The south west of England has always had a deep relationship with the martial arts. Wrestling, cudgelling, quarterstaffing, sword and dagger, and two-hand swordplay were practised across the six ancient Shires of Wessex — Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire — for centuries before the rise of modern sport. Each county had its own specialisms: Devon and Cornwall were renowned for wrestling; Somerset, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire for cudgelling and broadswording; and Devon produced one of only three surviving English manuscripts on two-hand swordsmanship.
Taken together, these five disciplines constitute what we call Westcountry Martial Arts. Their history spans from mythological antiquity to the present day, passing through periods of courtly professionalism, rural custom, commercial spectacle, catastrophic decline, and — in our own time — deliberate reconstruction.
What follows is a periodisation of that history into Five Ages, each defined by the way martial knowledge was transmitted, organised, and sustained. The boundaries between them are not arbitrary: each transition marks a fundamental change in the institutional and social conditions governing martial practice across the region. Within each Age, individual disciplines — wrestling, cudgelling, the weapon arts — followed their own trajectories, and we note these variations where the evidence permits. But the structural conditions that shaped them were shared.
Overview: The Five Ages
| Age | Period | Defining Characteristic | Key Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| I. Myth and Prehistory | Before c. 1400 | No documentary evidence of specific practices; mythological narratives and archaeological traces only | Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1136); Exeter Cathedral roof boss (late 13th century) |
| II. The Professional and Literate Tradition | c. 1400 – c. 1700 | Written manuscripts, named masters, chartered institutions, royal patronage | Harleian MS.3542 (c. 1450); Company of Maisters warrant in Exeter (1555); Swetnam (1617); Carew (1602); Peeke (1625) |
| III. The Customary Tradition | c. 1700 – c. 1850 | Oral transmission within rural festive culture; no written codification; gentlemanly and publican patronage | Parkyns (1727); Whitaker notebooks; Vancouver (1808); Egan (1836); Exeter Flying Post (1806–1850) |
| IV. Decline and Extinction | c. 1850 – c. 1920 | Progressive death of all arts as living practices | “Argus” columns (1878–1884); Porter (1989); Baring-Gould (1908); Longhurst (1917) |
| V. Revival and Reconstruction | c. 1920 – Present | Deliberate institutional recovery and scholarly reconstruction | CCWA (1923); CWA; Devonshire Wrestling Society (2014); Westcountry Wrestling Textbook (2024) |
I. Myth and Prehistory (Before c. 1400)
The deepest stratum of evidence for martial arts in the Westcountry is mythological. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) records the wrestling match between Corineus — the legendary founder of Cornwall — and the giant Gogmagog at what was later identified as Plymouth Hoe. Carew, writing in 1602, dated the encounter to approximately 1154 BC. According to Geoffrey’s account, the two stood front to front and grasped one another, and Gogmagog broke three of Corineus’s ribs before the hero hoisted the monster onto his shoulders and hurled him from the cliff into the sea.
This is myth, not history, but it tells us something important about the twelfth century in which Geoffrey was writing: wrestling was sufficiently well known in the Westcountry, and sufficiently associated with regional identity, to serve as a credible element of a foundational narrative. The figures of two wrestlers were carved into the turf at Plymouth Hoe and maintained by the Corporation until the construction of the Citadel in approximately 1670.
Beyond Geoffrey, the physical evidence is sparse but suggestive. A carved roof boss in the vaulting of the presbytery of Exeter Cathedral, dating from the end of the thirteenth century, depicts wrestlers — the earliest artefact of martial practice in the region. The links between Cornish wrestling and Breton gouren — both jacket-based styles with striking technical similarities — point to the migration of settlers from Cornwall and Devon to Brittany between the fourth and seventh centuries as a plausible vector of shared tradition. The wrestling styles that eventually emerged in the British Isles bore little resemblance to Roman practice, suggesting indigenous development rather than colonial inheritance.
Medieval literary references — the Gest of Robin Hood‘s association of wrestling and single-stick with the culture of Sherwood Forest; Ben Jonson’s introduction of a Western wrestler performing before the Lord Mayor of London in Bartholomew Fair (1614) — confirm that martial arts were practised in the region throughout this period. But no individual practitioner, specific technique, or institutional structure can be documented before the fifteenth century.
