In Saint George's Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Martial Arts

By Christian Tobler and Peter von Danzig

The medieval knight was a well-trained fighting man, expert in the use of sword, lance, spear and dagger, and member of a warrior aristocracy whose values, virtues and vices helped shape European society for over 500 years. As a window into the knight and his craft, In Saint George’s Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts brings readers a treasure trove of historic combat treatises, musings on the culture and context of the martial arts in the late Middle Ages, and hands-on training exercises for wrestling, dagger, falchion, and poleaxe. Join medieval combat expert Christian Henry Tobler on an expansive journey into the lost world of chivalric fighting arts, certain to thrill martial artists, arms and armour enthusiasts, and lovers of history alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freelance Academy Press
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783017423

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Introduction

In Saint George’s name, here begins the art of fighting, written in verse by Johannes Liechtenauer, who was a great master of the art, God have mercy on him. It begins first with the long sword, afterwards the spear and sword on horseback, and also the half-sword in dueling, all written down in what follows.

– Preamble of the Ringeck Fechtbuch

Alot can change in ten years. As I write these words in the latter half of 2008, I reflect on just how much has changed in the study of historic European martial arts, most especially regarding my own understanding of German medieval martial arts. It’s safe to say that I could not have written this book in 1998. Aside from my lacking the knowledge to do so, there would have been too few with sufficient grounding in the basics of the fighting traditions of medieval Germany to understand it or find it useful. Today though, there are enough diligent researchers, teachers, and practitioners of the art left to us by Master Johannes Liechtenauer, and his disciples, that there is sufficient reason for such a book.

For Those Who Came In Late…

My research, and this book, is on the late medieval fighting tradition of the German grandmaster Johannes Liechtenauer. This shadowy figure, known to us only through the works of his disciples, synthesized a fighting art in the 14th century based on the principle of seizing and maintaining the initiative in any encounter. His teachings, promulgated in over five dozen works in both manuscript and printed form, reveal his art’s popularity well into the seventeenth century. Liechtenauer’s primary weapon was the longsword, a finely balanced two-handed weapon effective in both cut and thrust, and it is this weapons through which his rhyming mnemonic couplets expose the principles of his art. The teachings of this martial tradition—deriving from Liechtenauer and his disciples—instruct also in how to fight unarmed and with the dagger, spear, falchion, poleaxe, and large dueling shields. Further, some methods are adapted specifically for armoured combat, whether on foot or on horseback.

An Anthology of All Things Liechtenauer

In this volume, my fourth on the Liechtenauer tradition, I will not explain the Five Secret Strokes, or how to stand in the four guards, or explain the basics of initiative. Those seeking those basics may turn to my own training guide Fighting with the German Longsword (Chivalry Bookshelf, 2004), or to the many other sources, available now both in print and online on the Internet. This book is instead aimed at those desiring to delve deeply into the Liechtenauer tradition, and is intended more for the experienced crowd and less so for the beginner, although even the beginner may find something of use here too.

The format is also a different one for me, for this work is presented as a compendium rather than a single monolithic piece. In it you will find essays on the tradition and its cultural milieu, notes for classes I’ve taught to my home students and on the road when presenting seminars, and a couple of translations. In a sense, it’s everything I’ve wanted to set to paper but which hasn’t had the proper vehicle. Because of this, the contents of each chapter are varied:

•Chickens and Eggs: Which Master Came First? is an essay on the perils and pitfalls of determining which manuscripts are the earliest, who influenced who, and which treatises are the most important.

•Master Peter Falkner’s Dagger is a set of class notes from a module I’ve taught many times, expanded into a full analysis of the techniques. It includes images from the Peter Falkner Fechtbuch, one of the more delightful primary sources.

•Lance, Spear, Sword, and Messer is an admonition, coupled with some examples, on the importance of training with multiple weapons for those who want to gain a deeper understanding of the Liechtenauer tradition.

•The Messerfechten of Master Paulus Kal is a study of the handful of techniques for the Langes Messer left to us by one of my favorite German masters, the Bavarian Schirmaister , ¹ Paulus Kal. Like the Falkner dagger chapter, this too was developed from class notes for my students.

