Hans Talhoffer

Two “Hangs” arise in one-handed fencing in general, in all fencing be it strikes or leger, be it soft or hard. Make the “Speaking Window” and stand cheerfully and see what his cause is. Hit him in the mouth when he wants to pull out. I tell you again and again: no one protects himself without moving. If you have understood this, he will not come to a single blow out of your “Speaking Window”. As…

Understanding I.33 #2: The Story of a Book

Walpurgis and Ludgerus in the I.33, first half 14th century The probably oldest book on martial arts known to us, it is exclusively about fencing with small shields and sword. The book, which is dated by scientists to the first half of the 14th century, was created in a workshop of at least three scribes and five illustrators. The story of the book is not fully unknown. But most of it remains in…

Understanding I.33 #1: A Teacher and His Students

The probably oldest book on martial arts known to us, it is exclusively about fencing with small shields and sword. The book, which is dated by scientists to the first half of the 14th century, was created in a workshop of at least three scribes and five illustrators. The story of the book tells us that it was looted from a Frankonian monastery in the 16th century. It is known to us as I.33 from…

The Crossguard #7: Japanese Swords

This is the fifth post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The articles so far: Design of the Crossguard and the Christian faithHand protection for fighters through the (to me) known part of history. The development of handguards and armour for arm and handA small journey into Steel and Sword Production The first three general articles already suggest…

The Crossguard #6: Chinese Swords

This is the fifth post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The articles so far: Design of the Crossguard and the Christian faithHand protection for fighters through the (to me) known part of history. The development of handguards and armour for arm and handA small journey into Steel and Sword Production The first three articles already suggest that the…

The Crossguard #5: Roman Swords

This is the fifth post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The articles so far: Design of the Crossguard and the Christian faithHand protection for fighters through the (to me) known part of history. The development of handguards and armour for arm and handA small journey into Steel and Sword Production The first three articles already suggest that the…

The Crossguard #4: A Question of Resources

This is the fourth post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The articles so far: Design of the Crossguard and the Christian faithHand protection for fighters through the (to me) known part of history. The development of handguards and armour for arm and hand The first three articles already suggest that the regional available resources was one factor in…

The Crossguard #3: The Development Of Handprotection?

This is the third post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The first one was some myth-busting, explaining, why the Crossguard was no design of the Christian faith. The second post was looking at the meaning of hand protection for fighters through the (to me) known part of history. Lazy Reader’s Summary The first requirement on handguards is to protect…

The Crossguard #2: Who needs to Protect the Hand in a Sword Fight?

This is the second post on my article series on the development of hand protection in sword fights. The first one was some myth-busting, explaining, why the Crossguard was no design of the Christian faith. There are some more myths to bust. Let us start with the two most common to which I added a happy “NOT” on the essential claim: The crossguard was NOT developed because of martial or miliary…

The Crossguard #1: Not A Christian Symbol

There are many questions and myths to sword. This is the first article in a series of posts on the development of hand protection in regard of sword fighting. It is a nice tradition to start article series like this with some myth busting. So allow me to hold up to this tradition and let us talk about crossbars as Christian symbols. Lazy Reader’s Summary: The crossguard in cruziform design had…

1712 A London Bear Garden Fight

The following text is a 1:1 copy of the article posted in the 21th July 1712 issue of THE SPECTATOR , a London newspaper magazine of the 18th century. It is interesting in comparison to my other blog post: 1711 A bloody London Bear Garden fight. In the newspapers of the 17th and 18th century there are multiple advertisements found, but reports on the fight are rare. This present Tuesday, being…

The Buckler in the Chronicle of Prussia

Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 367, Nikolaus <von Jeroschin>, 1415

The “Chronicle of Prussia” is a translation of the “Chronica terrae Prussiae” of Peter von Dusburg into 27,738 rhyming couplet verses in East Central German, written in 1331/41. This chronicle of particularly high source value for the years 1311-1331. Around verses 2270 he starts to write of real and…

Liechtenauer – New Glosses – Preface Part 1

Gloss1

Liechtenauer wants the young knights to love God. As Alanus de Insula said in his Summa de arte praedicatoria relying on Ephes. 3, “Amor Dei mater est omnium virtutum, amor saeculi mater est omnium vitiorum.”, the love to God is the mother of all virtues, while the love for worldly things is the mother of all sins. A knight should not rely on worldly things but on the virtues. When Thomas…

Analysis of the Liechtenauer Poem

The analysis of the Liechtenauer fencing poem was the first step to create a critical edition based on content and linguistic aspects. The preconditions that lead to this method of analysis had been discussed in the article entitled: The Path to the Origininal Poem of Master Liechtenauer.

For the analysis of the Liechtenauer version I accessed the sources as there were

Magister Beringer…

The Footwork of Master Liechtenauer

If we compare the versions of the Zedel by Master Liechtenauer to each other, and to the poem originated by Magister Beringer we will recognize at first sight the different number of verses. Same happens in comparison of the Nürnberg Hausbuch with most of the other variants of Liechtenauer Zedel.

Two simple explanations come to the mind. Some writers could have forgotten parts, while others may…

The former school visitor knows the interpretation under the term “What does the artist want to say to me? No text, no picture is created thoughtless and without intention. In the scientific treatise “Visualised motion: iconography of medieval and renaissance fencing books” the author of these lines briefly writes about the interpretation of images in fencing books. A huge book could be written…

Reconstruction of Historical Martial Arts

“Reconstruction is the process of creating or recreating something more or less non-existent or unknown,” as German Wikipedia defines it. In the reconstruction of an old text or image, we fill in gaps left intentionally or unintentionally by the author. In Historical Martial Arts these are movements that we recognize as necessary in order to perform the described movements we have in the sources.…