The Masters of Defence and the City of Exeter

An important document sits in the Devon Heritage Centre, a single sheet of printed paper bearing the coat of arms of Mary I. For nearly five centuries, it has remained largely unknown to historians, tucked away in Exeter’s civic archives. When I first examined it in April 2024, I realised I was looking at something scholars had been seeking since at least 1956: proof that the Masters of Defence (Tudor England’s organization of licensed fencing masters) had their royal commission renewed under Mary I, and that the reach of the commission extended outside of London.

The Masters of Defence

To understand what I’d found, you need to know about an organization that existed in a peculiar space between legitimacy and disrepute in Tudor society. For most of the Middle Ages, teaching swordsmanship for money was essentially criminal activity. London’s legal records from 1180 onward banned fencing schools within the city, and later laws extended these prohibitions. The problem wasn’t combat training itself since the nobility and gentry had always practiced martial arts as part of their education. The issue was who was teaching and who was learning.

“Common fencers,” as they were called, were lumped together with rogues, vagabonds, and troublemakers. They taught in the streets, attracted rowdy crowds, and the line between teaching combat and provoking brawls was often blurry. Court records from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries are full of cases involving fencing masters: fights, riots, violence at demonstrations.

This changed under Henry VIII. The king’s personal enthusiasm for martial pursuits—jousting, wrestling, swordplay—created an opening for fencing to become respectable. But Henry wanted to draw a clear line between legitimate instruction and the chaotic violence associated with street brawlers. In 1540, he issued a formal commission establishing what became known as the Corporation of Masters of the Science of Defence.

The commission named specific individuals as masters and granted them extraordinary powers. They could investigate anyone teaching martial arts “without any sufficient licence or lawful authority.” They could arrest teachers who broke their oaths or taught “insufficiently.” They could bring these offenders before the nearest Justice of the Peace to be bound with financial sureties (essentially, forced to post bond guaranteeing good behaviour) or, if they refused, committed to gaol. In other words, Henry VIII was attempting to professionalise an occupation that had been associated with criminality for centuries. He was creating a monopoly, granting exclusive rights to a select group of practitioners to control who could teach and how they taught it.

The organisation that emerged developed an elaborate structure. According to a private minute book that survived from the period (now in the British Library as Sloane MS.2530), the Masters of Defence operated with three ranks: Scholar, Provost, and Master. Advancement required winning “prizes”, or public demonstrations of skill with various weapons, performed before large audiences and often before the monarch at court. Candidates swore elaborate oaths to their teachers “upon the cross of a sword, in remembrance of the cross whereupon our Lord Jesus Christ suffered his most painful passion.” The system resembled guild apprenticeships in other trades, with progression tied to demonstrated ability and formal recognition.

The minute book documents 95 prizes performed between 1568 and 1590, almost all in London or nearby towns. Masters played prizes at prestigious venues: the court at Greenwich, Westminster before King Philip and Queen Mary, Gray’s Inn, and various locations within the City of London. Some Masters performed before three or four successive monarchs across their careers. The organisation clearly had royal favor and access to the highest levels of society.

Yet the Masters of Defence never quite escaped the shadow of their disreputable origins. In 1572, Parliament passed the Vagabonds Act, which explicitly classified “Fencers, Bearwards, Common Players of Interludes, and Minstrels” as vagrants subject to brutal punishment: whipping, ear-cropping, and for persistent offenders, potential execution. The law did allow exceptions for those “belonging to any baron of this realm, or to any other honourable person of greater degree”, stating essentially, if you had an aristocratic patron, you might escape classification as a vagrant. But the default assumption was that people who taught combat for money were criminals. The commission meant the difference between being classified as a vagrant subject to whipping and being recognised as a royal commissioner with authority to arrest others. It elevated the “Science of Defence” from street brawling to a profession sanctioned by the Crown. Masters could truthfully claim they possessed royal authority, held recognised ranks, and followed established rules and traditions.

The commission also had to be renewed with each new monarch. Royal patents and commissions died with the sovereign who granted them, requiring reissue under the new reign. Henry VIII’s 1540 commission would have lapsed when he died in 1547. For the organization to maintain its authority through the successive reigns of Edward VI (1547-1553), Mary I (1553-1558), and Elizabeth I (1558-1603), each monarch needed to renew the grant.

And here’s where the historical mystery begins.

Mystery of the missing evidence

In 1956, historian J.D. Aylward noted a troubling gap in the historical record. The Masters of Defence claimed their monopoly over martial arts instruction was renewed by successive Tudor monarchs, but Aylward wrote bluntly: “no proof of this assertion can be found.” The original commission from Henry VIII in 1540 existed, and James I’s 1605 renewal survived in published form, but between those dates lay 65 years of silence. Three monarchs: Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I had supposedly renewed the commission, yet not a single document confirmed it.

