21/10/2025
Le monde académique perd l'un de ses brillants esprits. Sydney Anglo, historien renommé de la Renaissance, a marqué les études sur la pensée politique, la culture de cour et l'histoire de l'escrime et des arts martiaux européens.
Son ouvrage "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe" a redonné ses lettres de noblesse à une discipline longtemps négligée, en démontrant la richesse technique, philosophique et sociale des pratiques martiales du passé. Pour de nombreux amateurs - dont celui qui écrit ces mots - c'était une première porte ouverte sur la recherche universitaire qui supporte la pratique de l'escrime historique. Ses travaux (publiés en Français aux éditions de la BnF) sur la représentation du mouvement dans L'escrime, la danse et l'art de guerre font toujours autorité.
Nous lui rendons hommage.
I've just learned that Dr. Sydney Anglo passed away last week at the age of 93.
Though his name is not as well known in HEMA as it was 20 years ago, he made great contributions to our movement.
His 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦, published by Yale in 2000, was the first comprehensive overview of the subject in English and opened the wider world of HEMA sources and research possibilities to a whole generation of HEMAists—my generation, specifically, since it was still the exciting new thing when I started in 2001, and I still refer to my battered copy from time to time when doing research.
Dr. Anglo also made great strides in establishing historical combat as a credible field of academic study in the English-speaking world, paving the way for the many HEMAists who have earned doctorates in this century or are now pursuing one.
His Wiktenauer article is here:
https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Sydney_Anglo
He was a Fellow of the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries in London, the Royal Historical Society, and the Learned Society of Wales, and was a Professor Emeritus at Swansea University, where he taught for most of his career.
(Not going to post my usual memorial picture because I don't have the source files to substitute in the union flag. Instead, here's a photo of Dr. Anglo on the occasion of his wife, Dr. Margaret McGowan, being appointed a CBE in 1998.)