•Hot, Wet, Cold, and Dry: The Four Guards may be regarded by some as the most unusual of the chapters, as it is a discussion on the connections between the primary longsword guards of the Liechtenauer tradition and their relationship to other medieval ideas about the physical world.

•A Late 15 th Century German Poleaxe Treatise is a translation and analysis, accompanied by photographs, of one of the most fascinating things I’ve encountered in the last two years of research—a small text treatise on the poleaxe, one of my favorite knightly weapons.

•Master Paulus Kal’s Four Hip Wrestlings returns to the Kal Fechtbuch for an in-depth look into a wonderfully structured set of techniques of hip throws and counter-techniques.

•The Von Danzig Fechtbuch, occupying the second half of this book, is a translation for which I’ve long sought the proper venue. Probably the most important surviving document of the Liechtenauer tradition, it includes complete commentaries on all of Liechtenauer’s verses, plus treatises on armoured and mounted combat, wrestling, and dagger from four other masters. Of all the parts of this book, it is this section I can most recommend to the beginner, for this Fechtbuch’s commentaries on Liechtenauer are especially clear.

I’ve chosen these topics because they’ve broadened my perspective on medieval combat and its role in late medieval society. Additionally, they provide a window into the research and training of the Selohaar Fechtschule, the fight school of which I am Principal Instructor. Hopefully, the reader will find in this work some of the same benefits that my students and I have found. With this hope, and without further ado, let us explore together some more of the richness of the fighting tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer and the masters who followed after him.

Chickens and Eggs:

Which Master Came First?

Which historical German fencing treatises are the most authoritative? Which most accurately reflects its tradition? Are the earliest manuscripts the most reliable or the most reflective of Liechtenauer’s true Art?

These are difficult, if not impossible, questions to answer. The reasons behind these difficulties have to do with issues of provenance, authorship, and the very nature of many of the works of the Kunst des Fechten.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of making sweeping and potentially erroneous assertions about the evolution of the fighting treatises that have survived from the medieval era. Most of these pitfalls are associated with misunderstandings about the nature of these manuscripts in general.

Who is the Earliest Master of All?

Hs. 3227a, better known as the Döbringer Hausbuch, is the earliest manuscript in the Liechtenauer tradition, dating to the late 14th century. Conventional wisdom in the Western Martial Arts community holds that this therefore must be the source closest resembling what Johannes Liechtenauer himself taught. Like much conventional wisdom in the world, there are some problems with this idea.

First, the work is a Hausbuch (housebook)—a ‘commonplace book’ or ‘medieval home encyclopedia’ compiled for someone wealthy enough to own such a book. Like many such works, it includes texts, in both Latin and German, on diverse topics: astrology, herbal medicine, magical formulae, even a treatise on the hardening of iron. The portions treating fencing occupy perhaps 40% of its pages. So, it is not a book on fencing so much as it is a book on many things, including fencing.

Despite the name commonly associated with this manuscript—Döbringer—we do not know who wrote the section on fencing; the author is anonymous. The name of the priest Hanko Döbringer appears as one of several names listed in a verse and commentary section of techniques deriving from masters other than Johannes Liechtenauer.

Complicating this proviso is the fact that the commentaries on Liechtenauer’s art are far from complete. Of the seventeen primary unarmoured techniques for the longsword delineated by Liechtenauer in his verse treatise, only half are glossed by the anonymous commentator. Liechtenauer’s other two sub-disciplines—fighting on foot and on horse in armour—are not glossed at all; only the verse appears for them.

Even the assertion that Hs. 3227a is the earliest surviving work is not unassailable. A number of writers (alas, including this one in several previous works) have confidently dated the manuscript to 1389, based on the multiple year calendar beginning with the year that appears in the housebook. That is not an entirely reliable way to date the work though, as the calendar may just be one that was available to the scribe that included the years of interest to him or his client. The manuscript could, therefore, be of earlier or later origin.

While none of these provisos limits the manuscript’s use or interest to us, we should be cautious in quickly assuming its possibly early date makes it inherently closer to what Liechtenauer intended than any other source that followed. And even if they are closer to what the grandmaster intended, they’re the work of that hard to pin down author: anonymous.