What we know (and what we cannot know)
| Category | Evidence Available | Evidence Absent |
|---|---|---|
| Wrestling | Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1136); Exeter Cathedral roof boss (late 13th c.); Breton parallels suggesting Celtic origins | Named practitioners; specific techniques; rules; institutional structures |
| Weapon Arts | Robin Hood literary tradition; general European parallels | Any Westcountry-specific documentation |
| Social Context | Mythological association with regional identity; archaeological fragments | Festive calendar; prize structures; class of practitioners |
The boundary with Period II
The terminus is placed at c. 1400 because it is from approximately this date that documentary evidence of specific martial practices — techniques, manuscripts, and institutional structures — begins to emerge. The Harleian MS.3542, the earliest English two-hand swordsmanship text with Westcountry provenance, is dated to c. 1450. Cudgelling and quarterstaffing are first attested as canonical traditions from approximately the same date. The boundary marks the transition from myth and inference to documentary attestation.
II. The Professional and Literate Tradition (c. 1400 – c. 1700)
This is the most intellectually significant period in the entire history of Westcountry martial arts, because it reveals a stratum of practice qualitatively different from the customary folk tradition that both preceded and succeeded it. During these three centuries, martial arts in the Westcountry were taught by named masters, recorded in written manuals, regulated by chartered institutions, and patronised by the Crown. This degree of professionalism would not be replicated until the twenty-first century.
Technical manuscripts
The Harleian MS.3542 (c. 1450), from the parishes of Buckerell and Combe Raleigh near Honiton, Devon, is one of only three surviving early English texts on two-hand swordsmanship. Its Westcountry provenance is unique among English fight books and confirms that the region participated fully in the literate martial culture of the later Middle Ages. The techniques, though cryptically expressed, can be interpreted within the wider context of contemporary Continental sources — a task that modern practitioners have undertaken with considerable success.
Joseph Swetnam’s The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence (1617) is the most substantial Westcountry martial arts text of the period. Swetnam named his masters as Thomas Westcoat of Penryn, Cornwall, and Richard Caro of Plymouth, Devon, and he maintained a fencing school in Plymouth. His dedication to the Westcountry is explicit: “so I greet not only Plymouth alone, but all Devonshire and Cornwall, with as many kind commendations as it is possible for my pen to express.” George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defence (1598) and Zachary Wylde’s The English Master of Defence (1711) — the latter falling at the close of this period — provide further technical literature that informed Westcountry practice in quarterstaffing and single-stick.
For wrestling, Sir Richard Carew’s Survey of Cornwall (1602) provides the earliest detailed description of technique: the ring formed by spectators, the wrestlers stripped to doublets and hosen, the initial handshake, the criteria for a fair back, the “foil” for a near-miss. Carew also records the first known individual wrestler by name: John Goit, a member of the Queen’s Guard.
Thomas Parkyns’s Inn-Play, or the Cornish Hugg Wrestler (1727), though published slightly beyond the conventional boundary of this period, represents the culmination of the literate tradition applied to wrestling — a systematic manual that teaches technique through mechanical principles accessible to gentlemen, tradesmen, and handicraftsmen alike.
Institutional infrastructure
The Company of Maisters of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence was sanctioned by Royal Patent of Henry VIII in 1540. It was long believed that this organisation was confined to London. However, the Exeter City Archives preserve a printed version of the warrant dated 1555 — currently the only known copy outside London. This suggests that the Company operated in Exeter, the regional capital, and that professional, institutionally regulated martial arts instruction existed in Devon during the mid-sixteenth century. A fencing master in Exeter could be licensed, examined, and regulated by a nationally chartered body with a provincial presence.
This institutional dimension is critically important. It means that for a period of at least two centuries, martial arts in the Westcountry were not merely folk customs transmitted informally, but professional disciplines with formal structures of accreditation, pedagogy, and quality control — a model that has more in common with the modern Devonshire Wrestling Society’s grading system than with the customary village revel.
Royal and Courtly patronage
Henry VIII sent Cornish wrestlers from Helston to the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520) to compete before the French court, where they defeated their opponents. Sir Thomas Hoby recorded Cornish wrestlers competing against Bretons at Chateaubriand in 1551 before Henry II. John Leland’s Genethliacum (c. 1537) records wrestling matches in Cornwall to celebrate the birth of Prince Edward. During the English Civil War, wrestling imagery was deployed as political metaphor by both sides: Royalist propagandists described Cornish military victories as giving the enemy “a Cornish hug.”
