Focus in the medieval treatises

[Keith P. Myers]

I don't agree with the second part so I guess I am a lost cause. But I knew that already.

--Don't worry Jean, I still like you!

Keith

[admin]

1) Armour played a big part in medieval martial arts, and
2) All the medieval treatises were made for wealthy people/establishments

I don't agree with the second part

So your entire objection is based on defending the assertion that "craft-guilds, trading companies, abbeys, towns" were not wealthy. Okay then. Have fun with that.

It seems simply that you have taken exception to me stating that armour was important in medieval warfare, for personal reasons I can only guess at. If you want to take the unarmoured parts of medieval treatises in isolation that's fine, it doesn't bother me in the least. But trying to argue against my point that armour was important in medieval warfare is just plain weird.

[Payson]

It seems like there already is a growing movement of people who are exploring armoured fighting and they have been discussed on this forum:

The Battle of the Nations.

The general opinion from the loudest voices here seems to be that it isn't a valuable approach the way it is happening at the moment. I say if people are interested in exploring the use of armoured melee techniques including grappling, and they want to try them out and develop them, then this might be a good place to start. I hear that there is a UK team forming. Matt, you already have that nice full suit of plate armour, maybe you can join the team and advise them in some of the techniques you would like to explore from the manuals? I suspect a lot of the guys involved already might not be as knowledgeable about what is in the treatises, maybe because they don't come from the social spectrum that the manuals were aimed at, but they definately seem to have the will to fight in armour.

The big question, to me, seems to be, do we think that combat training in the medieval period and afterwards was solely the domain of the nobility or is there the possibility of an undercurrent of combat training happening in this period in towns and cities, engaged in by a spectrum of the citizenry including craftsmen, apprentices and journeymen?

[admin]

Of course, absolutely the fencing guilds and 'common' civilian martial contests are well documented. Even in England and France where fencing schools were banned in cities until the 15thC we know that they nevertheless persisted illegally in private and that it was common for sword and buckler and wrestling contests to be held in the fields outside city limits (in Smithfields in the case of London). And most of the masters themselves seem to have been commoners in the medieval period.

My main point is that armour plays a prominent role in the medieval treatises (and warfare) and we can assume that a book that shows armoured fighting was intended to be read by men who might engage in armoured fighting.

We do have a missing link though, between the unarmoured material and the armoured plays. The techniques shown for unarmoured fighting in the treatises would often have to be quite modified to work in the sort of armour these commoners used in war. Helmets were the most basic and standard piece of kit, but with a kettle helmet on an archer or billmen suddenly a lot of the head cuts with sword and buckler or messer need to be changed to something else. Stick a gambeson and/or mail shirt into the equation and suddenly a lot of those arm cuts are going to be of more limited effect, if any. Same thing for leg harness (which lots of common soldiers wore) and leg cuts. I find it curious, and so does BD from what he has implied above, that the treatises only tend to show the two extreme ends of the spectrum, without really addressing the middle ground. I think it's fine to assume that we are supposed to fill in the gaps with common sense, but I find it surprising that not a single medieval source really addresses the middle ground (as far as we understand at the moment).

In regards to your separate point about armoured fighting I think there is a massive divide between people's objectives. The Battle of the Nations people can't really use historical techniques (and don't seem to want to), because those techniques are banned and not very nice with steel weapons. Cutting the straps of someone's armour and stabbing them in a gap, or in the face, isn't a very nice thing to do . All they are doing is a sort of hardcore version of reenactment combat (ie. armour bashing), which doesn't hold any attraction for me at all. Lancaster Armouries run similar 'full contact steel tourneys' over here. I find it pointless.
I did help two of these guys prepare for a foot tourney with pollaxes: http://www.orderofthecrescent.com/sales.htm . Their focus is quite different to ours, in that they are primarily jousters. However, they are doing something pretty close to mainstream armoured HEMA - just that they don't specialise in the foot stuff. Of course the most well known people who are regularly doing armoured foot HEMA are the AEMMA. I would like to see something similar to their tourneys being done in the UK and I will probably start trying to find a group of people who are willing to give it a go. Personally my armour is not ready for it - I need better gauntlets, bascinet and sabatons. And there's the main problem - to do this properly you pretty much need all of the kit first. Though we could start out soft with nylons or something, so the guys with partial armour can get involved whilst their armour gets completed. I think using weapon simulators that are not steel, but still hard, would probably be the way to go in general actually, as you can still do all the technques but more safely, and with less damage to the armour over time.

[bigdummy]

There's little evidence to connect Wallerstein's "von Baumann" to this mercenary named Michael Baumann, though (and it wouldn't be him, but rather one of his descendants since the reference is dated 1549). Hils makes the connection based on the tax records of Augsburg, but I don't think he actually examined records from any other towns. Personally, I'd expect it to belong to a von Baumann family in Nuremberg due to its connection to the manuals of Albrecht Durer.

