A Medieval Warrior's Virtues For Us

About 600 years ago, Fiore dei Liberi, a fencing master in Northern Italy, authored several manuscripts describing his style of fighting. He was a pro's pro. His students were condottieri, members of the nobility, people well versed in the art of combat with lethal weapons. Fiore's style is efficient, effective, elegant, a martial art in the truest sense of the words. It can still teach martial artists a lot today.

However, this article is not the place to deal with its techniques, tactics and strategies. This is about what Fiore believed to be the necessary qualities, virtues, of a true warrior. An entire page is dedicated to this. You can see an image of it above the title (thanks to the Getty Museum's Open Content Program). Fiore didn't just list the virtues. He also represented them through symbolical animals and objects.

Judgement - a lynx with dividers in its paw

Speed - a tiger holding an arrow

Courage - a lion with heart beneath its paw

Strength - an elephant carrying a tower.

The non-European animals don't look too realistic. The artists in those days didn't have access to a zoo.

Judgement is the ability to see an opportunity to act and to know what to do.

Courage is the ability to act upon this judgement decisively and in the face of danger.

Speed is the ability to act before the window of opportunity closes again.

Strength is the ability to exert force against resistance and to resist external forces.

A fighter engaged in combat will see an opening in his opponent's cover. He will know right away with which thrust or cut of his sword to attack the opening and he will do so with utmost speed and knowing full well it might be a trap. His well-trained muscles and solid body structure will enable him to transfer maximum strength into the opponent's body. The result will be gruesome.

What on earth, you might wonder, does this have to do with our lives? We do not hack into people with swords and poleaxes!! We are peaceful. Civilized. Nice people.

However, don't you need judgement to see a business opportunity?

Don't you need courage to make the leap into, for example, self-employment?

Don't you need to act before a new market has become too competitive?

Don't you need 'resilience', i.e. strength, when things get difficult?

Just take my line of work. I do cold calls business-to-business.

It is always a judgement call whether somebody is genuinely disinterested (which is to be respected) or not open about what he might need after all. To make that call requires the ability to read between the lines, to unterstand the other one. In short: empathy.

It takes a bit of courage to call a perfect stranger in the first place and face possible rejection. It takes courage to venture a guess as to what might interest them. You can always miss the mark. And it takes courage not to yield to unreasonable expectations just to keep the contact alive.

A sign of interest is like a starter pistol. Once is has gone 'bang', get moving at speed. Otherwise, your opportunity is lost.

And it takes strength to make another call after I don't know how many unsuccessful ones. Hope never dies because the law of averages is on my side, but it takes a certain dogged stubbornness to persist.

Medieval fencing masters were travelling service providers. They relied on noble patronage for a living and often moved from one court to another. Fiore dei Liberi seems to have been quite successful. Some of his patrons were famous in their day. Something is telling me that good, old Fiore applied his teachings to the business side of his trade, too.