Practical application
The martial arts of this period were not purely recreational. Richard Peeke of Tavistock, in 1625, fought off three Spanish rapiermen with a quarterstaff during the wars with Spain — an exploit so remarkable that his captors released him and he subsequently published Three to One. Nicholas Conger, a Cornish wrestler, used his skills to capture an Eskimo during Frobisher’s 1577 Arctic expedition. These episodes confirm that Westcountry martial skills had genuine combat application beyond the sporting arena.
Arts active during this period
| Discipline | Earliest Evidence | Key Sources | Shires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-hand Swordplay | c. 1420–1450 | Harleian MS.3542 (Honiton) | Devon |
| Quarterstaffing | c. 1450 | Swetnam (1617); Silver (1598); Peeke (1625) | Cornwall, Devon, Somerset |
| Cudgelling / Single-stick | c. 1450 | Wylde (1711); later Sherborne Mercury reports | Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire |
| Wrestling | Continuous from prehistory | Carew (1602); Parkyns (1727) | Cornwall, Devon, Somerset |
| Sword and Dagger | c. 1550 | Swetnam (1617); Silver (1598) | Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire |
Named Masters and Practitioners of the period
| Name | Dates | Discipline | Location | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Goit | fl. c. 1600 | Wrestling | Cornwall (Queen’s Guard) | First named wrestler in the documentary record (Carew, 1602) |
| Thomas Westcoat | fl. c. 1600 | Swordsmanship | Penryn, Cornwall | Named as Swetnam’s master |
| Richard Caro | fl. c. 1600 | Swordsmanship | Plymouth, Devon | Named as Swetnam’s master |
| Joseph Swetnam | fl. 1617 | Swordsmanship | Plymouth, Devon | Author of The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence (1617); maintained a fencing school in Plymouth |
| Richard Peeke | fl. 1625 | Quarterstaffing | Tavistock, Devon | Defeated three Spanish rapiermen with a quarterstaff; published Three to One (1625) |
| Nicholas Conger | fl. 1577 | Wrestling | Cornwall | Used wrestling to capture an Eskimo during Frobisher’s expedition |
| Thomas Tonkin | 1678–1742 | Wrestling (observer) | St Agnes, Cornwall | Manuscript (c. 1716) naming several wrestlers including Charles Dawe and William Nott |
The boundary with Period III
The terminus is placed at c. 1700 because the early eighteenth century marks the effective end of the professional master-and-pupil model in the Westcountry. Wylde’s text (1711) and Parkyns (1727) are the last products of the literate tradition. After this point, no new technical literature was produced, no institutional framework governed instruction, and martial practice reverted entirely to customary transmission within the festive calendar. The written word gave way to embodied tradition; the licensed master gave way to the village champion.
III. The Customary Tradition (c. 1700 – c. 1850)
This is the period of greatest breadth and greatest uniformity across all Westcountry martial arts. Wrestling, cudgelling, quarterstaffing, and sword-and-dagger play coexisted within the same festive programme at the same venues, governed by the same social structures, and sustained by the same patronage networks. It is also, paradoxically, the most successful period in the history of these arts — the era in which martial practice was so thoroughly embedded in communal life that it required neither promotion nor defence, because it was simply what people did.
A festive framework
All Westcountry martial arts were practised within the annual cycle of rural festivity. Wrestling, cudgelling, and other sports occurred at parish feasts (also known as “revels”), at Whitsuntide gatherings, at fairs, and at seasonal celebrations. The Plympton Games of 1806 — one of many events documented in the Exeter Flying Post — advertised wrestling for a purse of guineas and cudgel-playing for a silver cup on the same days, alongside a jingling match for a hat worth a guinea. This was the norm: martial arts were not free-standing activities with their own calendars but elements within a broader programme of festivity, drinking, and communal exchange.
The calendar was governed by the ecclesiastical year and the rhythms of agriculture. Matches took place during the summer months, between hay and corn harvests, on the informal holidays of “St Monday” and “Holy Tuesday.” At Tiverton in 1827, the wrestling committee curtailed the matches because they judged that play ought not to continue owing to the hay harvest. The distinction between work and leisure was far less sharply drawn than it would become under the disciplinary pressures of industrial capitalism.
Transmission and governance
Rules were customary and oral, transmitted from generation to generation through embodied practice. There were no written rulebooks, no governing bodies, and no formal training academies. Technique was learned in the fields, farmyards, and village greens of rural Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, and the other Shires — passed from father to son, master to servant, and among peer groups of boys and young men. Carew’s observation that one could “hardly find an assembly of boys, in Devon or Cornwall, where the most untowardly amongst them will not as readily give you a muster of this exercise” remained true throughout this period.
