There are medieval predecessors, such as the Burgundian Le jeu de la hache ("The Play of the Axe") of ca.

One master produced by this school was Henry de Saint-Didier, author of a 1573 treatise titled Traicté contenant les secrets du premier livre sur l'espee seule (Treatise containing the secrets of the first book on the single sword), dedicated to Charles IX.

[1][2][3] Earlier, in 1597, the great traveller Seigneur de Villamont translated Girolamo Cavalcabo of Bologna’s treatise into French, along with a shorter piece by Paternostrier of Rome.

The modern foil was developed in France as a training technique in the middle of the 18th century; it provided practice of fast and elegant thrust fencing with a smaller and safer weapon than an actual dueling sword.

German students took up that practice and developed the Pariser ("Parisian") thrusting small sword for their academic fencing bouts.