If you think Von Baumann must have lived in Nuremberg because of Dürer it might be a bad guess. Dürer had his own connections to Augsburg, namely his richest sponsor, Fugger "The Rich". This is one of many portraits Dürer painted of him:



BD

[Sven1]

We do have a missing link though, between the unarmoured material and the armoured plays. The techniques shown for unarmoured fighting in the treatises would often have to be quite modified to work in the sort of armour these commoners used in war. Helmets were the most basic and standard piece of kit, but with a kettle helmet on an archer or billmen suddenly a lot of the head cuts with sword and buckler or messer need to be changed to something else. Stick a gambeson and/or mail shirt into the equation and suddenly a lot of those arm cuts are going to be of more limited effect, if any. Same thing for leg harness (which lots of common soldiers wore) and leg cuts. I find it curious, and so does BD from what he has implied above, that the treatises only tend to show the two extreme ends of the spectrum, without really addressing the middle ground. I think it's fine to assume that we are supposed to fill in the gaps with common sense, but I find it surprising that not a single medieval source really addresses the middle ground (as far as we understand at the moment).

There is no middle ground. Easy as that. The context of all german fechtbücher is ritualized combat with a specific ruleset, namely bloß or gewappnet zum champf for the more noble and schield/sword/club for the more common. There is no point in incomplete armour in a duel because the objective here is equality of opportunity. So either you are not allowed to bring anything but your weapon, or you can bring the best possible gear. If you aggree to latter, you surely will have the means to bring state of the art armour, anything else (like showing up in a gambeson + helm) would be foolish and therefore, while probably theoretically possible, this would have never happened.

The idea of incomplete armour only makes sense in a battlefield/everyday situation where you are forced by the inevitable possibility of encountering (fully) armoured fighters to gear up as much as possible to keep your potential disadavantage as low as possible. In a duel scenario you can simply refuse to fight an armored opponent and thereby enforce that no armor be allowed. After all neither one, bloß or gewappnet, is any safer then the other...

[admin]

But not all of the content of the medieval German treatises is about duels. Judicial duels make up part of their content, but both Kal and Talhoffer for example show fights between mismatched weapons, as well as fights against multiple opponents and street attacks (Talhoffer throws his hat in his opponent's face..). Codex Wallerstein even gives you instructions on how to mug someone in the street. Talhoffer shows you how to use a lance to protect yourself on horseback against someone with a crossbow aimed at you, not to mention a whole load of battlefield and siege technology.

[Keith P. Myers]

If you think Von Baumann must have lived in Nuremberg because of Dürer it might be a bad guess. Dürer had his own connections to Augsburg, namely his richest sponsor, Fugger "The Rich". This is one of many portraits Dürer painted of him:

BD

Are you implying that Durer may have actually traveled to Augsburg...more than once???!!!! Sorry, Michael. Couldn't resist! But it sounds like Jean may back me up on our recent discussion.

Keith

[Keith P. Myers]

There is no middle ground. Easy as that. The context of all german fechtbücher is ritualized combat with a specific ruleset, ...

Wow! You really need to go back and review "all german fechtbucher", because this statement is totally wrong!

Keith

[Michael Chidester]

Are you implying that Durer may have actually traveled to Augsburg...more than once???!!!! Sorry, Michael. Couldn't resist! But it sounds like Jean may back me up on our recent discussion.

My position remains that the solitary fact that there was a guy named Baumann in Augsburg 50 years before Wallerstein belonged to someone named Baumann is a pretty weak hook to hang your hat on.

[Keith P. Myers]

I maintain that the solitary fact that there was a guy named Baumann in Augsburg 50 years before Wallerstein belonged to someone named Baumann is a pretty weak hook to hang your hat on.

And I maintain that because Durer made a copy of something doesn't necessarily mean it was from Nuremberg.

Keith

[Wolfgang Ritter]

We do have a missing link though, between the unarmoured material and the armoured plays. The techniques shown for unarmoured fighting in the treatises would often have to be quite modified to work in the sort of armour these commoners used in war. Helmets were the most basic and standard piece of kit, but with a kettle helmet on an archer or billmen suddenly a lot of the head cuts with sword and buckler or messer need to be changed to something else. Stick a gambeson and/or mail shirt into the equation and suddenly a lot of those arm cuts are going to be of more limited effect, if any. Same thing for leg harness (which lots of common soldiers wore) and leg cuts. I find it curious, and so does BD from what he has implied above, that the treatises only tend to show the two extreme ends of the spectrum, without really addressing the middle ground. I think it's fine to assume that we are supposed to fill in the gaps with common sense, but I find it surprising that not a single medieval source really addresses the middle ground (as far as we understand at the moment).

