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Heinrich Von Gunterrodt Heinrich von Gunterrodt A short treatise on the true principles of combat, written for the most illustrious prince John, duke of Mecklenburg. Edited by Matthaeus Welack in Witttenberg (1579) Translated, commented, and explained by Bert Gevaert (Hallebardiers, Brugge) January 2014 ©2014 Freelance Academy Press, Inc. 1 About the Author Bert Gevaert received a PhD in classical philology (disability in ancient Rome, specifically in the epigrams of Marcus Valerius Martialis), teaches Latin in a secondary school, is lecturer on historical subjects and city guide in Brugge (Belgium). He started historical fencing in 2007 as a member of the Hallebardiers, also known as the Order of Saint Michael in Brugge. He practices armoured combat, longsword, dussacken and recently (September 2012) also rappier, mainly focussing on authors of the 16th century with a preference for Joachim Meyer and Hector Paulus Mair. In September 2013 he began a wrestling and dagger class for secondary school students, based on Fiore dei Liberi. As an avid competitor, he participated in his first longsword tournament at Arts of Mars (2010), placed second at SwordFish (2011), was king (champion) of his own guild (2011) and obtained a place in the quarter finals at Swordfish (2012). Besides his work on von Gunterrodt, Bert is currently working on a translation of the longsword section of Hector Paulus Mair (based on the Codex Icon 393). He is also working on a Dutch book on historical European martial arts from the 14th till 17th century and a book on the history of the guild of the Hallebardiers. ©2014 Freelance Academy Press, Inc. 2 Dedicated to John VII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_VII,_Duke_of_Mecklenburg http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00009474&tree=LEO I would like to thank the following people for their suggestions, historical and juridical commentaries, and proofreading of my translations: Henri Bouillon (Sint Lodewijkscollege) Alwin Goethals (Swarta), Krist Martens (Hallebardiers), Roger Norling (GHFS, HROARR), Jens Peter Keinau (Stahl auf Stahl), Prof. Laurent Waelkens (KULEUVEN) and last but not least Kevin Maurer (MFFG) who informed me about the existence of the text of von Gunterrodt and encouraged me to make this translation. Further I wish to thank Greg Mele and Christian Tobler for their belief in this project! Any remarks about this first English translation, can be emailed to bert.gevaert@sint‐lodewijkscollege.be Timide abstine! This translation of the printed text of von Gunterrodt is published as an e‐book, the translation of the manuscript (and comparison with the printed text) will be published as a critical edition later in 2014. ©2014 Freelance Academy Press, Inc. 3 Heinrich von Gunterrodt (1557‐1618): Introduction The least one can say about Heinrich von Gunterrodt (Henricus a Gunterrodt) is that his life is well‐hidden by the mists of history. We find many different spellings of this noble Saxon family name: Gunterode, Gunterrodt, Guntherod, Guntherode, Gunterod and Gunterrode, and for a long time the family themselves wrote ‘Gunderrode’. They also lent their name to the village Günterrodt near the city of Eichsfeld, mentioned as early as 1209.1 In his own writings Heinrich uses the name ‘Henricus a Gunterrodt’ and ‘Gunterodt’ in his printed text (Wittemberg, 1579),2 but in his written text, he writes his name as ‘Heinricus a Gunterroda’ (MS. Dresd. C. 15, fol. 4 v.).3 The von Gunterrodt family had their own coat of arms: a blue field, emblazoned with a white, crowned owl sitting on a green branch, accompanied by a six pointed star.4 1 Ersch, S., Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Kunste (Leipzig, 1878) 114. 2 When I refer to pages of the printed text I use sig., without mentioning (Wittemberg, 1579) unless explicitly stated differently. 3 From here on I omitt MS. Dresd. C. 15, while speaking about the manuscript. I only use fol. to indicate the folio with the relevant text. 4 The translation of the device under the Wappen is: Look, the white night owl of Von Gunterrodt has a star next to it and it sits on a green branch. Once we deterimine which surname(s) refer to ʺourʺ von Gunterrod, we then have to sort through the names Heinrich and Hans, which occur several times in the familyʹs genealogy. It is very confusing that Heinrich’s father and grandfather share the same name ‘Hans’, but our Heinrich also had a famous nephew Hans Heinrich von Gunterrodt. This nephew wrote in 1643 about our Heinrich, who was his father’s brother and is buried in Padua.5 Besides our author Heinrich, there is another famous Heinrich von Gunterrodt, who was born in 1571 and had a glorious military career ending as the Hofmarschal to the Prince. This Heinrich was the son of our Heinrich’s brother Caspar and not the author of De Veris Principiis, a pity, since, unlike our man there is a great deal of biographical data to find about this famous soldier. Here is what little we know of our Heinrich von Gunterrodt: he was born in Lengefeld in the year 1557, probably in the family castle of Rauenstein, which the family obtained in 1480. He was the son of Hans von Gunterrodt (1526‐1566) and Elisabeth von der Linda (?