Governance was exercised by ad hoc committees of local gentlemen who raised subscriptions for prize money and appointed sticklers (wrestling) or triers to adjudicate. These officials had no formal training or accreditation; they were chosen from among the spectators or from local yeomanry on the basis of reputation and experience.
Prizes and Patronage
The economic structure of this period underwent a significant transition. In the early eighteenth century, prizes were typically prestige goods — gold-laced waistcoats, hats, gloves — described as “emblems of honour” that signified social standing rather than financial reward. At the Maker Green Games in 1753 and 1754, the first prize was a fine new buff waistcoat trimmed with gold lace. By the early nineteenth century, cash prizes had become standard: at Modbury in 1816, prizes ranged from £7 for the first man down to 7s. for every standard.
The publican-promoter emerged as the key institutional figure. Inns such as the Salutation at Topsham, the Blue Ball at Heavitree, and, in London, the Eagle Tavern and the Spotted Dog provided venues, underwrote prizes, and organised events. This nexus was simultaneously the sport’s greatest asset and its structural vulnerability: the commercial imperative to maximise gate receipts created conditions for the corruption that would later prove catastrophic.
The Golden Age of Wrestling (c. 1820–1841)
Within the broader Customary Tradition, Devonshire and Cornish wrestling experienced a specific period of extraordinary commercial and competitive intensity. Abraham Cann (born 1794, career c. 1812–1841) dominated an era characterised by dramatic escalation of prize money, inter-county spectacle, and national visibility. The Cann–Polkinghorne match of 1826 at Devonport attracted an estimated 17,000 spectators — the largest crowd in wrestling history. The 1828 Leeds Grand Match introduced competitors from Cumberland, Ireland, and other regions, with total prizes exceeding £500.
The 1827 Tavistock weigh-in — published in the Exeter Flying Post — documents a competitive cohort of remarkable depth: twenty-three named wrestlers from both Devon and Cornwall, with their ages, heights, and weights recorded. The physical diversity was striking, from James Stone at 5 ft 4 in. to John Jordan at 6 ft 4 in., confirming that technique — particularly kicking — could compensate for disparities in size.
Cudgelling and the weapon arts did not experience an equivalent period of commercial escalation. They continued to operate within the festive framework at a steady, unremarkable level — a trajectory that proved, in the long run, to be more sustainable than wrestling’s spectacular boom and bust.
Comparison: Wrestling vs. Cudgelling during the Customary Tradition
| Feature | Wrestling (Devon & Cornwall) | Cudgelling (Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire) |
|---|---|---|
| Peak Prize Money | £20+ first prize; challenges for £100–£500 | Modest cash and cups (e.g. silver cup worth £2 2s. at Plympton, 1806) |
| Maximum Documented Crowd | 17,000 (Cann v. Polkinghorne, 1826) | No comparable figures documented |
| Metropolitan Dimension | Extensive (Eagle Tavern, White Lion, Agricultural Hall) | Limited; primarily regional |
| Inter-County Rivalry | Central structural feature (Devon v. Cornwall) | Present but less commercially exploited |
| Press Coverage | Extensive (Exeter Flying Post, Bell’s Life in London, Western Times) | Sporadic; Sherborne Mercury references |
| Named Champions | Cann, Stone, Wreford, Jordan, Woolaway, and many others | Recoverable names – currently being collated |
| Corruption | Documented from 1815 onwards; endemic by 1830s | Less well documented |
The boundary with Period IV
The terminus is placed at c. 1850 because it represents the point at which the customary tradition ceased to function as a viable mode of transmission across all arts. By the mid-nineteenth century, quarterstaffing had already become obsolete; two-hand swordplay had long since ceased; wrestling was in demonstrable decline in Devon; and even cudgelling was moving from mainstream festive entertainment towards marginal survival. The 1850s represent what the historian of Cornish wrestling, Mike Tripp, describes as a “watershed” between golden age and decline — a characterisation that applies, with appropriate adjustment, across all five disciplines.
IV. Decline and Extinction (c. 1850 – c. 1920)
This period witnessed the progressive death of every Westcountry martial art as a living customary practice. The five disciplines died at different rates and for partially different reasons, but the underlying structural forces — the transformation of rural leisure, the moral objections of the evangelical movement, the competition of codified Victorian sports, and the disciplinary demands of industrial capitalism — affected all of them.
