The first experiments in historical swordplay that are precedents of Stoccata were carried out about 1986 in the Pike and Musket Society of NSW. As part of the society's representation of a 17th century military company, Dave Green (then the society's president) and Andrew Brew began investigating historical rapier play. The work was based intially on the information we could glean from Egerton Castle's Schools and Masters of Fence and Arthur Wise's The History and Art of Personal Combat, and especially on their references to Capo Ferro, who published his Gran Simulacro in 1610, close in time to the period we were then representing. The fragmentary nature of Castle's, and especially Wise's, references made for large gaps, which were filled with the experience we had as modern fencers, and Dave's limited exposure to theatrical fencing. Before long Andrew discovered Jackson's Three Elizabethan Fencing Manuals, a facsimile reprint of Saviolo, Di Grassi, and Silver (the Paradoxes only). This gave us a pair of complete systems in English to work from, and greatly improved our practice. Ultimately we were able to discard many of our 20th century intrusions, although we still used significant elements of Capo Ferro's system grafted into Saviolo's, with liberal use of di Grassi's terminology.

In 1989 Stephen Hand moved to Sydney from his native Tasmania and joined the society, becoming an enthusiastic student and participant in its fencing activities. Around 1994, with the advent of widespread internet use (Andrew, working in the software industry, was fortunate to be introduced to the web fairly early on) we stumbled upon Steve Hicks' transcription of Silver's Brief Instructions upon my Paradoxes of Defence. We had long been aware of the Paradoxes, but had regarded them as little more than a diatribe against foreign influence in English swordplay. The Brief Instructions were clearly a different matter, and Steve Hand analysed the text to produce an interpretation of Silver's system for the short sword, that is, for a cutting sword with a blade of 30-36" length.

In 1995 he and Peter Radvan, another long term medieval re-enactor, were asked to assist in teaching combat to a new Dark Ages re-enactment group, the Macquarie University Dark Ages Society (MacDAS). Very little is known of Dark Age combat on an individual level, but they decided that in the absence of any hard information they would look at developing the techniques described by George Silver for use with similar weapons, wearing a similar level of armour. While presumably Vikings and Saxons did not fight like George Silver, they felt that a proven combat system from 1600 was likely to be closer to the reality of Dark Age combat than a made up system from 1995. Peter's initial reluctance to adopt an approach based on old books rather than personal experience was swiftly overcome by Stephen's demonstration of the deadly effectiveness of what he had learned from Silver.

By 1997 it was clear that there was considerable interest in historical swordplay as a discipline in its own right, both among historical re-enactors (where, for us, it had started) and non-reenactors. Andrew and Stephen formed the idea of a school separated from existing re-enactment societies and devoted to researching and teaching these skills, and Peter was invited to be the third of the intial teaching body. Stoccata opened its doors formally in August 1998, with Andrew teaching Italian Rapier (drawn chiefly from Saviolo, with elements from Capo Ferro), and Stephen teaching English Short Sword (drawn from Silver). In 2001 Paul Wagner was invited to become a provost of the school, and has since proved himself inexhaustible in supplying fresh ideas for research, and in presenting the fruits of his efforts as courses to the school's students.

Stoccata's scope has slowly broadened over the years, even as the individual system interpretations have been sharpened, and our repetoire of regular courses now includes MS I.33 sword and buckler from the late 13th century and German longsword play in the 14th-15th century tradition of Liechtenauer, as well as a wider range of 17th and 18th century insular weapon styles. In 2004 Steve Hand moved back to Tasmania and opened a branch of the School in Hobart, presently focussing on Silver and offering rapier and sword and buckler also. In 2005 a second school was opened in Sydney, the better to support the range of systems taught. While George Silver (taught by Peter Radvan) remains the core of the curriculum at one school, teaching at the other (delivered by Andrew Brew) is based primarily on the Leichtenauer system.