"The irony of the Information Age is that it has given new respectability to uninformed opinion."
— John Lawton

For most of the 20th century, fencing histories were being written by fencers so enthusiastic about the levels of art, skill, and sophistication of the modern sport that they ignored or belittled anything that predated their current level of technique and approach by more than 30 years.

They were not bad people, mind you. Just a tad one-sided. Which did not reflect negatively on their skill. Just on their grasp of the actual sources.

What they wrote went undisputed. People took practical credentials and inferred that the masters knew what they were talking about. Nobody bothered to document an opinion. Nobody questioned a thing. Few cared. Faulty information was repeated until it became "history". And the modern practitioner was beaming in the consciousness that because he had a handle on "history" he had a handle on "Truth"—thus was "better" or at least more advanced than his forebears and anyone who said otherwise.

That's exactly where the original sentiment derived from that fueled the re-discovery of what today constitutes the Historical European Martial Arts movement. That process meant going back to the sources, deflate myths, uncover lies and incompetence. It meant searching for Truth.

Ten years later, we're at a different point of the cycle. The European sword arts (and their integral side aspects of wrestling and grappling) have attracted more practitioners than they did in a century. Long-lost manuals are being rediscovered, copied and circulated. Techniques are tested, tried, perfected. The Internet is chock full with sites devoted to the sword... often including scanned copies of entire manuals collectors would have given their eye teeth to view once only five years ago.

In short: It's paradise. Nirvana. Valhalla. If you're into this kind of thing.

But being at the other end of the pendulum's swing has had its price. A new "unassailable" mindset has developed among some of the loudest historical fencing enthusiasts.

This would really warrant very little attention if this vocal minority were able to balance missionary zest with a corresponding degree of actual (let alone factual) knowledge. But these days, it takes just as much scholarly effort and research to correct the "information" presented as it used to take to discover and retrieve it a decade ago. In fact, even a cursory review of some of the more popular books and websites reveals incompetence that is unparalleled in fencing historiography.

In his (mercifully short) chapter on medieval and Renaissance fencing literature, this self-made sage single-handedly maximizes the line-to-error ratio of written information... beating everything that has ever been written about medieval European fencing literature in regard to sheer misinformation and overall muddledness.

In relentless pursuit of creative anachronism, he invents masters, bestows Master of Defence titles to craftsmen and professionals, and has the Talhoffer manuscripts circulate in "re-printed" editions decades before Gutenberg invented printing with moveable type—and fully 350 years before Dr. Nathanael Schlichtegroll commissioned the six lithographic plates that constitute the first attempt at a facsimile print of the Gotha Codex.¹

Modern educators of the hooked-on-phonics era have trivialized the ancient art of orthography. But "personal spellings" (which were known as "mistakes" and "errors" when I went to school) really make life difficult when you try to track down titles in digitized or analog catalogues. (Try finding Jakob Sutor's Neu Künstliches Fechtbuch in a library data base if the only information you have at hand is a "New Kunstlitches Fectbuch" you jotted down from on the website of the Historical Armed Combat Association (HACA).

Granted, even the great French fencing collector and author Arsene Vigéant was impervious to proper spelling of titles and names... even those of French authors whose works he had in his own collection. (He gave "Thibaust" to fencing literature... which still off and on pops up in articles about Thibault.)

But spelling is one thing. Facts are another. And as the libertine use of the passive voice ("it is thought", "it has been suggested" or "presumed") in print and cyberspace attests to, there's preciously few of them going around these days.

Take the Case of the Masters that Weren't.

Studer's 'Das Solothurner Fechtbuch' was originally written in Solothurn in 1423 and then republished recently by Zentralbibliothek (Central Library), Solothurn, Switzerland in 1989. The manuscript is comprised of 56 plates, that covers a number of techniques including full-armoured longsword, some mounted combat, knife techniques, grappling, unarmed technqiues (sic) (ringen) and shield work (similar to those of Talhoffer). It is thought that these works pre-date Talhoffer, however, there is some indications that the written text may not have been Studer's work.