Wrestling: The most dramatic decline
Devonshire wrestling experienced the most spectacular and best-documented decline. A Silver Age of genuine competitive excellence under Samuel Rundle’s championship (c. 1867–1877) gave way to catastrophic fragmentation. The anonymous correspondent “Argus,” writing in the Western Times between 1878 and 1884, documented the mechanisms of collapse with forensic precision:
Corruption. Wrestlers were “subbed” (bribed) and compelled to “go to orders” with others who had been similarly compromised. Matches were extended over a fortnight or more to maximise gate receipts, with triers who were “nominees of the ‘wire-pullers’ instead of being men chosen independently from among the spectators,” paid by the day and thus incentivised to prolong proceedings artificially.
Championship vacuum. Rundle’s defeat by Pike, and Pike’s subsequent defeat by Baker, and Baker’s retirement, left no single individual with an undisputed claim to the championship. The absence of any governing body capable of adjudicating competing claims left the title as a rhetorical rather than institutional reality.
Spectator abandonment. The withdrawal of respectable spectators — the gentlemen and farmers whose patronage had sustained the sport commercially — was the decisive blow. “Argus” drew an explicit comparison with Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, whose London residents held annual contests attracting 5,000 to 10,000 spectators because they were decided in a single day.
By 1908, Baring-Gould declared “wrestling is now no more.” By 1917, Percy Longhurst confirmed that the Devonshire style had been subsumed into the Cornish.
Cudgelling: gradual fade
Cudgelling declined more gradually than wrestling. Its canonical tradition extended to approximately 1918, sustained by its association with military gentlemen and its continued practical utility as self-defence with a walking stick. Unlike wrestling, cudgelling was not destroyed by internal corruption but by the broader transformation of leisure: the codification of football, cricket, and rugby; the moral objections to “brutal” sports; and the curtailment of the festive calendar upon which all customary arts depended.
The Weapon Arts: technological redundancy
Quarterstaffing became obsolete around 1800 as the firearm displaced the staff as a practical weapon. Sword and dagger followed by approximately 1889, as the revolver and reformed military training rendered edged-weapon proficiency less relevant. These arts died not of corruption or moral disapproval but of technological redundancy — a fundamentally different mechanism from the self-inflicted wounds that destroyed wrestling.
Rates of Decline compared
| Discipline | Approximate Date of Extinction | Primary Cause of Death | Mode of Decline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-hand Swordplay | c. 1550 | Obsolescence of weapon type | Technological replacement |
| Quarterstaffing | c. 1800 | Obsolescence of weapon; displacement by firearms | Technological replacement |
| Sword and Dagger | c. 1889 | Military reform; displacement by firearms | Technological replacement |
| Devonshire Wrestling | c. 1900 (extinct); Cornish wrestling survived | Corruption; spectator abandonment; moral reform | Self-inflicted institutional failure compounded by external social change |
| Cudgelling | c. 1918 | Competition from codified sports; moral reform; loss of festive calendar | Gradual marginalisation |
A symbolic moment
One moment stands out in particular. In 1907, an exhibition at the Crediton Volunteer Drill Hall pitted a Devonshire wrestler against a practitioner of Ju-Jitsu. The anonymous correspondent “Diver” observed that the Japanese method was “without doubt, far superior to either the ancient or modern style of Devonshire or any other county form of wrestling, when matched side by side.” The encounter symbolises the moment at which a vernacular martial tradition — rich, ancient, locally embedded — confronted the codified, internationally standardised martial arts of the modern world. The Westcountry tradition was found wanting not in courage or technique, but in institutional structure: it had no governing body, no standardised rules, no training infrastructure, and no capacity for self-reform.
The boundary with Period V
The terminus is placed at c. 1920 because the early 1920s mark the first institutional attempts to revive Westcountry martial arts on a systematic basis. The Cornwall County Wrestling Association was founded in 1923. Devon revival efforts in 1925–26 produced press discussion and the St Budeaux initiative of 1926. The boundary marks the transition from extinction to deliberate reconstruction.
V. Revival and Reconstruction (c. 1920 – Present)
The final period in the history of Westcountry martial arts is defined by the deliberate, self-conscious attempt to recover, codify, and re-establish these traditions as practised arts. It divides into two sub-phases, distinguished by scope and method.
