English Quarterstaff

This episode is a short talk about the quarterstaff, it discusses some of the histories of the staff, and some of the people that used the staff as a weapon of defense. We go through a brief explanation of how the staff has progressed down through the ages to modern times. The name "quarterstaff" is first attested in the mid-16th century.  George Silver, an English Gentleman, and Maister of the English martial arts who wrote two books (1599, 1605) including lengthy sections on staff fighting uses the term "short staff"  Joseph Swetnam, writing in 1615, distinguishes between the "quarterstaff" of 7 or 8 feet (2.1 or 2.4 m) in length and the "long staff" of 12 feet (3.7 m).[3]