We would hope this be the case. Because while it is truly impossible to tell where exactly this manual was written, I've been assured that Herr Studer is alive and kicking and would be over 500 years old if the text were indeed his work. He did prepare the remaining 30 sheets (of the original 60) with 57 surviving illustrations (not 56) out of 120 images for the small 1989/90 paperback issue². But his editorial focus is mainly on the cultural and legal context of the judicial combat scenarios depicted in the manuscript. In fact, he is neither a wrestler, fencer, nor any kind of authority on European combative arts at all, as his interpretive comments on several of the plates divulge.

But even though Studer has by now been safely repatriated to the 20th and 21st centuries, the rest of the "information" presented still leaves a lot to be desired:

The Solothurner Fechtbuch is among the rarer of Medieval German fighting texts³. (...) So-named for the Archive in Solothurn, Switzerland, it is believed to be from c. 1423 and its author is unknown. The plates therefore are presumed to predate Talhoffer's Fechtbuch for which it bares (sic!) close resemblance with the exception of much less material on obscure forms of judicial duel. (...) The artwork with the Solothurner Fechtbuch is also generally of a better quality than in editions of Talhoffer. The manual is in the traditional style of Liechtenauer --but it has been suggested it may contain material from the master Leichkuchner [sic!] ("Lebkommer") though he is from c. 1482.  It has also been suggested that the Solothurn fight book is simply another edition of Talhoffer's work, possibly from the late 1480's. It may very well even prove be a portion of a copy of master Paulus Kal’s Fechtbuch. Kal was a fencing master in the service of a Bavarian duke between 1458 and 1467. Several editions of his work still exist.⁴

None of this, of course, has ever been "suggested" by anyone, least of all Studer. For starters, Studer begins his book with an account of how the book was found on a Solothurn attic in 1884. He verifies the existence of previous owners (and discards a spurious statement of ownership dating it to 1423)... and finally pinpoints the (Italian) manufacture of the paper the manual is written on to 1506-14, based on the watermarks. Add a couple years for distribution and shelf life before use, and we arrive at an originating date a full century later than the Historical Armed Combat Associates like to claim.

Plus, nobody has ever brought Lecküchner (not "Leichkuchner"!) into context with Solothurn—mainly because one of the recurring figures in the manual very early on had been identified as Meister Paulus Kal himself... which would make Solothurn one incomplete copy of several still in existence at Munich, Gotha, and Vienna. And since Kal was in fierce professional competition with Talhoffer—at least that's what German historian Hans-Peter Hils⁵ believes—good old Talhoffer has absolutely nothing to do with the manuscript at all.

"Lebkommer's [book] is actually the work of Christian Egenolph⁶."

Lebkommer's manual, however, originated in the 1480s... when Christian was but a twinkle in the eye of his father. In fact, that particular secret is so, well—secret! that only a year later, Clement's promotional website manages to introduce another facet to poor Egenolff's split personality:

"*Johannes Leckuechner / ("Hans Lebkommer") - Fechtbuch of c. 1482 (& 1530/35), Der Alten Fecter [sic] an fengliche [sic] Kunst. (...) "Compiled and printed by Christian Von Egenolff/Egenolph (Christian Erben) of 1555, Frankfurt⁷"

Erben? Von Egenolff? Lecküchner/Lebkommer? But ne'r the twain: We soon find ourselves marooned on yet another generous assertion later that page:

Christian Egenolff—there's no aristocratic "von" preceding his last name—was just as much a master of defence as he was an herbal medicine specialist, a mold cutter, a world historian, a law scholar, or a eulogist for royal celebrities: Books on all these subjects were indeed printed and published by him and his heirs in various editions after he arrived from Strasbourg to set up shop in Frankfurt am Main as a printer-publisher in 1530. He died February 9, 1555.