‐ 1564). Heinrich was the middle son amongst his four brothers and lived longest.6 As a Junker, a member of the Saxon nobility, he received a very good education and studied Greek and Latin, of which we can find many erudite examples in his work. At the age of writing his De Veris Principiis he was about 22 years old and had already made some travels to study the art of fighting (fol. 2 v.). Because of the many references to jurisprudence and law found throughout his texts, it is very likely that he studied law, although we do not know if he took any formal degree. In his discussion of duelling, he mentions his Belgian professor Mattheus Wesenbeeck (1531‐1586), who taught at Wittenberg (fol. 70 v.), so it is certain he also studied at this university. He was a close friend to Johannes Herwart of Würtzburg, a girdle maker and famous fencer, who obtained a fencing book from a Franconian monastery when he was a soldier under Markgraf Albert (fol. 17 v.‐18 r.). This is probably the famous Royal Armouries Ms. I:33.7 Another friend was Balthasar Cramonius of Pommern (Poland), who instructed our von Gunterrodt in fencing (fol. 18 r.). Heinrich von Gunterrodt has left us two texts, one manuscript (MS. Dresd. C. 15) and one text printed in Wittemberg by Mattaeus Welack. The title of the printed text is ‘De veris principiis artis dimicatoriae tractatus brevis ad illustrissimum principem Ioannem ducem Megapolensem’.8 The full title of the manuscript is much longer: ‘Sciomachia et hoplomachia: sive de veris principiis artis dimicatoria liber unus, in quo precipua ad eius artis fundamenta et plenam cognitonem deducentia, ex ipsis fontibus methodice, et additis non paucis typis ac figuris ad oculum quasi demonstrantur’.9 Each text is written in humanistic Latin but with certain words (mainly in the margins) written in German. In the printed text and the manuscript the font of these 5 Ersch, S. (o.c.) 119. 6 Ersch, S. (o.c.) 119. 7 Anglo, S., The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe (Singapore, 2000) 22 and Forgeng, J., The Medieval Art of Swordmanship: A Facsimile and Translation of Europe’s Oldest Personal Combat Treatise, Royal Armouries MS. I.33 (California, 2000) 5-6. 8 "A short treatise on the true principles of combat, written for the most illustrious prince John, duke of Mecklenburg" 9 "Fighting with and without arms: or the true principles of combat, book one in which the principal fundaments of this art, leading also to the full knowledge of it, are methodically shown more ore less before your eyes, based on the sources itself and with many figures and illustrations." For the word sciomachia, see also note 175. ©2014 Freelance Academy Press, Inc. 5 German words is gothic, but usually humanistic script is used in the manuscript and italic script in the printed text. Von Gunterrodt frequently uses Greek words and sentences, showing his humanistic education. Both texts were published in 1579 and are dedicated to prince Johann VII, duke of Mecklenburg (1558‐1592). This Johann was a rather unfortunatey choice for a patron, he was the son of Johann Albert I, duke of Mecklenburg‐Güstrow and Schwerin (1525‐1576). When his father died, Johann VII was only eighteen years old and received a regent for nine years, only taking control in his own name in 1585. Johann was probably not fit for the hard politics in his time, suffered from enormous debts and increasing pressure from territorial concessions made to his uncle Christopher. This caused the young duke to commit suicide at 34, a terrible deed in the eyes of the church. To hide the suicide some women were accused of witchcraft, amongst them Catharina Wankelmod, who died from torture and Margarethe Schulze, who was burnt at the stake. As a supporter of Johann VII, Heinrich von Gunterrodt must have followed these events with a solemn interest. Though there are many similarities between the manuscript and the printed text, one also finds huge differences, some of them seen at first sight, other differences only to be noticed in close reading and comparing both texts. The handwritten manuscript, containing 76 folios, differs from the printed text in containing 74 images, while the printed text, containing 46 pages, only has one image (the Wappen of the von Gunterrodt family). These illustrations are made by the otherwiee unknown artist Louradus Knobloch, whose name we can read on the last image (fol.
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