Sub-phase 5a: The Cornish Revival (c. 1920 – c. 2014)
The Cornwall County Wrestling Association (CCWA), founded in 1923, introduced — for the first time in the history of any Westcountry martial art — the institutional apparatus of a modern sport: written rules, championship weight categories, timed bouts, a points system, penalties for infringements, and a governing body with disciplinary authority. The revival was embedded within the broader Cornish Celtic Revival, and leading figures of that movement were actively involved: Henry Jenner (first Grand Bard of the Gorseth Kernow), Sabine Baring-Gould, and W. Tregoning Hooper, the Falmouth librarian and antiquary.
The scope, however, was limited to Cornish wrestling alone. No equivalent institutional effort was made for Devonshire wrestling, cudgelling, or the weapon arts. Devon’s revival attempts — W. Phillips’s Plymouth YMCA initiative (1925–26), the St Budeaux event of June 1926, the Tiverton movement reported in the Western Times (July 1926) — produced no lasting institutional structure. The CCWA itself struggled financially, suffered a schism with the breakaway East Cornwall Wrestling Federation (1934), and saw its progress halted by two World Wars. Cornish wrestling survived, but only just, and only in Cornwall.
For Devon, the inter-war period confirmed a pattern that would persist for nearly a century: the Devonshire style remained extinct as a living practice, preserved only in the shin-kicking contests of the Cotswold Olimpicks at Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire — perhaps the last surviving trace of the Devon kicking tradition.
Sub-phase 5b: Comprehensive Reconstruction (c. 2014 – Present)
The founding of the Devonshire Wrestling Society in 2014 inaugurated a qualitatively different approach: the scholarly reconstruction of all five Westcountry martial arts within a unified institutional and pedagogical framework. Rather than attempting to restore the competitive tournament structure of the nineteenth century, the Society has reconstructed the technical curriculum from primary sources and reframed the tradition within a modern martial arts pedagogy.
The Westcountry Wrestling Textbook (2024) codifies this approach: ten principles, twenty-seven wrestling techniques, canonical plays for short-stick and long-staff, a five-rank grading system, and a standardised uniform. The intellectual method is explicitly reconstructive: techniques are derived from primary sources — Carew, Parkyns, Swetnam, Silver, Wylde, the Harleian MS.3542, nineteenth-century newspaper accounts — and interpreted within the broader context of martial arts scholarship.
This sub-phase is historically unprecedented. Never before have all five Westcountry martial arts been brought within a single institutional framework. Never before has the Devonshire kicking tradition been practised alongside Cornish hugging, Somerset cudgelling, and the weapon arts as components of a unified curriculum. And never before has the reconstruction been grounded in systematic scholarly apparatus — archival research, doctoral theses, primary source databases, and codified textbooks.
The two sub-phases compared
| Feature | Cornish Revival (c. 1920 – c. 2014) | Comprehensive Reconstruction (c. 2014 – Present) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Cornish wrestling only | All five Westcountry martial arts |
| Geography | Cornwall | Six Shires (based in Exeter, Devon) |
| Method | Competitive sport revival | Scholarly reconstruction and martial arts pedagogy |
| Institutional Model | County Wrestling Association (CCWA, then CWA) | Devonshire Wrestling Society; codified curriculum; grading system |
| Relationship to the Past | Continuation of a diminished but surviving tradition | Recovery of extinct practices from documentary evidence |
| Key Innovation | Written rules, weight categories, timed bouts, governing body (all firsts for any Westcountry martial art) | Unified curriculum across all five arts; integration of wrestling, stick, and sword within a single pedagogical framework |
| Cultural Framework | Cornish Celtic Revival; wrestling as icon of ethnic identity | Westcountry martial arts as practisable heritage; connection, preservation, and community |
The parallel with Period II
The parallel between the current revival and the Professional and Literate Tradition of c. 1400–1700 is instructive. Both periods featured written technical literature, named masters, and institutional structure. The difference is that the earlier tradition was organic — it grew from living practice — whereas the modern revival is reconstructive — it recovers practice from documentary traces after a century of extinction. The literate tradition that disappeared around 1700, replaced by two centuries of customary transmission, followed by a century of decline and extinction, is now being reconstituted. The circle has been completed — not as a continuation, but as a scholarly recovery that is honest about the gap.