There is no middle ground. Easy as that. The context of all german fechtbücher is ritualized combat with a specific ruleset, namely bloß or gewappnet zum champf for the more noble and schield/sword/club for the more common. There is no point in incomplete armour in a duel because the objective here is equality of opportunity. So either you are not allowed to bring anything but your weapon, or you can bring the best possible gear. If you aggree to latter, you surely will have the means to bring state of the art armour, anything else (like showing up in a gambeson + helm) would be foolish and therefore, while probably theoretically possible, this would have never happened.

The idea of incomplete armour only makes sense in a battlefield/everyday situation where you are forced by the inevitable possibility of encountering (fully) armoured fighters to gear up as much as possible to keep your potential disadavantage as low as possible. In a duel scenario you can simply refuse to fight an armored opponent and thereby enforce that no armor be allowed. After all neither one, bloß or gewappnet, is any safer then the other...

Ahem, no.
The manuals seem to differ rather clearely between duels fpor honour or in a tournament setting (otherwise there would be no need to specifically mention non-lethal techniques) and a judicial duel. The latter is explained in length by various Talhofer books. That is the crimes where such a "Gottesurteil" (divine judgement) is allowed, how to dress, what arms to wear etc. It does not specifically differ if the fighters are commons or not.
But once you're challenged in such a judicial duel, you had to accept or in some casres were allowed to bring a stand-in for yourself. Recorded are professional fighters like Talhofer himself; also recorded are stand-ins for jews and women.

I find it rather odd, that we discuss in length if or if not the manuscripts were written for nobles.
I'd say of course: Either that or rather very wealthy citizens. There is quite a difference in printing political pamphlets or drain letters (which earned Gutenberg a living long before printing the bible) or printing a fencing book. Not to mention a MANUscript with or without illustrations.

I may should look it up, but I'm pretty sure Ott was wrestling trainer to the austrian archduke, Kal was employed by a noble for more than 20 years; IIRC RIngeck as well; Talhofer was at least partly employed by nobles; Leckküchner dedicatesd hisa whole messer treatise to a noble.
So why the discussion at the moment?!?!?
That doesn''t contradict by any means the fact, that masters may have given lessons to commons, be it on purpose or for guilds etc. we have records for that as well, just reminding of the company of the Marxbrüder or the Federfechter. We have records that they had a lot of different jobs, I think it was Kal who was working as a gunner, but I may mix him up. Leckküchner was looking to become a priest, i.e. establishing a parrish.

But at least until the 16th century there was a clear mindset regarding the fashion and social setting of commons - and that was to imitate nobles. A sort of civilian self-esteem developped in small paces and it took until the 16th century for civilian citizens to realise, that niobles were financially relying and dependant on them, which meant power to the patrons....
Having a mindset where a "knight" is still regraded as the role-model for fighting abilities (as well as behaviour, please don't forget the "Vorred vor der Zedel"!) it is of no surprise for me that the manuscript concentrate on knightly arts of fighting, i.e. fighting in armour.

Oh and yes, I definitely want to see and participate in more armoured combat;-)

[Sven1]

There is no middle ground. Easy as that. The context of all german fechtbücher is ritualized combat with a specific ruleset, ...

Wow! You really need to go back and review "all german fechtbucher", because this statement is totally wrong!

No I don't, contrary to you I actually can read these, understand their tone, history, purpose etc.
From the early mortal combat to the then anachronistic sport-duel for first blood, these were always focused on 1 on 1 fighting, never war. That is why the whole spectrum of "war" is not reflected therein...

[Sven1]

Ahem, no.
The manuals seem to differ rather clearely between duels fpor honour or in a tournament setting (otherwise there would be no need to specifically mention non-lethal techniques) and a judicial duel. The latter is explained in length by various Talhofer books. That is the crimes where such a "Gottesurteil" (divine judgement) is allowed, how to dress, what arms to wear etc. It does not specifically differ if the fighters are commons or not.
But once you're challenged in such a judicial duel, you had to accept or in some casres were allowed to bring a stand-in for yourself. Recorded are professional fighters like Talhofer himself; also recorded are stand-ins for jews and women.

I challenge you to proove that you had to accept a challenge just like that. Or that Talhofer ever stood in for someone.Talhofer was a grieswart and a at one point einspendig knecht for Haus Württemberg.

