Greg has had an abiding love for all things medieval since early childhood. He began indulging this passion as a teenager through historical reenactment, before melding his love of history into his collegiate studies, graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with degrees in History and Journalism.

His period of interest is the 12th - 14th centuries, with a particular interest in the Plantagenets, the Crusader  Kingdoms, Italy at the birth of the Renaissance, and the documentation and reconstruction of medieval European martial arts. His current interests and research focuses Italian martial traditions from the 14th to mid-16th centuries, and has presented several papers on this topic at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has also organized and co-hosted one day symposiums and presented papers on the western martial arts at both the University of Chicago and Loyola University.

Greg has a number of publications as an author, co-author and contributor including Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: the 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Filippo Vadi (co-authored with Luca Porzio), contributions to SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship and In the Service of Mars: Proceedings from the Western Martial Arts Workshops 1999 – 2009 (2010), and the 2010 edition of the Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation. He is a regular contributor to Western Martial Arts Illustrated, on whose editorial board he serves. Greg is also the author of the forthcoming The Art of Arms: Medieval Italian Swordsmanship (2012), the first in an instructional series on the martial arts of Fiore dei Liberi.

Within the Western martial arts community, Greg is best known for co-founding the Chicago Swordplay Guild in 1999 to create a formal venue to study historical European swordsmanship and its adjunct arts. In October of that year he also organized and hosted the first Western Martial Arts Workshop as an attempt to promote these arts amongst practitioners throughout North America. Now approaching its tenth anniversary, the workshop draws participants from three continents.

Tom was born in Switzerland and raised in Northern Italy, where he received a thorough humanistic education including the study of Latin, ancient Greek, history, philosophy and philology. He has formally refined his historical research skills through his early-music studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, in Basel, Switzerland, where he learned to decipher ancient texts to reconstruct active arts such as music performance.

Tom has also received a Bachelor’s degree in Music Theory and Composition (cum laude) and a Master’s in Business Administration from Texas Christian University. In fall of 2011 he will begin a doctoral program in Medieval Studies at the Catholic University of America.

Tom’s involvement in the Western martial arts movement started in the early ‘90s. He is best known for his work on the Italian rapier and Baroque sword (a term he coined), the Bolognese school of the 1500’s, as well as his research in polearms and spadone (greatsword). Tom has authored several books and articles, including the first published, English translation of Salvator Fabris’ Scienza d’Arme (as  The Art of Dueling, 2005), Nicoletto Giganti's Scola, overo Teatro (as Venetian Rapier, 2010), Antonio Manciolino's Opera Nova (The Complete Renaissance Swordsman, 2010) the first English translation of Fiore dei Liberi’s Fior di Battaglia and two articles in the anthology SPADA II. He is also a regular contributor to the magazine Western Martial Arts Illustrated, on whose editorial board he also serves, as well as other international Western martial arts publications.

As a swordsmanship teacher, Tom has appeared as the featured instructor at prominent international historical fencing events in the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia.

Tom also serves as an early-music docent at, and is a board member of, the historic Carlyle House in Alexandria, Virginia, where he resides.

Christian Henry Tobler has been a longtime student of swordsmanship, especially as it applies to the pursuit of the chivalric ideals. A passionate advocate of the medieval Liechtenauer School, his work in translating and interpreting Sigmund Ringeck's commentary firmly established him as an important contributor to the growing community of Western martial artists. This work is encapsulated in the 2001 book Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship: Sigmund Ringeck's Commentaries on Johannes Liechtenauer's Verse, and Fighting with the German Longsword (2004), a training guide for students of the Liechtenauer tradition. In 2006 he authored In the Service of the Duke, a full-color 1:1 scale reproduction, translation and analysis of the magnificent manuscript of Paulus Kal, a 15th c. master at arms to the Duke of Bavaria. This was followed in 2010 by In Saint George's Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts. Christian's most recent work is Captain of the Guild: Master Peter Falkner's Art of Knightly Defense, Freelance's first full-color facsimile edition.

Adam Phillip Velez – Production and Design Manager

 

After completing his studies at the Berklee College of Music in 1985, Adam quickly developed a passion and aptitude for graphic design while working in the music industry.

 

For the past decade, he has been working exclusively in the educational publishing field, responsible for creating a wide variety of textbooks, workbooks, readers, and other learning materials, specifically for the study of Greek and Latin at the middle school, high school, and college levels. Adam now brings his nearly 25 years of design experience, and his knowledge of the educational challenges in publishing, to Freelance.

 

Adam is also a devote of Renaissance and Medieval history, and has been involved with historical fencing and reenactment since 1989. In 2000, his martial studies were significantly spurred with his introduction to the greater Western martial arts community. Adam’s continuing martial studies focus primarily on the English and Italian treatises from the Renaissance period and later, ranging through a variety of their disciplines including the backsword, Bolognese sword, early pugilism, and especially his first love—the rapier.

 

Along with his personal martial studies, and teaching privately, he also continues to offer classes and seminars to the reenactment community, especially within the Society for Creative Anachronism. Adam is also a founding member of the Company of Saint Jude, a private fencing school and guild dedicated to the greater understanding, development, and promotion of the historical western martial arts, especially within the reenactment community. He has also presented classes at the Western Martial Arts Workshop and through Gallowglass Academy.

 

Adam still maintains his original love of music as well, performing and recording as a singer and multi-instrumentalist, especially along with his wife, Chris Vail, as the folk/traditional music duo "Tourdion."