Is there any individual, renowned European swordsman

He looks Black.

WE

I misread the OP. Musashi wasn't just a swordsman either.

People probably dont know Musashi was trained by his father as a boy. His father was probably more renowned for his jujutsu than his kenjtusu

>try to look at other pics on google and wiki
>also looks black

WUZ

Literally every "best of" European is Italian.

Best swordsman? Fiore dei Liberi.
Best politician? Niccolò Machiavelli
Best general? Napoleone di Buonaparte.

>Musashi wasn't as renowned in his days as he is today,
He wrote figgin books and stuff that were popular enough in his day they are still around.

KANGZ

>>SWORDMANZ

Its not even clear he wrote it, many believe it was written by his students. Much of the material was probably intended only for members of his style

He was certainly one of the big fish in Kyushu during his lifetime, But the Yagyu were definitely more prominent. They were the sword instructor to the Tokugawa and famed for their skill. During an ambush he fought off an entire group of men, cutting down seven of them and holding the rest off in time for relief to arrive. He also wrote a book, which well not well known among westerners was just as important. Some variation of the Yagyu's shinkage ryu was probably practiced in every province in Japan by the end of the edo period

>Napoleon
>Italian

Nice meme.

He apparently was very strong in juttejutsu as well, just like his father. HNIR teaches bojutsu as well, but that's typical even in kenjutsu school. I think I remember some stories telling that he was good at jujutsu, but given its supposedly massive appearance it's not a big surprise (for me anyway).

One of its descendant school apparently taught tachi and jutte together (instead of or alongside tachi and kodachi).

We don't know much about Fiore dei Liberi, and some masters had bigger kill counts than what he pretends to have. Fabris and Marozzo were much more influential than him as well.

His books weren't highly referenced back then, he was mostly known for his buddhism, calligraphy and paintings. His books were rediscovered somehow in the 20th century, thanks to the novel of Eiji Yoshikawa mostly. He had kinda faded into obscurity compared to many other swordsmasters.

Yagyu Munenori also wrote an even more famous book, but you don't here much about it/him compared to Musashi. Musashi's fame as much more to do with Yoshikawa than with him sadly.

there were tons, especialy in the 1400-1600 period, as well as later during the 18th century when fencing duels were a whole international subculture

same way as there were whole martial art schools with their own fighting stiles and tactics and all that crap, same as in azia

but then we developed bolt action rifles and machineguns and such sothe whole swordsman thing became somewhat absurd and memy

Best empire? Roman

machiavelli wasnt a politician

today they would call hin a 'expert' or a 'politologist' or something

>we
But it was the chinese who developed the rifle.

The german developped the first efficient bolt-action rifle actually. Then closely after came the french and swiss.

William Marshall - a knight that made king Richard beg for his mercy

Oh. You learn something new every day. Thanks

It was in order the Dreyse, Chassepot and Vetterli rifles.
Rifles are specific guns mind you, Chinese may have invented the portable guns, but rifles were much more complicated to make (and not really worth it), before the industrial era that is.

>Napoleon wasn't Ita-

Why isn't it in Tuscany? Isn't that where his family was from?

On the top of my head El Cid had quite some renown while alive and after his death. The other knights that I can think of are fictional (Roeland etc)