Gründtliche Beschreibung der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens

The 1570 treatise of Joachim Meyer

Gründtliche Beschreibung der… Kunst des Fechtens ("A Thorough Description of… the Art of Fencing") is a German fencing manual written by Joachim Meyer and printed in 1570. Building on his earlier 1560s work in MS Bibl. 2465 and MS A.4°.2, it is a complex, sophisticated treatise purporting to teach the entire art of fencing (something that Meyer claimed had never been done before), and represents a significant evolution of the art that Johannes Liechtenauer taught 150 years earlier. It was illustrated in the workshop of Tobias Stimmer and printed by Thiebolt Berger.

This is not a ‘true’ facsimile in that it does not seek to reproduce a single specific copy of the book. Rather, combines the lavishly-painted prints from the Leipzig University Library’s copy with pages from nearly a dozen others containing annotations, doodles, and other use marks that were discovered during the Meyer Census Project. In this way, it seeks to represent as fully as possible the ways in which 16th and 17th century readers interacted with their copies of the book.

This facsimile is printed on cotton rag paper to simulate the texture and handling of Medieval paper, using multiple paper weights to reflect the inconsistent thickness seen in original copies. It is bound in grey-brown pigskin with 7 mm boards and blind-tooling patterned after the copy owned by the Leipzig University Library.

As part of this project, we also created a prestige edition of Dr. Rebecca L. R. Garber’s English translation of Meyer’s treatise. This book is fashioned using the same materials as the facsimile and lays out the translation to match the original book as closely as possible.

We did not produce a companion volume for this facsimile, but you may want to purchase the Reference Edition of Dr. Garber’s translation, including the complete German text and considerable historical commentary, to go along with it.

Edition size: 250 copies (facsimile), 200 copies (prestige edition)

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Funded 11 September 2021.

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With metal furniture by Bookbinding Tools

Description

Joachim Meyer (ca. 1537 - 1571) was a 16th century German cutler, Freifechter, and fencing master. He was the last major figure in the tradition of the German grand master Johannes Liechtenauer, and in the later years of his life he devised at least four distinct and quite extensive fencing manuals. Meyer's teachings incorporate both the traditional Germanic technical syllabus and contemporary systems that he encountered in his travels, including Italian rapier fencing. In addition to his fencing practice, Meyer was a Burgher and a master cutler.

Meyer's writings purport to teach the entire art of fencing, something that he claimed had never been done before, and encompass a wide variety of teachings from disparate sources and traditions. To achieve this goal, Meyer seems to have constructed his treatise as a series of progressive lessons, describing a process for learning to fence rather than merely outlining the underlying theory or listing the techniques. In keeping with this, he illustrates his techniques with depictions of fencers in courtyards using training weapons such as two-handed foils, wooden or leather dussacks, and rapiers and daggers with ball tips.

The first section of Meyer's treatise is devoted to the long sword (the sword in two hands), which he describes as the foundational weapon of his system, and this section devotes the most space to fundamentals like stance and footwork. His long sword system draws upon the teachings of Freifechter Andre Paurenfeyndt (via Christian Egenolff's reprint) and Liechtenauer glossators Sigmund ain Ringeck and Lew, as well as using terminology otherwise unique to the brief Recital of Martin Syber. Not content merely to compile these teachings as his contemporary Paulus Hector Mair was doing, Meyer sought to update—even reinvent—them in various ways to fit the martial climate of the late 16th century, including adapting many techniques to accommodate the increased momentum of a greatsword and modifying others to use beats with the flat and winding slices in place of thrusts to comply with street-fighting laws in German cities (and the rules of the Fechtschule).

His rapier system, designed for the lighter single-hand swords spreading north from Iberian and Italian lands, seems again to be a hybrid creation, integrating both the core teachings of the 15th century Liechtenauer tradition as well as components that are characteristic of the various regional Mediterranean fencing systems (including, perhaps, teachings derived from the treatise of Bolognese master Achille Marozzo).

The third section of Meyer's treatise covers dagger, wrestling, and various pole weapons. His dagger teachings, designed primarily for urban self-defense, seem to be based in part on Marozzo and the anonymous teachings in Egenolff, but also include much unique content of unknown origin. His staff material makes up the bulk of this section, beginning with the short staff, which, like Paurenfeyndt, he uses as a training tool for various pole weapons (and possibly also the greatsword), and then moving on to the halberd before ending with the long staff (representing the pike). As with the dagger, the sources Meyer based his staff teachings on are largely unknown.

Gründtliche Beschreibung der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens

The 1570 treatise of Joachim Meyer

facsimiletranslation prestige edition

$300$300

Gallery

facsimile
translation prestige edition

$300
$300