Gladiatoria

Gladiatoria is a collective name for a group of anonymous German manuscripts on fighting in full armour from the 15th century. The author, illustrator and patron are unknown, and the common model has not survived. We know five versions: the two oldest copies, from the thirties of the 15th century, are in the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Kraków copy in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska dates from the forties, the Wolfenbüttel one from 1465–1480 and the so-called Cluny Fechtbuch in Paris from the nineties of the 15th century. The dating is based on the armour style in the illustrations. The texts are in Early New High German, but the Paris copy has no text, only images. The content follows the typical course of a judicial duel. It begins with spear fighting with small shields called ecranches, continues with the sword and ends with the dagger on foot and wrestling on the ground. According to Wiktenauer, the group contains 12 spear techniques, 21 sword techniques from four guards and a section on the dagger with wrestling. The three oldest copies, from New Haven, Vienna and Kraków, share a fairly uniform set of techniques. The Wolfenbüttel version adds much more material of unknown origin, mainly in dagger fighting. Manuscript Cod. 11093 and part C of Baumann's Fechtbuch, called pseudo-Gladiatoria, have features that exclude them from the group. Manuscript MS T, which Hans-Peter Hils listed as sixth, was later identified as the New Haven copy. Michael Chidester and Dierk Hagedorn compiled a concordance of the copies. Dierk Hagedorn and Bartłomiej Walczak published an edition of the New Haven manuscript in 2015.

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Contents

The three oldest copies have the same main sections. In the Kraków manuscript MS germ. quart. 16, fighting with the spear takes up folia 1r–7r, the sword 7v–33r, the dagger 33v–49r and wrestling 56r–59r. The Vienna manuscript KK5013 has the spear on folia 1r–6r, the sword 6v–31r, the dagger 31v–49v and wrestling 53r–56v. The New Haven manuscript U860.F46 1450 places the spear on 1r–5r, the sword on 5v–29v, the dagger on 30r–40v and wrestling on 41r–43v. Only the Kraków copy also contains fighting with the long shield and sword (fol. 49v–54r) and, on one leaf each, the sword with the small shield buckler, the Messer with a Hungarian shield and the staff (fol. 54v–55v).

Origin

The Kraków manuscript of 59 folia (178 × 196 mm) is the only copy in the group with a title page. It formerly belonged to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and is now in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska. The Vienna manuscript of 56 folia (185 × 195 mm) was owned in 1570 by Carl Schruff. The New Haven copy is written on parchment and, according to Wiktenauer, was written by the same scribe as the Vienna one. From 1792 until the nineteen-forties it was in Gotha at Friedenstein Castle under the shelfmark MS Membr. II 109, after which it was dispersed. Paul Mellon acquired its 43 leaves at four auctions between 1960 and 1999. In the 20th century the manuscript was rebound and damaged.

People and martial arts

• Dierk HagedornEditor
• Bartłomiej WalczakEditor
• Hugh KnightTranslator

Details

Form

Manuscript

Editions

• 2008 · EN · translation
• 2015 · DE · Gladiatoria. New Haven - MS U860.F46 1450 · VS-Books