Hey guys, I'm doing a little bit of research for a novel I'm writing (but was also curious about it), and I couldn't find anything about the topic. Are there any historians that know whether or not there were some cultures, etc. that allowed left handed swordsmen? Or just left handed weapon-fighting in general? I haven't been able to dig anything up about it.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
This answer by /u/hydrogenjoule to a similar question seems to suggest that there were left-handed fighters.
The answer is a quote from a treatise (Fiore dei Liberi) from 1400 talking about facing a right or left handed opponent. Since it is mentions how to defend against a left-handed opponent, we know that it must have happened.
This forum post also has a couple of mentions of historical documents talking about defending against left-handed swordsmen.
It's also worth noting that left-handed fencers are disproportionately represented as fenching champions, it's something that can be very difficult to fight against if you aren't used to it. That doesn't speak to historical examples of course, just that there is an advantage that existed to be leveraged.