Authors, Authorship, and Compendia

The singular nature of manuscripts is such that we must be very cautious in tracing the evolution of the tradition. We must be especially careful in asserting that one manuscript draws from another, for this implies that the latter manuscript’s producers had access to the earlier one. These are not published works that could be accessed through the ease of modern inter-library loan.

When one reads something on the internet like Sigmund Ringeck published a Fechtbuch c. 1440, alarms should go off. Essentially, everything in that sentence is either an unsubstantiated assertion or outright wrong.

First of all, Ringeck couldn’t have published anything, because in the early to mid 15th century there was no such thing as publishing as we understand it. Manuscripts were produced, not published. This is no mere pedantic distinction; rather, it reflects fundamental differences in the way information was conveyed then, as opposed to how it is transmitted now. A manuscript is a one of a kind, hand-crafted object, made for a specific person or institution, not a work for public consumption. And while a manuscript can be copied—by hand—each of those (expensive to produce) copies is its own unique entity.

More importantly, we cannot with certainty ascribe authorship of anything to Sigmund Ringeck. In the Dresden manuscript usually referred to as the Ringeck Fechtbuch (including by myself, in my first book) his name appears but once, the author or scribe noting that Liechtenauer’s seminal verses were later glossed by Sigmund, ain Ringeck. This does not however mean that the words we are reading came from him. For all we know, they may be the notes of a student of Ringeck’s, an idea that will be explored further later in this chapter.

Further, the Dresden manuscript is clearly a compendium, with works likely culled from several sources amalgamated together. This is most apparent in the sections on wrestling, which includes materials from at least three sources, one of which appears to be a fragment of Ott the Jew’s wrestling treatise.

Stray further on the web and one can find even more egregious assertions that make the above look quite trivial. Here is the beginning of the Wikipedia entry for Jud Lew, as it stands during the time of this writing (Autumn 2008):

Jud Lew (a Jew named Löw, i.e. lion) was a mid 15th century teacher of martial arts, and author of a Fechtbuch now kept in Augsburg as Cod.I.6.4°.3, dated to the 1450s. Jud Lew’s treatise is probably dependent on Peter von Danzig, and the two masters were likely acquainted personally. […]

While I’m aware that I’m shooting fish in a barrel in taking so suspect a source to task here (though this online encyclopedia isn’t particularly less accurate than the average printed version), I feel obliged to do so because the article is reflective of assumptions I’ve encountered elsewhere and contains several significant errors in one place.

First, we’re again faced with the problem of authorship. While Lew’s name appears in Codex I.6.4°.3, it is with regard to specific sections within what is, again, a compendium. There are two sections associated with that name: a gloss of Liechtenauer’s mounted combat, and one of two sections in the manuscript treating armoured dueling on foot; the gloss of the longsword teachings is anonymous. Nowhere is the manuscript signed by him as if he wrote the whole thing, so we should not imagine Master Lew sitting down, quill in hand, setting all of the manuscript down on vellum.

The worse offense lies however in the proposed relationships between Lew and Peter von Danzig, which is purely fantastical. First of all, Peter von Danzig is no more the author of the work associated with his name, Codex 44 A 8, than Lew is of I.6.4°.3. And while the commentary on Liechtenauer’s unarmoured longsword verses appearing in the Lew manuscript is clearly related to that in the Danzig Fechtbuch, it is just as likely, if not more so, that each derives from a common antecedent—some manuscript ‘X’ which either did not survive into the modern era or which has yet to be discovered in some collection. This is driven home by the fact that the author of the longsword commentaries, in both cases, is anonymous.

We don’t even know that Lew was active in the mid-15th century. Assuming the compendium I.6.4°.3 is from that time (and I don’t believe that to be firmly established either), then Lew could have been a significantly earlier figure. We just don’t have enough data to say for certain.

We don’t know how these teachings were transmitted from one master to another; neither do we have a clear picture of how the scribes who set down these compendia gained access to their constituent treatises. With that, drawing inferences of personal relationships between masters, based solely upon similarities in manuscripts associated with their names, is poor scholarship and misleading to students of this art.

What Do We Know?

