There does not appear to be a clear separation of instruction by weapon or combination based on the references. Two postures are taught, one high and one low, which are also used to invite attacks.