Introduction to the Awards

As we all know HEMA has many different aspects that are all equally important in our shared effort in recreating these forgotten martial arts. However, all of our success rests on the hard work of researchers, transcribers, translators and interpreters, hard work, a work that often receives little recognition or actual reward in the way that tournament fighting does, not least since much work is done silently and generously published online for free.

With this in mind, and acting as a neutral party within the HEMA community, in 2013 HROARR.com introduced annual awards for Best efforts in HEMA research, with all aspects it includes. The idea was to create a highly prestigious award, our very own Oscar or Nobel Prize, if you will. Each year 5 prizes are awarded.

As the awards become more and more established, these awards will also be more and more independently managed by the new juries and the growing list of awardees and less so by HROARR, in the end hopefully completely independent of HROARR. This site is the very first step in that direction. 

Nominations are up to the community to send in, and decisions are based on actual achievements during the preceeding year, not through community voting. At this time, all published work has to have been written in English, except for transcriptions, of course. Decisions will be made by a quite small panel consisting of last year’s awardees and if needed new elected jury members.

I sincerely hope this will serve as both an inspiration and an encouragement for all the hard working people in our community!

Thank you and have a great day, everyone!
Roger Norling
Founder of the HEMA Scholar Awards