About the author: Jean Chandler

Jean Henri Chandler has studied historical fencing for 15 years. He co-founded the fencing group SDA NOLA with Lenny Zimmermann in 2004 in New Orleans. Jean has taught longsword fencing in 2011 and 2012 and is active in the competition circuit, fencing in 7 tournaments since 2010. In 2012 Jean placed third in open longsword at the Fechtschule America tournament in Houston. Jean is an amateur researcher with a special interest in the late medieval Baltic and the context of historical fencing. In 2012 he gave a lecture on free cities and fencing masters at the BSG event in Boston. In 2013 he gave a second lecture on informal duels in central European towns at the Higgins Armoury in Worcester, Ma. He published his first research paper in the Acta Periodica Duellatorum that same year on warfare and free cities. In April 26 of 2014 Jean gave a lecture at the Tenth Annual Symposium on Historical European Swordsmanship, at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In May 2014 Jean's second paper on the history of guilds in late Medieval Europe was published in the Acta Periodica Duellatorum, and released at the Dijon fencing tournament and event.