The Five Disciplines across the Five Ages
The following table summarises the status of each Westcountry martial art within each Age, providing an at-a-glance view of which arts were active, dormant, or extinct at each stage of the region’s martial history.
| Discipline | I. Myth & Prehistory (–c. 1400) | II. Professional & Literate (c. 1400–1700) | III. Customary Tradition (c. 1700–1850) | IV. Decline & Extinction (c. 1850–1920) | V. Revival & Reconstruction (c. 1920–Present) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wrestling | Attested in myth and archaeology | Described by Carew (1602); royal patronage; first named wrestler (John Goit) | Living tradition; Golden Age of Devon wrestling (1820–1841); Silver Age (1867–1877) | Devon style extinct by c. 1900; Cornish style survived in attenuated form | Cornish: continuous (CWA). Devon: reconstructed (DWS, 2014) |
| Cudgelling | Irrecoverable | First attested c. 1450; practised alongside wrestling at festive events | Living tradition at fairs and revels across Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire | Gradual decline; extinct by c. 1918 | Reconstructed within DWS curriculum (2014) |
| Quarterstaffing | Irrecoverable | Swetnam (1617); Silver (1598); Peeke (1625) | Declining; obsolete by c. 1800 | Extinct | Reconstructed within DWS curriculum (2014) |
| Sword & Dagger | Irrecoverable | Swetnam (1617); Silver (1598); military gentlemen | Living tradition among military circles | Extinct by c. 1889 | Reconstructed within DWS curriculum (2014) |
| Two-hand Swordplay | Irrecoverable | Harleian MS.3542 (c. 1450, Honiton) | Extinct by this period | Extinct | Reconstructed within DWS curriculum (2014) |
Why these Five Ages?
The periodisation follows the MECE principle (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive). Each Age is defined by a single distinguishing criterion — the mode of transmission and institutional structure governing martial practice — that differentiates it from all other Ages. Taken together, the five Ages account for every known moment in the history of Westcountry martial arts without overlap or gap.
| Transition | What Changed | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| From I to II (c. 1400) | Documentary evidence begins; written manuscripts, named masters, and institutional structures appear | For the first time, martial knowledge is recorded, transmitted through literate pedagogy, and regulated by chartered institutions |
| From II to III (c. 1700) | Written technical literature ceases; institutional frameworks dissolve; transmission reverts to oral custom | The professional master gives way to the village champion; the licensed school gives way to the parish revel |
| From III to IV (c. 1850) | The customary framework collapses; arts cease to be viable as living practices within a functioning social context | The festive calendar is curtailed; spectators withdraw; practitioners can no longer sustain the tradition through ordinary communal life |
| From IV to V (c. 1920) | Deliberate institutional recovery begins; the direction reverses from extinction to reconstruction | For the first time, martial arts are revived not through organic social reproduction but through conscious scholarly and institutional effort |
The wrestling-specific phases identified in earlier scholarship — the Golden Age of Cann (c. 1820–1841), the Silver Age of Rundle (c. 1867–1877), the Fragmentation (c. 1877–1900) — remain accurate characterisations of sub-periods within the Customary Tradition and the Decline. But they are properly understood as discipline-specific variations within the broader structural framework, not as independent Ages in their own right. The historian of Devonshire wrestling will continue to speak of Cann’s Golden Age; the historian of Westcountry martial arts as a whole must adopt the wider lens.
Primary sources
The following table lists the principal primary sources upon which this periodisation rests, organised by period. Readers wishing to explore the evidence further are encouraged to consult these works directly.
