Personnel

The Higgins Armory Sword Guild is unique in its combination of martial arts expertise with academic training: there is no other similar organization in the world that brings together a comparable level of skill in both the physicality of combat and the interpretation of medieval and Renaissance texts. The content of our program is based largely on the work of the following group members.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Forgeng (Academic Consultant) is one of only a handful of professional scholars in the world specializing in the history of European martial arts, and the only one of them personally involved in reconstruction of early combat techniques. His books include Joachim Meyer’s Art of Combat (2006);; and The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship: A Facsimile and Translation of Europe’s Oldest Personal Combat Treatise, Royal Armouries MS I.33 (2003). Forgeng is the Paul S. Morgan Curator at the Higgins Armory Museum, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Jeff Lord (Historical Combat Teacher) has been practicing and teaching various martial arts disciplines for over twenty years. His experience includes over fifteen years as Head Fencing Coach at Hampshire College, with additional work as Head Fencing Coach at Amherst and Smith Colleges. He has provided instruction in stage combat at numerous theaters and schools in western Massachusetts, and has been a certified member of the Society of American Fight Directors. He also spent two years in Japan studying Japanese sword arts, and there earned the shodan (first degree) rank in both Kendo and Iaido. Lord also possesses significant academic credentials: he earned his masters degree in Medieval History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and teaches high school history in Hadley, Massachusetts.

Mark Millman (Historical Combat Teacher) is a long-time student of the martial arts. He has fenced for over twenty years, and has studied Shotokan and Kyo Kushinkai karate and Kodokan judo. He has coached fencing at the high-school level, and has given private lessons. He is a former member of the Society of American Fight Directors, and has choreographed fights for over sixty productions. He took his degree at Harvard, where he studied social anthropology as viewed through material culture. He has a particular interest in the sword; his collection numbers over fifty items.

Dr. Patri Pugliese (Academic Consultant) needs no introduction to the historical martial arts community, having been the source of reproductions of early combat treatises relied on by practitioners around the globe. Pugliese received his doctorate in 1982 in the History of Science from Harvard University. His early training in the sword was provided by his mother, Julia Jones, first U.S. women's intercollegiate fencing champion in 1929 and professional coach until her death in 1993 at age 84. Dr. Pugliese was involved in the reconstruction of Renaissance and nineteenth-century western combat techniques for over a decade. His interest in historical movement included, in addition to fencing and bayonet drill, the art of social dance. He trained in Renaissance dance for many years with the late Dr. Ingrid Brainard and was co-director of The Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, a nineteenth-century dance performance troupe, placing him in a long tradition of students and masters active in both fencing and dancing. Dr. Pugliese passed away in 2007, after a battle with cancer.