With all the above cautions, it would seem we might have little certainty about anything regarding the Liechtenauer tradition. There are however some things we do know, and those we can assume without straying from the realm of critical inquiry.

The Paulus Kal (Cgm 1507) manuscript is an especially reliable work for helping us to date other works—its date can be established and it is a work attributed to a single author who refers to himself in the first person. To start, there are a number of indications in the Kal Fechtbuch that tell us it can be dated to around 1470. Our knowledge of his career, the armour and costume styles depicted, and some references to two antagonists that nearly fought a judicial duel in 1468 make this date reliable to within a few years. Given that, we can make some other assumptions based on the roster of the Society of Liechtenauer that Kal lists at the beginning of the manuscript. The list would appear to be a memorial to those masters of the tradition now passed. With that, we can then assume that any treatises reliably attributed to masters such as Andres Lignitzer, Ott, Martin Huntfeltz, etc. must therefore pre-date the 1470’s.

Note that I use the word treatise, not manuscript, for while we can assume that a master such as Ott wrote his treatise on wrestling prior to 1470, this may or may not tell us anything about the dating of any of the compendia that treatise appears in. For a more immediate example: should this very article appear in an anthology whose dating is lost to history far in the future, the years I was extant as an author would be lost; conversely, were my birth and death dates known, it would (approximately) date my authorship, but would not tell the hypothetical future historians when the anthology was compiled.

Moving further backward in history from the Paulus Kal manuscript, we can reliably date the so-called Von Danzig Fechtbuch to 1452—the date is written in the manuscript, after all and the style of handwriting and illustration give us little reason to doubt this date. The manuscript includes the memorial phrase God have mercy on him for Masters Ott, Lignitzer, and Huntfeltz, but not for Peter von Danzig. So, we know the first three were dead by 1452, but Peter von Danzig was likely still alive at the time. As Kal lists von Danzig as deceased by c. 1470, this gives us a ballpark for when he might have died.

We can also delineate the relationships between the various glosses of Liechtenauer’s verses that survive. The anonymous glosses in the Von Danzig Fechtbuch and those attributed to Ringeck share some common phrases and have considerable overlap in their example techniques. There is therefore likely some connection between them, though it is unclear if one influenced the other or if they both derive from some common, still earlier source. The other two major commentaries, those appearing in the Lew and Von Speyer manuscripts, are quite similar to each other and to those in the von Danzig, so this too shows how these glosses may have arisen; that they appear to be of later date than 1452 is further telling.

Such an analysis cannot answer all our questions, but is far more scientific than assuming that similarities between the two manuscripts mean that the two masters must have been acquaintances.

But a little detective work can tell us still more, though perhaps not quite enough to satiate our appetites…

Ringeck Redux

We’ve already looked at some of the pitfalls of drawing inferences from the surviving manuscript that bears the name Sigmund Ringeck. Nonetheless, it’s quite possible that Ringeck is a credible candidate for being a very early exponent of the Liechtenauer tradition. The dating of the Ringeck Fechtbuch has been the subject of some debate.² Assigning dates for Ringeck himself is however an entirely different problem, and perhaps a lesser one at that. The clues lie in two manuscripts: the Ringeck Fechtbuch itself, and the Paulus Kal Fechtbuch.

The Ringeck Fechtbuch is almost certainly not the work of Sigmund Ringeck. It has a very ‘notebook’ quality to it, and refers but once to that master, in the third person. The second preamble in this work, the place where Ringeck is named, merits scrutiny:

Hie hept sich an die vβlegung der zedel, in der geschriben stett die rittelich kunst des langes schwerts, die gedicht vnd gemacht hat Johannes Lichtenawer, der ain grosser maister in der kunst gewesen ist - dem gott genedig sy. Der hatt die zedel lauβen schryben mitt verborgen vnd verdeckten worten, darumb das die kunst nitt gemain solt werden. Vnd die selbigen verborgnen vnd verdeckten wort hatt maister Sigmund, ain Ringeck, - der zyt des hochgebornen fürsten vnd herrennm hern Aulbrecht, pfalzgrauen by Rin vnd hertzog in Bayern, schirmaister - glosieret vnd auβgelegt, alβ hie in disem biechlin her nach geschryben stät; das sy ain yeder fechter wol vernömen vnd verstan mag, der da anderst fechten kan.³

Here begins the explanation of the Zettel, wherein is described the knightly art of the longsword, written and created by Johannes Liechtenauer, who was a great master of the art—God have mercy on him. He has written the Zettel in secret and forbidden words, so that the art may not be generally known. And these same secret and forbidden words Sigmund Ringeck, at the time master of defense to the highborn prince and lord Albrecht, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke in Bavaria, has glossed and explained in what is written hereafter, so that any fencer can well understand this art.