The document catalogued as ECA/1/1/3/35, fills part of that gap. Dated 15 August 1555, it proves that Mary I did indeed renew the Masters’ commission. The text mirrors the 1540 original in most respects, but wraps it in elaborate Latin legal formulae that the earlier Protestant document lacked. This was Mary returning to traditional Catholic chancery practice, clothing royal authority in the formal language of pre-Reformation administration.

But what makes the discovery truly significant was that the document was distributed to Exeter, a major provincial city 170 miles southwest of London. This wasn’t just a London matter. The commission claimed jurisdiction over “all cities, boroughs, towns, and other places within this our realm of England, Wales, and Ireland.” The Crown was projecting authority across the entire kingdom.

So where are the cases?

Searching for ghosts

I spent months searching court records from both Exeter and London, covering the commission’s entire lifespan from 1559 to 1624. Quarter Sessions records (the local courts where justices of the peace heard cases four times a year) were my primary target because the commission explicitly directed offenders to be brought “before the nearest Justice of the Peace” to be “bound with sufficient sureties” or, upon refusal, “committed to gaol.” If enforcement happened anywhere, it would show up in Quarter Sessions.

The Exeter records are exceptionally complete, preserved thanks to John Hooker, who became the city’s Chamberlain in 1555 – the same year as Mary’s commission. Hooker was obsessive about archival preservation, and his practices created one of England’s most comprehensive civic collections. These records document hundreds of cases: stolen sheep and wool, assaults at markets, disputes over pasturing rights, defamation, bastardy examinations, even the theft of shirts. Tudor justices recorded testimony about remarkably minor matters. If they documented arguments over missing clothing, they would certainly have recorded enforcement of a royal commission.

Yet across decades of records, I found nothing. No arrests. No prosecutions. No one bound with sureties for teaching martial arts without a license. No commitments to gaol. Not even witness testimony mentioning the commission.

London’s records tell the same story. The Middlesex Sessions rolls, searchable through the Old Bailey database, contain extensive prosecutions of vagrants, unlicensed performers, and itinerant entertainers. In 1572, Parliament passed the Vagabonds Act, which explicitly classified “Fencers, Bearwards, Common Players of Interludes, and Minstrels” as vagrants subject to whipping and ear-cropping. The courts enforced this law vigorously against unlicensed entertainers. But the Masters of Defence never appear, despite 84 years of supposedly active commission.

The absence extends to every other venue where cases might have surfaced. Assize Courts, where serious criminal matters went, contain no prosecutions. Chancery and King’s Bench, where appeals and high-profile disputes would appear, show nothing. Even the Privy Council records, which documented complaints about commission enforcement and disputes between commissioners and local authorities, contain no references to the Masters attempting to exercise their powers.

This wasn’t a few missing records. This was comprehensive absence across multiple jurisdictions, court types, and eight decades.

What the Commission actually did

For HEMA practitioners, this discovery fundamentally changes how we should understand Tudor martial arts regulation. We’ve long assumed the Masters of Defence functioned as something like a guild or regulatory body, using their royal commission to control who could teach and maintain standards of instruction. The elaborate oath structure documented in the Sloane manuscript, the prize-playing system with its ranks of Scholar, Provost, and Master—all of this seemed to point toward systematic organization and enforcement.

But the evidence suggests something quite different. The commission wasn’t really about enforcement at all. It was about status, legitimacy, and deterrence.

Consider the context these fencing masters operated in. The law classified them alongside vagrants and criminals. The prevailing view, expressed vividly by the moralist Stephen Gosson in 1577, lumped fencing masters together with “bearwards, common players of interludes, and minstrels” as disreputable figures corrupting youth. When the philosopher Thomas Hobbes wanted an example of blind devotion to false authority, he chose fencing masters: those who trust “the false rules of a master of fence” end up killed or disgraced.

Against this background, a royal commission was transformative. It elevated practitioners from “common fencers” (vagrants) to “Masters of the Noble Science of Defence” (royal commissioners). The document itself, with its elaborate legal language and royal sanction, was proof of legitimacy. A Master could show it to local authorities, use it to justify charging premium fees, and brandish it to discourage competitors. The threat of arrest and imprisonment was real enough to deter unauthorized teachers, even if prosecution never happened.

The commission also solved an internal organizational problem. The Sloane manuscript documents an elaborate hierarchy and oath structure, but how do you enforce rules within a voluntary association? The commission provided authority. Masters could threaten to bring oath-breakers before justices, resolve disputes by invoking royal authority, and maintain discipline without actually having to navigate the expensive, uncertain process of prosecution.

