Lew
Existence disputedFencing master in the Liechtenauer tradition, whose glosses on mounted fencing and the longsword are contained in the manuscript Cod. I.6.4º.3 from the 1460s.
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Lew was a fencing master working in the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer. His principal manuscript is Cod. I.6.4º.3 from the 1460s. The dates of his birth and death, and other biographical details, we have not been able to verify.
In later literature he also appears as Lew Jud or Jude Lew, but he is not documented under these names in contemporary sources. The manuscript's colophon reads: Here ends the Jewish art of the man called Lew. This has given rise to the conjecture that Lew may be a Germanized form of a Hebrew name, such as Levi; this conjecture remains unconfirmed. Lew is not listed in the roster of the Liechtenauer Society compiled around 1470 by Paulus Kal.
The manuscript contains glosses on Liechtenauer's Recital on combat with the longsword and in the saddle, and a teaching on wrestling. Only two sections can be reliably attributed to Lew: the gloss on mounted fencing and the commentary on longsword techniques; authorship of the entire manuscript is mistakenly ascribed to him. His glosses also survive in the manuscript MS M.I.29, the so-called Codex Speyer (1491), and in MS Var.82 (1570 to 1571). Copies of his text were later reworked by Paulus Hector Mair in the 1540s and by Joachim Meyer in 1570.