[1] It consists of three primary disciplines: foil, épée, and sabre (also spelled saber), each with its own blade and set of rules.

The modern sport gained prominence near the end of the 19th century, evolving from historical European swordsmanship.

Fencing is governed by the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (FIE), headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The FIE is composed of 155 national federations, each of which is recognised by its state Olympic Committee as the sole representative of Olympic-style fencing in that country.

[4] In fencing, each bout (i.e. a match between two individuals or teams) is decided by either reaching a set number of hits or outscoring the opponent within a specified time limit, depending on the format of the competition.

Many universities in Ontario, Canada have fencing teams that participate in an annual inter-university competition called the OUA Finals.

In recent years, attempts have been made to introduce fencing to a wider and younger audience, by using foam and plastic swords, which require much less protective equipment.

This makes it much less expensive to provide classes, and thus easier to take fencing to a wider range of schools than traditionally has been the case.

There is even a competition series in Scotland – the Plastic-and-Foam Fencing FunLeague[9] – specifically for Primary and early Secondary school-age children using this equipment.

[10] The oldest surviving treatise on western fencing is the Royal Armouries Ms. I.33, also known as the Tower manuscript, written c. 1300 in present-day Germany,[11] which discusses the usage of the arming sword together with the buckler.

However, because they were written for the context of a knightly duel with a primary focus on archaic weapons such as the arming sword, longsword, or poleaxe, these older treatises do not really stand in continuity with modern fencing.

Unlike the previous traditions, the Bolognese school would primarily focus on the sidesword being either used alone or in combination with a buckler, a cape, a parrying dagger, or dual-wielded with another sidesword, though some Bolognese masters, such as Achille Marozo, would still cover the usage of the two-handed greatsword or spadone.

The Bolognese school would eventually spread outside of Italy and lay the foundation for modern fencing, eclipsing both older Italian and German traditions.

His school was run by three generations of his family and dominated the art of European fencing for almost a century.

[15] He established the essential rules of posture and footwork that still govern modern sport fencing, although his attacking and parrying methods were still much different from current practice.

[15] Basic conventions were collated and set down during the 1880s by the French fencing master Camille Prévost.

It was during this time that many officially recognised fencing associations began to appear in different parts of the world, such as the Amateur Fencers League of America was founded in 1891, the Amateur Fencing Association of Great Britain in 1902, and the Fédération Nationale des Sociétés d’Escrime et Salles d’Armes de France in 1906.

Starting with épée in 1933, side judges were replaced by the Laurent-Pagan electrical scoring apparatus,[18] with an audible tone and a red or green light indicating when a touch landed.

Kevlar was added to top level uniform pieces (jacket, breeches, underarm protector, lamé, and the bib of the mask) following the death of Vladimir Smirnov at the 1982 World Championships in Rome.

This may be due to the occasional pre-electric practice of covering the point of the weapon in dye, soot, or coloured chalk in order to make it easier for the referee to determine the placing of the touches[citation needed].

As this is no longer a factor in the electric era, the FIE rules have been relaxed to allow coloured uniforms (save black).

The body cord serves as the connection between a fencer and a reel of wire that is part of a system for electrically detecting that the weapon has touched the opponent.

Foil and sabre body cords have only two prongs (or a twist-lock bayonet connector) on the weapon side, with the third wire connecting instead to the fencer's lamé.

The need in foil and sabre to distinguish between on and off-target touches requires a wired connection to the valid target area.

In addition, equipment used in sabre includes: Épée fencers lack a lamé, conductive bib, and head cord due to their target area.

Certain techniques are used offensively, with the purpose of landing a hit on one's opponent while holding the right of way (foil and sabre).

In a number of countries, school and university matches deviate slightly from the FIE format.

A variant of the sport using toy lightsabers earned national attention when ESPN2 acquired the rights to a selection of matches and included it as part of its "ESPN8: The Ocho" programming block in August 2018.

[26] In 2017, the first issue of the Fence comic book series, which follows a fictional team of young fencers, was published by the US-based Boom!