The author is telling us that Ringeck interpreted Liechtenauer’s cryptic verses and that he served, at least at some point, the Bavarian duke Albrecht. That the manuscript doesn’t have the appearance of something made for a powerful magnate is yet another reason to assume it’s not Ringeck’s own work. More importantly, that noble name raises a question, and a tricky one at that: which Albrecht does the author mean?

In the 14th and 15th centuries, four Bavarian dukes were named Albrecht: Albrecht’s I–IV. The territories they controlled were delineated by the fluctuating partitioning that Bavaria underwent in the days before the duchy’s laws favored primogeniture: multiple ducal sons often meant dividing territory and creating sub-duchies. So while all four Albrecht’s were scions of the Wittelsbach dynasty, who were given Bavaria and the Rhineland Palatinate in perpetuity by the emperors, there were various branches of the family holding territory within those realms. As lineages died out, partitions were re-absorbed into other partitions; as dukes sired multiple sons, new partitions arose.

Another practice confusing to the historian trying to trace such lineages was the sometime naming of a son as a Duke in Bavaria even before his father’s death. This turns out to be significant. Here are the regnum dates for the four Albrecht’s:

•Albrecht I, Duke of Bavaria-Straubing - r. 1353–1404

•Albrecht II, Duke of Bavaria-Straubing - r. 1387–1397

•Albrecht III, Duke of Bavaria-Munich - r. 1438–1460

•Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria-Munich - r. 1460–1508 ⁴

Note how Albrecht II never ruled independently; his brief time as a duke was pre- and post-dated by his father Albrecht I’s reign. So, we can dismiss Albrecht II almost out of hand, as he never truly reigned. Albrecht I however, could possibly be the Albrecht mentioned as Ringeck’s employer.

To qualify the remaining two Albrecht’s—III and IV—we turn to the Paulus Kal manuscript, wherein Kal lists the masters of the Society of Liechtenauer—Liechtenauer’s disciples. This roster appear to be of the honored dead, the memorial statement God have mercy on him prefacing and closing the list. The name Sigmund Amring appears in this list and this is almost certainly an alternate rendering of Sigmund Ringeck (or vice-versa).

But what does this tell us? We saw earlier that Paulus Kal’s manuscript could be placed around the year 1470.⁵ Given this, we know that by 1470, Master Ringeck is dead. How much earlier than that date he died is open to speculation. In any case this makes his having served Albrecht IV, who took up office in 1460, possible but not very likely; assuming he didn’t die inordinately young, Ringeck would’ve had to have been in service in his twilight years, and have died within the first ten years of Albrecht IV’s reign. Certainly though, it’s much more possible he could’ve served Albrecht III, who reigned from 1438–1460.

This leaves us two likely possibilities: Ringeck served under Albrecht I or Albrecht III. If he served Albrecht I, Sigmund Ringeck might have been a contemporary of Liechtenauer himself, which would give new meaning to the declaration by Kal in his prologue that he is furthering the art created by Liechtenauer and his society. If his patron was instead Albrecht III, this would make him perhaps a third generation master of Liechtenauer’s art. Even if he did serve the third Albrecht, knowing he died before 1470 tends to place his lifetime as having primarily occupied the first half of the 15th century.

It’s tempting to speculate that the list of masters provided by Kal represents some sort of inner circle associated with Liechtenauer himself, but there is nothing definitive to substantiate this. On the one hand, a number of those on that list are dead even at the time of the von Danzig Fechtbuch’s very certain date of 1452; Ott, Huntfeltz, and Lignitzer are, as discussed above, all commemorated with the statement God have mercy on him. However, we should also recall that Peter von Danzig