And he did indeed publish four distinct editions of a Fechtbuch (three of them undated—thus assumed to have been printed after his professional establishment in 1530—and one dated to 1558) that incorporates passages from Lecküchner's manuscript on fencing with the Messer (or long knife) and features beautiful woodcuts by Hans Weiditz.

But to conclude that he had more than a professional interest or background in the subject matter of any of his titles is drifting off into wishful thinking. (You might just as well call Liberace a kung fu master because he liked silk pajamas!)

There's also no such person as a "Christian Erben". In the publisher's mark of the 1558 edition, the word Erben (German: "heirs") only denotes that the book was printed on behalf of those who carried on the Egenolff business after his death... his widow Margarethe (until 1572) and afterwards his children (until 1602).

But instant experts are quite liberal in doling out Master's credentials. If you don't believe me, take a gander at the following "Masters"...

Das Ringersbuch [sic] der [sic] Hans Wurm: (...) here are the 23 plates from a little known German wrestling manual. Hans Wurm was supposedly a wrestling instructor in a Bavarian court c. 1600¹⁰.

Hanns Wurm was indeed a master—of the noble craft of silk embroidery, that is. One might add that this craft had indeed a life-or-death requirement: Avoid typical fight master injuries of the time (missing eye, busted knuckles, broken fingers and arms).

(Let's not get into the matter that Hanns Wurm's activities are documentable until the 1520s only, and that he'd have been over 100 years old by 1600... details, details.)

Hanns Wurm bankrolled the production of the book... an expensive venture because plates are cut from one piece of wood, not using moveable type. He's an amateur publisher, in other words, whose Ringerbuch follows up the sycophantically beautiful Chronik und Stamm der Pfalzgrafen bei Rhein und Herzoge in Bayern (printed in 1501 by Munich printer Hans Schobser)—a book on the lives and deeds of his most powerful local patrons and customers.

(And if you take a closer look at the figures depicted in the Ringerbuch, you can't but notice the ritzy dress... and nice (silk?) embroidery on headgear and collars. Which could make it the Renaissance equivalent of a high-end L.L. Bean catalog.)

Düerer [sic] surely drew from real life observations in the Fechtschulen and his work presents some of the clearest and most precise representations of Medieval long-sword use. Düerer [sic]was not a Fechtmeister and his book was never completed or published, but he evidently was a student and his sketches are among the best on the subject. As both a practicing Marxbrueder [sic] and a talented artist with a tremendous sense for detail, Düerer's illustrations surely depict the most realsitic [sic] and accurate examples of period fighting techniques available.¹¹

Unfortunately, Friedrich Dörnhöffer¹², the modern editor of Dürer's 1512 Oplodidaskalia sive Armorum Tractandorum Meditation, established nearly one hundred years ago that Dürer did in fact not draw from real life but applied his extensive studies of human anatomy and proportion to an earlier source:

"The question if it is an original creation ("originale Schöpfung") must be answered with a determined 'No!'"¹³

Dürer (1471-1528) served as the artistic editor and translator of a manual now known as the Codex Wallerstein—created a generation earlier in about 1470—i.e., about the time Dürer was born. (The relevant portions are included in Dörnhöffer's splendid 1910 re-issue.) He re-structured the sequences, updated and transposed the original Bavarian dialect, and in several instances misinterpreted the original's drawings.