This interpretation also explains why the commission kept getting renewed. If it had been about actual enforcement, the complete absence of cases would suggest failure. But if it served symbolic and organizational purposes, then lack of prosecution was irrelevant. The commission succeeded by existing, not by being used.

The Tudor Governance Pattern

For local historians, particularly those studying Devon and Exeter, this case study illuminates how Tudor governance actually functioned beyond London. We often imagine royal authority radiating outward from Westminster in neat hierarchical fashion, with proclamations and commissions being systematically enforced in provinces. The reality was messier and more negotiated.

Tudor government lacked the infrastructure for systematic enforcement. There was no professional police force, no paid bureaucracy monitoring compliance across the kingdom. Everything depended on unpaid local gentry serving as justices of the peace, men who had to balance royal directives against overwhelming local caseloads and their own priorities.

The distribution of the 1555 commission to Exeter demonstrates this pattern. The Crown sent the document to major provincial cities as a symbol of authority, commanding local officials to assist the Masters “in and about the due execution of this our commission.” But distribution didn’t equal implementation. Local justices, dealing with theft, assault, market disputes, and genuine threats to order, had neither incentive nor capacity to prosecute subjective offenses like “insufficient instruction” in martial arts on behalf of London-based Masters they’d likely never met.

This wasn’t unique to the fencing commission. My research revealed that Tudor England was full of royal grants that created theoretical authority but generated minimal enforcement. Monopoly patents for commodities like soap, salt, and playing cards granted exclusive rights but relied on patent-holders themselves to pursue violators through costly litigation. Most disputes were resolved privately through intimidation or settlement rather than prosecution. Commissions to regulate alehouses, despite elaborate statutory schemes, produced what one historian calls “haphazard and intermittent” enforcement varying enormously by locality.

Even high-priority matters like religious conformity showed this pattern. Elizabethan recusancy commissions, addressing Catholic resistance to Protestant establishment, generated only sporadic enforcement despite far greater political urgency than regulating fencing instruction. The legal historian Roger Manning demonstrated that commissioners possessed “neither the experience nor the inclination” to systematically address recusancy, and that enforcement varied dramatically based on whether individual justices prioritized the matter.

The cases that did generate consistent enforcement shared specific characteristics: permanent economic infrastructure, clear material violations, and alignment with local priorities. Trading companies like the East India Company, for instance, maintained their monopolies vigorously because they had permanent staff, company halls, financial resources to fund prosecutions, physical assets like ships and cargo that could be seized, and operations overseas where they could enforce rules directly without relying on English courts.

The Masters of Defence had none of these advantages. Teaching martial arts generated modest income, left no physical evidence comparable to smuggled cargo, involved subjective standards nearly impossible to prove, and competed with vagrancy laws that already regulated itinerant practitioners through efficient, established procedures. Moreover, the Masters themselves weren’t local gentry with the social networks and influence that made justice cooperation likely. They were London-based professionals, many of whom practiced fencing as a secondary occupation while belonging to other livery companies.

Why This Matters Beyond Academic History

The story of the Masters of Defence commission resonates today because it reveals how authority functions when enforcement capacity is limited or absent. The commission created what we might call “theoretical authority”—power that exists on paper, commands respect, and shapes behavior through its existence rather than its exercise.

For HEMA practitioners studying historical fencing systems, this context is crucial. We often approach historical martial arts through their technical content, analyzing treatises and reconstructing techniques. But understanding the social and legal context in which these systems operated changes our interpretation. The English Masters of Defence weren’t just teaching combat techniques; they were navigating a complex landscape of legal status, professional legitimacy, and competition with continental masters.

The commission helps explain why English Masters were so vitriolic in their attacks on Italian teachers like Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo. George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defence, with its forty-plus disparaging references to Italian methods, wasn’t just technical disagreement. It was professional competition. The Italians were successfully teaching the nobility without any royal commission, demonstrating that actual market success didn’t require the legal authority the English Masters had worked so hard to obtain. The rhetorical combat—what classical scholars call logomachy, fighting with words—substituted for legal enforcement that never materialized.

The prize-playing system documented in the Sloane manuscript also takes on new meaning. These weren’t just demonstrations of skill or examinations for rank advancement. They were public performances that legitimized the Masters’ claims to authority. When Masters played prizes before monarchs at court or in public venues in London, they were reinforcing their status as practitioners of a “noble science” worthy of royal attention, even as the enforcement mechanisms in their commission remained unused.

For local historians studying Exeter and Devon more broadly, the commission’s presence in the city archives demonstrates Exeter’s importance as an administrative center in the Tudor period. The fact that this document was distributed here, preserved here, and survives here reflects the city’s role as the Crown’s representative in the southwest. But it also shows the limits of that relationship. The Crown could project authority symbolically through documentation, but actual implementation depended on local cooperation that wasn’t forthcoming when matters didn’t align with local priorities.

