Kunst des Messerfechtens (Cod.Pal.Germ.430)

Kunst des Messerfechtens is a German manuscript on fighting with the messer, a long knife or falchion, written by the Nuremberg priest and fencing master Hans (Johannes) Lecküchner. It was produced between 1478 and 1482, and we have not been able to document the exact year. Today it is held in the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg under the shelfmark Cod. Pal. germ. 430. Lecküchner was born in Nuremberg in the thirties of the fifteenth century, enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1455, from 1480 served as parish priest in Herzogenaurach and died there on 31 December 1482. The text, in Early New High German, forms a complete treatise on the messer. Each section opens with verses (Zedel), followed by extensive prose commentary, and the exposition proceeds from one technique to the next, from the opening Zornhau to the Wincker. Folio 1v shows a knight with the Palatine coat of arms, and the manuscript closes with a dedication to the Elector Palatine Philip the Upright of the House of Wittelsbach. According to Wiktenauer, it is an elaborate work made for a patron, not a working draft. Lecküchner's treatise survives in two manuscripts that may be autographs: alongside the Heidelberg one it is the Munich Cgm 582, completed on 19 January 1482. The two versions differ in many essential places and Wiktenauer treats them as equals. According to current scholarship, the surname Lecküchner is not a corruption of the name Liechtenauer, as was assumed in the nineteenth century.

Martial arts in this work

Contents

The manuscript holds a complete treatise on fighting with the messer, a long knife or falchion, with a dedication. According to Wiktenauer, Lecküchner's teaching on the messer relates to Liechtenauer's longsword system. Each section opens with short verses (Zedel) summarising the technique, and a prose commentary develops them into individual actions. The text follows the main techniques. It begins with the strike of wrath (Zornhau), followed by the Wecker, Entrüsthau, Zwinger, Geferhau and Wincker. The messer exposition fills folios 2r to 114v, and on folios 115r to 116r stands the dedication to the Elector Palatine Philip the Upright of the House of Wittelsbach.

Authorship

The Munich manuscript Cgm 582, completed on 19 January 1482, mentions an earlier draft in its closing paragraph. Scholars disagree on whether this is the Heidelberg Cod. Pal. germ. 430 or a third manuscript that has not survived. The two surviving versions differ in many essential places, and some differences can be interpreted as corrections made in the later version. Wiktenauer therefore regards both manuscripts as equally authoritative and translates each separately. According to Wiktenauer, the lost third manuscript was probably the model for the shorter versions of Lecküchner's teaching written down by later masters: Hans von Speyer in 1491, Gregor Erhart in 1533, Paulus Hector Mair in the forties of the sixteenth century and Lienhart Sollinger in 1556. Wiktenauer dates the Heidelberg manuscript only by the range 1478 to 1482.

People and martial arts

• Hans LecküchnerAuthor
• Filip Upřímný (Philipp der Aufrichtige)Patron

Details

Form

Manuscript

Repository

Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg

Shelfmark

Cod. Pal. germ. 430