Dörnhöffer's linguistic and artistic analysis is backed-up and seconded in the 1993 dissertation of Rainer Welle, a former German national team wrestling coach who analyzed the viability of the techniques in one of the best secondary works ever written on the subject.¹⁴

Dürer was about 41 years old when he began the transcript—an advanced age for the period that would cast doubt on any active involvement in the martial arts at that time. Furthermore, there are absolutely no known indications apart from the existence of the manuscript and a few scattered engravings that Dürer was ever actively involved in wrestling or swordfighting. While his friend Camerarius attests to a (passing?) interest in "gymnastic exercises"¹⁵, no documents or biographical materials even hint at Dürer's membership with the Marxbrüder¹⁶. Other than Wurm's wrestlers, his figures do not bear the insignia of any fighting guild. Nor does he, like Talhoffer and Wurm— invoke a guild's patron saints. Also, Dürer—even more so than Wurm—was a man whose livelihood depended on his hands and eyes ever since his being apprenticed to the painter and printmaker Michael Wolgemut in 1486, at age 15: The potential injuries of an active martial arts career are hard to reconcile with his chosen profession.

The only background information available on the origin of the manuscript is that Emperor Maximilian—a great combat arts enthusiast—was present in Dürer's hometown of Nürnberg in 1512, and according to Dörnhöffer, he had with a notebook listing techniques he wanted to have included in Freydal. Unfortunately, this list does not correspond to the structure of Wallerstein or Dürer. (It might be added that in the same year, Maximilian reaffirmed the privileges of the Marxbrüder—which in itself would have represented a beautiful opportunity for Dürer the Presumed Marx Brother to celebrate the insignia and patron saints of the guilds in his drawings. But he didn't.)

Dürer's unfinished and (until 1910) unpublished sketches might well have been a draft created for Maximilian aimed at snagging another prestigious Imperial commission for a volume of woodcuts along the lines of Theuerdanck, Weiskunig, or Freydal. But his work then unexplainably disappears from history, without spawning later copies or a finished product.

Which doesn't keep modern enthusiasts from suggesting essay themes such as the following on certain online discussion boards:

"You may allready [sic] know this, but famed artist Albrecht Durer [sic] composed a fechtbuch, which can be found here on [this] wonderful site. Could be a short paper in of itself, or at least a big part of one — how being a fencer shaped Albrect's [sic] career as an artist. Just a thought, hope it helps."¹⁷

But the reconstruction of systems neglected and forgotten for centuries requires a bit more effort than donning a puffy shirt and skipping up and down a community college gym with a piece of wood wrapped in foam. And honestly: Are print and creation dates really "just details" that can be glossed over because they don't matter? Doesn't the historical and biographical context of a manual and its author provide vital clues as to its place and practical application in society? Thus, how, when and where a system was practiced? Why and if it was popular? Or if it was practiced as a leisure time activity or antagonistic military skill?

Most experts—including the redoubtable Sydney Anglo—seem to think so. Even back in 1888, German historian Dr. Karl Wassmannsdorff wrote an entire book¹⁸ in which he mercilessly picked apart Viennese fencing master Gustav Hergsell's transcription of Talhoffers's 1467 manual¹⁹—which the Austrian had published on his own nickel. (Quite in vain, it seems, since his very astute comments were not integrated in the more recent German and American re-issues of the work.) So academic in-fighting and book-wormish nit-picking certainly is nothing new to the field of historic martial arts.

But 120 years ago, the systematic study of the old systems was still in its infancy. Today, there are dozens of highly qualified secondary sources to shed light on what some modern practitioners conveniently like to pass off as mysteries. The writings of Wassmannsdorff, Dörnhöffer, Wierschin, Hils, Welle, and Anglo these days simply belong to the canon of knowledge of serious researchers. Without this knowledge, even the most ambitious "researcher-practitioner" is condemned to re-invent the wheel at every step... and end up with a fruit basket in the process.

While the Internet certainly has opened up new venues of making the Old Masters accessible to a new audience, it has already steeped the subject in a bilge of half-digested facts, erroneous assumption, and righteous zealotry. To make things worse, certain proponents of the old fighting arts now seek to make a living off what they pass as gospel to a widely uncritical audience, further muddying the up-to-now amicable academic exchange of ideas among amateurs in the best sense of the word.

Which leaves us enthusiasts looking for reliable information with only one alternative: Check and double check your sources!