The rules for a given dueal are not set in stone (usually), this is why you need a Grieswart. He is usually the one who would actually educate the officials (!) on how this was to be done... Darauff sie kämpfen süllent alß in dem land gewonheit und und recht ist

[bigdummy]

But not all of the content of the medieval German treatises is about duels. Judicial duels make up part of their content, but both Kal and Talhoffer for example show fights between mismatched weapons, as well as fights against multiple opponents and street attacks (Talhoffer throws his hat in his opponent's face..). Codex Wallerstein even gives you instructions on how to mug someone in the street. Talhoffer shows you how to use a lance to protect yourself on horseback against someone with a crossbow aimed at you, not to mention a whole load of battlefield and siege technology.

Not to mention all the schulefchten which goes bak to the 3227a

BD

[Keith P. Myers]

No I don't, contrary to you I actually can read these, understand their tone, history, purpose etc.
From the early mortal combat to the then anachronistic sport-duel for first blood, these were always focused on 1 on 1 fighting, never war. That is why the whole spectrum of "war" is not reflected therein

---Excuse me sir! But you do not know me! It is somewhat insulting to make a comment like "contrary to you I actually can read these..." You originally said "the context of all german fechtbücher is ritualized combat with a specific ruleset." I challenge you to show where ALL fechtbucher provide ANY "ruleset", especially a "specific" ruleset! I will also refer you to two specific fechtbucher...those by Joachim Meyer and Paulus Hector Meyer. These were certainly not focused entirely on a judicial duel or anything particularly "ritualized" unless you consider the fechtschule competitions to be "ritualized"...which I think would stretch that definition. I will also refer you to the Codex Wallerstein, which includes a plate on how to rob a peasant! And then there is the Ringbuch by Fabian von Auerswald that addresses grappling competition. Again, unless you consider sport "ritualized", this is certainly not a judicial combat. I would also point out that even in von Auerswald, which is clearly intended for "sportive" Ringen, no "specific ruleset" is ever provided. Now, if you meant that the vast majority of german fechtbucher deal with one-on-one combat and not fighting in formation, then I would agree. But one-on-one combat does not equate to "ritualized combat with specific rulesets." So before you go passing sweeping judgements on what I am capable of reading and understanding, you should consider your wording very carefully!

Keith

[Wolfgang Ritter]

Ahem, no.
The manuals seem to differ rather clearely between duels fpor honour or in a tournament setting (otherwise there would be no need to specifically mention non-lethal techniques) and a judicial duel. The latter is explained in length by various Talhofer books. That is the crimes where such a "Gottesurteil" (divine judgement) is allowed, how to dress, what arms to wear etc. It does not specifically differ if the fighters are commons or not.
But once you're challenged in such a judicial duel, you had to accept or in some casres were allowed to bring a stand-in for yourself. Recorded are professional fighters like Talhofer himself; also recorded are stand-ins for jews and women.

I challenge you to proove that you had to accept a challenge just like that. Or that Talhofer ever stood in for someone.Talhofer was a grieswart and a at one point einspendig knecht for Haus Württemberg.

The rules for a given dueal are not set in stone (usually), this is why you need a Grieswart. He is usually the one who would actually educate the officials (!) on how this was to be done... Darauff sie kämpfen süllent alß in dem land gewonheit und und recht ist

I may have been unclear in my writing, but Talhofer manuscripts depict duel situations between nobles for whatever purpose, tournament, feud or whatever; even if the fight seems to be a highly stylised idealisation of the several stages of a duel, the Leutold von Königsegg depiction may serve as an example for that.
On the other hand he explains - for example in his 1459 manuscript certain rules for a judicial duel, where the fighters might as well be commons, even women.

And don't "challenge" me to whatever, would you? What's your purpose for posting? Making up a conflict? Gee, with the words of WIlliam Shatner: get a life!

[bigdummy]

No I don't, contrary to you I actually can read these, understand their tone, history, purpose etc.

Being a native speaker of modern German doesn't grant you any special insight into life 500 years ago any more than being a native speaker of modern English make me an expert on Shakespeare. Bruh.

BD

[admin]

I find it rather odd, that we discuss in length if or if not the manuscripts were written for nobles.
I'd say of course: Either that or rather very wealthy citizens.

My thoughts exactly!

[admin]

From the early mortal combat to the then anachronistic sport-duel for first blood, these were always focused on 1 on 1 fighting, never war. That is why the whole spectrum of "war" is not reflected therein...

But you are wrong... As various people have shown above, the medieval German (and Italian) treatises also talk about street self-defence, fighting multiple-opponents, fighting mis-matched weapons (such as lance vs. crossbow!), robbing people and even siege engines...

I do not dispute that *most* medieval German treatises seem to focus a lot of content on knightly and judicial duels (these were two very separate and different activites), but that is certainly not the entirety of their content. You must know that...

What context do you think 'blossfechten' with longswords fits into? Civilian duelling? Street fighting? It is not knightly or judicial duelling. I am genuinely interested in your answer.