| Period | Source | Date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae | c. 1136 | Corineus–Gogmagog wrestling myth; earliest literary reference to Westcountry martial arts |
| II | Harleian MS.3542 | c. 1450 | Earliest English two-hand swordsmanship text with Westcountry provenance (Honiton, Devon) |
| II | Company of Maisters warrant (Exeter City Archives) | 1555 | Only known copy outside London; evidence of institutional martial arts regulation in Devon |
| II | Carew, R., The Survey of Cornwall | 1602 | Earliest detailed description of wrestling technique; first named wrestler (John Goit) |
| II | Swetnam, J., The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence | 1617 | Major swordsmanship manual; names Westcountry masters; Plymouth fencing school |
| II | Peeke, R., Three to One | 1625 | Account of a Tavistock soldier defeating three Spanish rapiermen with a quarterstaff |
| II–III | Parkyns, T., Inn-Play, or the Cornish Hugg Wrestler | 1727 | Systematic wrestling manual; culmination of the literate tradition |
| III | Vancouver, C., General View of the Agriculture of the County of Devon | 1808 | Earliest systematic description of Devonshire wrestling rules |
| III | Egan, P., Book of Sports | 1836 | Contemporary sporting journalism covering the Golden Age |
| III | Exeter Flying Post | 1806–1877 | Principal newspaper source for Devon wrestling and cudgelling |
| IV | “Argus” columns, Western Times | 1878–1884 | Most important retrospective source for mid-century wrestling; forensic documentation of decline |
| IV | Porter, J. H., “The Decline of Devonshire Wrestling” | 1989 | Only modern academic study of the subject (Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 121) |
| IV | Baring-Gould, S., Devonshire Characters and Strange Events | 1908 | Standard popular reference; declared “wrestling is now no more” |
| V | Tripp, M., The History of Cornish Wrestling (PhD thesis, University of Exeter) | 2009 | Most comprehensive scholarly treatment of Cornish wrestling; essential comparative framework |
| V | Devonshire Wrestling Society, Westcountry Wrestling Textbook | 2024 | Codified curriculum for all five Westcountry martial arts; the first unified textbook |
What remains to be done
This periodisation represents a synthesis of the best available evidence, drawn from over twenty years of archival research, the published scholarship of Porter (1989) and Tripp (2009), and the primary source databases assembled by the Devonshire Wrestling Society. It is offered as a framework for understanding, not as a definitive pronouncement.
Significant gaps remain. The history of Somerset and Dorset cudgelling has never received the sustained scholarly attention devoted to Devon and Cornwall wrestling; no equivalent of Porter’s study or Tripp’s thesis exists for single-stick. The weapon arts — quarterstaffing, sword and dagger, two-hand swordplay — are documented principally through a handful of published manuals and the institutional traces of the Company of Maisters; their social history, their practitioners, their festive contexts remain largely unrecovered. The occupational, class, and gender dimensions of Westcountry martial arts are almost entirely unexplored: the surviving sources privilege male, agricultural, and working-class participants, but the extent to which women, urban populations, or other social groups engaged with these arts is unknown.
The Devonshire Wrestling Society’s mission — to share traditional Westcountry martial arts with the world — necessarily entails a commitment to ongoing research. This page will be updated as new evidence emerges and as the scholarly community extends our understanding of this remarkable, ancient, and now reviving tradition.
References
Baring-Gould, S. (1908). Devonshire characters and strange events. John Lane.
Baring-Gould, S. (1925). Further reminiscences 1864–1894. John Lane.
Best, G. (1578). A true discourse of the late voyages of discoverie. Henry Bynnyman.
Carew, R. (1602/2000). The survey of Cornwall. Tamar Books (reissue).
Devonshire Wrestling Society. (2024). Westcountry wrestling textbook.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. (c. 1136/1999). History of the kings of Britain (A. Thompson, Trans., J. A. Giles, Rev.). In Parentheses Publications.
Hooper, W. T. (1953). The story of Cornish wrestling and its relations with Brittany. Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
Howitt, W. (1838). The rural life of England. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans.
Jaouen, G. (1986). The Gouren and its Celtic roots. Published by author.
Kent, A. M. (2000). The literature of Cornwall: Continuity, identity, difference, 1000–2000. Redcliffe.
Longhurst, P. (1917). Wrestling. Methuen.
Malcolmson, R. W. (1973). Popular recreations in English society, 1700–1850. Cambridge University Press.
Parkyns, T. (1727). Progymnasmata — The inn-play; or, Cornish hugg wrestler. London.
Peeke, R. (1625). Three to one: Being an English-Spanish combat. London.
Porter, J. H. (1989). The decline of Devonshire wrestling. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, 121, 199–208.
Silver, G. (1598/1898). The works of George Silver (C. G. R. Matthey, Ed.). George Bell and Sons.
Stoyle, M. (2002). West Britons: Cornish identities and the early modern British state. University of Exeter Press.
Strutt, J. (1801). The sports and pastimes of the people of England. Methuen.
Swetnam, J. (1617). The schoole of the noble and worthy science of defence. London.
Tripp, M. (2009). The history of Cornish wrestling [Doctoral thesis, University of Exeter]. Vols. 1–2.
Vancouver, C. (1808). General view of the agriculture of the county of Devon. London.
Wylde, Z. (1711). The English master of defence. John White, York.