Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books History of Warfare
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Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books History of Warfare Editors Kelly DeVries (Loyola University Maryland) John France (University of Wales, Swansea) Michael S. Neiberg (United States Army War College, Pennsylvania) Frederick Schneid (High Point University, North Carolina) VOLUME 112 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books Transmission and Tradition of Martial Arts in Europe (14th–17th Centuries) Edited by Daniel Jaquet, Karin Verelst and Timothy Dawson LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Huter, Jörg Wilhalm: Fechtkunst – BSB Cgm 3711, [S.l.], 1523, fol. 19v. With kind permission of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. <urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00064546-3>. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jaquet, Daniel, editor | Verelst, Karin, editor | Dawson, Timothy (Timothy George) editor. Title: Late medieval and early modern fight books : transmission and tradition of martial arts in Europe (14th–17th centuries) / edited by Daniel Jaquet, Karin Verelst and Timothy Dawson. Other titles: Transmission and tradition of martial arts in Europe (14th–17th centuries) Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2016] | Series: History of warfare ; volume 112 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016019488 (print) | LCCN 2016024081 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004312418 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004324725 (E-book) Subjects: LCSH: Fencing—Early works to 1800. | Swordplay—Early works to 1800. | Hand-to-hand fighting—Europe—Early works to 1800. | Martial arts—Europe—History. Classification: LCC U860 .L37 2016 (print) | LCC U860 (ebook) | DDC 355.5/480902—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019488 Want or need Open Access? Brill Open offers you the choice to make your research freely accessible online in exchange for a publication charge. Review your various options on brill.com/brill-open. Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1385-7827 isbn 978-90-04-31241-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-32472-5 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents List of Figures and Tables ix List of Contributors xi 1 Foreword 1 Sydney Anglo 2 Introduction 7 Karin Verelst, in collaboration with Timothy Dawson and Daniel Jaquet PART 1 Fight Books and Methodological Issues through Disciplinary Lenses 3 Before the Fight Books: Identifying Sources of Martial Techniques in Antique and Medieval Art 31 Timothy Dawson 4 Teaching How to Fight with Encrypted Words: Linguistic Aspects of German Fencing and Wrestling Treatises of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times 47 Matthias Johannes Bauer 5 Only a Flesh-Wound? The Literary Background to Medieval German Fight Books 62 Rachel E. Kellet 6 Visualised Motion: Iconography of Medieval and Renaissance Fencing Books 88 Jens Peter Kleinau 7 Finding a Way through the Labyrinth: Some Methodological Remarks on Critically Editing the Fight Book Corpus 117 Karin Verelst 8 Problems of Interpretation and Application in Fight Book Studies 189 John Clements vi contents 9 Experimenting Historical European Martial Arts, a Scientific Method? 216 Daniel Jaquet PART 2 From the Books to the Arts: The Fighting Arts in Context 10 German Fechtbücher from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance 247 Dierk Hagedorn 11 The Italian Schools of Fencing: Art, Science, and Pedagogy 280 Ken Mondschein 12 The Destreza Verdadera: A Global Phenomenon 324 Manuel Valle Ortiz 13 The French Fencing Traditions, from the 14th Century to 1630 through Fight Books 354 Olivier Dupuis 14 Evolution of Martial Tradition in the Low Countries: Fencing Guilds and Treatises 376 Bert Gevaert and Reinier van Noort 15 Common Themes in the Fighting Tradition of the British Isles 410 Paul Wagner PART 3 Martial Arts, Martial Culture and Case Studies 16 The Autograph of an Erudite Martial Artist: A Close Reading of Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 3227a 451 Eric Burkart 17 Development, Diffusion and Reception of the “Buckler Play”: A Case Study of a Fighting Art in the Making 481 Franck Cinato contents vii 18 Martial Identity and the Culture of the Sword in Early Modern Germany 547 B. Ann Tlusty 19 Science of Duel and Science of Honour in the Modern Age: The Construction of a New Science between Customs, Jurisprudence, Literature and Philosophy 571 Marco Cavina 20 Conclusion 594 Daniel Jaquet, in collaboration with Timothy Dawson and Karin Verelst General Bibliography 603 Index 614 List of Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 Corble’s copy of Dubois’s Essai sur l’Escrime 14 2.2 Newspaper picture pasted in Corble’s copy of Dubois, showing him while demonstrating “Elisabethan fencing” 15 3.1 An example of “Middle-Fifth Guard” (right of centre). Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 677, fol. 96v 40 3.2 Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms P.A. 57, fol. 87v, detail 41 3.3 Warriors shown on the Abbey Church, Andlau, Alsace, 1130–40 43 3.4 Condensed detail of the end of an eleventh-century Byzantine casket (Thermes de Cluny), Cl. 13075) 44 7.1 Stemma codicum 147 8.1 Current Knowledge of Fight Book Teachings as Comparative Spheres 195 8.2 Entraction/Extraction Process 206 8.3 The Challenge of Expanding Knowledge of Fight Book Teachings 214 9.1 General process of scientific inquiry 221 9.2 A model of a scientific inquiry process 222 9.3 Components of the sensorimotor knowledge (simplified) 225 9.4 Diagram of experimental process (methodology) 228 9.5 Experimentation of the flügel—Table and graph 239 10.1 Liechtenauer and Talhoffer 264 10.2 Liechtenauer and Gladiatoria 265 10.3 Liechtenauer’s Verses and Glosses: A Timeline 277 11.1 Dagger master (XV 13, fol. 10r, detail) 296 11.2 The “master of the seven sword” (XV 13, fol. 32r) 297 11.3 Agrippa Tratto di Scientia d’Arme, con vn Dialogo di Filosofia, Milano, Antonio Blado, 1553, frontispiece 307 11.4 Agrippa Tratto di Scientia d’Arme, con vn Dialogo di Filosofia, Milano, Antonio Blado, 1553, 2nd chapter. Diagram of the lunge 308 11.5 Agrippa Tratto di Scientia d’Arme, con vn Dialogo di Filosofia, Milano, Antonio Blado, 1553, 2nd chapter. Diagram showing Agrippa’s first guard, labeled A 309 14.1 Joannes Fothergill (Pieter Joannes van Reysschoot 1744, oil on canvas 104,2 × 79,6 cm) 385 x list of figures and tables 14.2 Jean Baptiste du Bois (Monmorency, 1717, oil on canvas 104,3 × 79,5 cm) 387 14.3 Capturing the thumb of the opponent between the blades of the daggers (BPL 3281, fol. 6r) 394 14.4 Estramaçon en double baterie en garde quarte (cut with double beat in fourth guard) as illustrated in Le Cabinet d’Escrime (KB 73 J 39, fol. 22v) 398 16.1 General diagram of the manuscript 3227a 462 16.2 Diagram of the quire structure 465 16.3 Transcript of watermark (cut) 466 17.1A Composition of quires and location of material lacuna. Hypothesis 1: one quaternion as fifth quire (5 lacuna for 8 lost folia) 538 17.1B Composition of quires and location of material lacuna. Hypothesis 2: one quinion as fifth quire (6 lacuna for 10 lost folia) 539 17.2A Genealogy of image corpora 540 17.2B Relation between Fight Books of Hans Talhoffer (T*), Paulus Kal (K*) and the anonymous Gladiatoria (G*). [After the stemma Hils (1984). The dating have been revised] 541 17.3 π 5 image 542 17.4 Grappling of the buckler (I.33, nr. 64) and π 30 image 543 17.5 σ and β corpora, and the Mirror of the Saxons 544 17.6 Seniority of the β corpus 545 17.7 Gunterrodt and influence of L (Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliotek, Ms. Dresd. C.15, fol. 71r) 546 Tables 10.1 Concordance M57 (fol. 15rv) and M53 (fol. 25r) 260 10.2 Concordance M57 (fol 87r), M8 (fol. 54rv) and M57 (fol. 8v) 268 10.3 Concordance M57 (fol 73r) and M8 (fol. 70rv) 270 10.4 Concordance M57 (fol 18r), M8 (fol. 15v) and M14 (fol. 26r) 271 10.5 Concordance M6 (fol 21r), M14 (fol. 10v/11r), M19 (fol. 22r) and M60 (fol. 6r) 274 11.1 Classifications of Concluding Actions in Single-Rapier Exempla in Treatises by Notable Rapier Masters 314 List of Contributors (in order of appearance) Timothy Dawson Being drawn into the dawn of historical re-enactment in Australia in the late nineteen seventies from prior participation in modern fencing, Timothy Daw- son presumed that medieval combat could not have been an unstructured affair. Initially reverse engineering sword technique from sabre, and spear from foil, he soon moved on to considering what could be inferred from histo- rical art sources, rapidly finding an array of functional techniques. From being the primary trainer in the re-enactment group the New Varangian Guard in Melbourne, Timothy set up his first dedicated HEMA school, called Amyna (Greek for Defence), in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains East of Sydney, in 1984. Since then he has continued his research and teaching in various loca- tions in Australia and Europe. Timothy has an Honours degree and PhD in Classical Studies and has published frequently on aspects of material culture and daily life in the Middle Ages.