John Hooker’s role becomes particularly significant in this light. His archival practices preserved not just the commission itself but the context that allows us to assess its impact. The completeness of Exeter’s Quarter Sessions records from this period, documenting hundreds of routine cases, provides the negative evidence that proves the commission generated no enforcement. Without Hooker’s meticulous preservation, we might assume records had simply been lost. Instead, we can definitively state: the cases never existed.

The Document Today

The 1555 commission survives because Hooker and his successors maintained Exeter’s civic archives against “all odds,” as the current archivist puts it. The document now resides at the Devon Heritage Centre, where it’s preserved alongside royal charters, grants of freedom, and other official documents spanning five centuries. It’s catalogued as ECA/1/1/3/35, having been reclassified in 2023 from its previous designation as “Ancient Letters/L/35.”

The physical artifact itself tells part of the story. It’s printed rather than handwritten, suggesting the Crown produced multiple copies for distribution to major cities. The left margin shows four consistent tears, probably from being affixed to other documents or posted publicly. Mary’s coat of arms appears as a woodcut at the top, and the text begins with an ornate drop-cap P for Philip, Mary’s husband and co-regent.

The document exists in three versions now: Henry VIII’s 1540 original, this 1555 renewal, and James I’s 1605 warrant. Comparing them reveals evolutionary patterns. The core mandate remains remarkably stable—85% textual consistency between 1540 and 1555, 82% between 1555 and 1605. But presentation changes significantly. The 1555 version wraps the English commission in Latin legal formulae absent from 1540. By 1605, the language becomes defensive, referring to “persons being or pretendying to be Schollers” and emphasizing “ancient and lawful Orders,” suggesting an organization under competitive pressure trying to assert traditional legitimacy.

The personnel lists also shift in revealing ways. The 1540 commission names nine Masters and eleven Provosts. The 1555 version lists ten Masters but only four Provosts. By 1605, there are eleven Masters and zero Provosts. This declining Provost rank suggests either organizational evolution, with the rank being absorbed into the Master title, or organizational decay, with fewer practitioners at the lower level. The evidence permits both interpretations, and we may never know which is correct.

What we do know is that by 1624, the commission ended automatically. The Statute of Monopolies, passed that year, declared “all Monopolies, and all Commissions, Grants, Licences, Charters and Letters Patents” void with limited exceptions for true inventions. Parliament abolished the Masters’ commission not because it had failed to improve teaching standards—the stated goal—but because it created monopolistic economic privilege, which is precisely what it had always been about.

Looking Forward

This discovery opens new research directions. The absence of an Elizabethan version remains unexplained. Given Elizabeth’s forty-five-year reign and the Masters’ documented activity during that period, did she simply not renew the commission? Or was it renewed and the documents subsequently lost? Exeter’s archives contain only this one commission from Mary’s reign, despite the collection’s general completeness. Was distribution selective, or were other versions simply not preserved?

The question of enforcement also extends beyond English borders. The 1555 and 1605 commissions both claim jurisdiction over “England, Wales, and Ireland.” Did the Masters ever attempt to exercise authority in Wales or Ireland? Are there provincial archives beyond Exeter that might contain copies of other monarchs’ renewals? These remain open questions.

What’s clear now is that the Masters of Defence commission wasn’t an anomaly or a failure. It was typical of how Tudor authority operated in practice, creating formal power that functioned symbolically rather than systematically. For eighty-four years, the commission served its purpose perfectly without ever being enforced, proving that sometimes the most powerful documents are the ones gathering dust in archives, precisely because nobody ever needed to use them.

The Masters of Defence created and maintained royal authority that legitimated their status, differentiated them from common swordsmen, and provided theoretical power to exclude competitors, all without having to exercise that authority through the cumbersome, expensive, and uncertain apparatus of Tudor courts. In an administrative system lacking enforcement infrastructure, that was perhaps the shrewdest use of royal authority possible.

The full academic paper, including complete transcription and modernization of the 1555 document, comparative analysis of all three versions, detailed archival methodology, and comprehensive source notes, is available via Academia.edu. The document itself can be viewed at the Devon Archives and Local Studies Centre (part of the South West Heritage Trust) by appointment, reference ECA/1/1/3/35. The document is subject to copyright of Exeter City Council.

For HEMA practitioners: This research fundamentally revises our understanding of how Tudor martial arts instruction was actually regulated and what the prize-playing system really accomplished.

For local historians: The Exeter connection demonstrates both the city’s administrative importance and the realities of how royal authority functioned in provincial England.

For questions about this research or the Devonshire Wrestling Society’s work on historical martial arts in the southwest: jamie.acutt@devonshirewrestling.org