The Kriegsbuch of Ludwig von Eyb

We may not be up-to-date any more on what old fencing and wrestling manuals are available and accessible by now. But we just found a careful transcription of von Eyb’s fencing and wrestling sections that deserve greater exposure. Here ya go…

Books of the Sword: Talhoffer’s Königsegger Codex

For some reason, we missed the publication of this great resource two years ago.

Which doesn’t diminish the quality and relevance of this first-ever publication of Talhoffer’s Königsegger Codex at all…

Literary Feud; Germany, 1865

Wassmannsdorff requesting back-up

Academic squabbles have been part and parcel of Historical European Martial Arts since the inception…

Dr. Karl Wassmannsdorff, one of the first sports researchers and the founder of critical HEMA analysis.

“A short time ago I  used from the Ducal Library year 1829 of the Thüringer Volksfreund, where […] there is an essay about the Thuringian fencers family of the Kreußlers. Involved in a small literary feud, I need to know the exact wording of a passage of the above mentioned essay.” 

Having received a reply on the 18th (not a bad turnaround for the 19th-century postal service!), Wassmannsdorff urges on the 22nd: “As my opponent is a very snappy man (bissig literally means “biting” and is usually applied to dogs), I must be as certain as possible, and now need another passage in Göttling’s essay…”

Given the date and the resource requested, this correspondence almost certainly refers to Wassmanndorff’s debate with Jena Professor Karl Hermann Scheidler, about certain statements made by Göttling:

Göttling is one of the first German writers to not only deduce but to proselytize that the Rapier or Degen of the 16th and 17th centuries was referred to as “Feder” (lit., feather, quill or plume), and that, accordingly, the Federfechter were different from the Marxbrüder by exclusively using that elusive eiserne Feder.

For most of his writing career, Scheidler relied heavily on Göttling’s essay, which he included in a 1864 article in the Deutsche Turn-Zeitung that triggered Wassmannsdorff’s dissent. In 1865, Scheidler was compelled to admit that Wassmannsdorff was right.

Wassmannsdorff got some mileage out of this altercation, including it in his Sechs Fechtschulen der Marxbrüder und Federfechter aus den Jahren 1573-1614 (p. 8 et al.)

The nonsense about the eiserne Feder, however, continues…

References:

Göttling, Carl Wilhelm: “Die thüringische Fechterfamilie Kreußler,” in Der Thüringische Volksfreund—Eine Wochenschrift zunächst für Thüringen, Osterland und das Voigtland, Jena, 1. Jahrg., Nr. 43, Oct. 24, 1829; p. 353-357.

Scheidler, Karl Hermann. 

* in W. Roux: Anweisung zum Hiebfechten mit graden und krummen Klingen; nebst einer Einleitung von Dr. K.H. Scheidler, Professor in Jena, Jena: Druck und Verlag Friedrich Mauke, 1840; (cited as [Scheidler/Roux, 1840].)

* “Kurze Geschichte der Fechtkunst, insbesondere auf den Universitäten und namentlich in Jena, Jena: Mauke, in Jenaische Blätter für Geschichte und Reform des deutschen Universitätswesens, insbesondere des Studentenlebens; ein Hand- und Lehrbuch bei Vortragen über akademische Militärgymnastik. Zur Turn-und Wehrkunst, 3. Heft, Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Mauke, 1859.

* “Die Fechterfamilie Kreußler,” in Deutsche Turn-Zeitung, 1864; 203 f., reprinted in Schröder, Max: Deutsche Fechtkunst, Berlin: Georg Koenig Buchdruckerei und Verlag, 1938; 33-40.

Wassmannsdorff, Karl: Sechs Fechtschulen der Marxbrüder und Federfechter aus den Jahren 1573-1614, Heidelberg: Buchhandlung von Karl Grooß, 1870.