Jörg Wilhalm Hutter Fechtbücher (Cod.I.6.4º.5 and others)

Jörg Wilhalm Hutters Fechtbücher are a group of four illustrated manuscripts from 1522 and 1523 linked with the name of an Augsburg fencing master. Wilhalm calls himself a hatter (Hutter) and is documented in Augsburg tax records in 1501, 1504 and 1516. The oldest, Cod.I.6.4º.5 of 1522, held in the Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg, contains numbered illustrations of armoured combat on foot and on horseback without captions and is regarded as the drawing model. Cod.I.6.2º.3 of the same year gives the same illustrations supplemented with written instructions. Cod.I.6.2º.2 of 1523 is a treatise on unarmoured longsword combat, and the Munich Cgm 3711 of the same year combines all three works and adds 32 uncaptioned illustrations of judicial duelling. The longsword exposition derives from the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer, specifically from the branch of the gloss attributed to Nicolaüs of 1489. Armoured combat, by contrast, according to Wiktenauer draws on designs from the early 15th century, which were already outdated by the fifteen-twenties. It remains unclear whether Wilhalm wrote all the works himself or, like Lienhart Sollinger and Paulus Hector Mair later, merely compiled them and added his name as an owner's mark. Paulus Hector Mair bought three of the manuscripts one after another between 1544 and 1561 and used them for his own writings on armoured combat.

Martial arts in this work

Contents

The collection comprises four works. Cod.I.6.4º.5 (1522) contains numbered drawings of armoured combat on horseback and on foot without any caption and is regarded as the drawing model. Cod.I.6.2º.3 (1522) repeats the same illustrations and supplements them with written instructions, so it is assumed to derive directly from the previous manuscript. Cod.I.6.2º.2 (1523) is a longsword treatise that accompanies both armour books. It covers basic principles of the weak and strong parts of the blade and the concepts of before and after, the wrath strike from both shoulders, the wrath thrust, the war and its variants, the false points, the outer winding, the four openings, the crooked and the cross strike, the stances day, fool (iron gate), ox and plough, and the skull strike. Cgm 3711 (1523), held in Munich, combines all three works and adds 32 new uncaptioned illustrations of judicial duelling, including carnival costumes and pretzel sellers on fol. 11r.

Authorship

Wilhalm calls himself a hatter (Hutter), and the Augsburg tax records list him in 1501, 1504 and 1516. We have not been able to establish unambiguously whether he is the actual author of all four works. Wiktenauer allows that, like the later Lienhart Sollinger and Paulus Hector Mair, he may have merely compiled them and added his name as an owner's mark. For Cgm 3711, a possible presentation copy, it is unclear whether Wilhalm took part in it at all. Sollinger later acquired most of the copies. Paulus Hector Mair bought Cod.I.6.2º.2 in 1544, Cod.I.6.4º.5 in 1552, the Glasgow copy MS E.1939.65.354 in 1560 and Cod.I.6.2º.3 in 1561. He used the manuscripts for his own writings on armoured combat and inserted descriptions of the images that differ markedly from Wilhalm's exposition.

Editions and translations

Wilhalm's works circulated in manuscript copies. In 1533 Gregor Erhart copied the longsword treatise into the Glasgow manuscript MS E.1939.65.354, and it is unclear which of Wilhalm's copies served him as the model. Lienhart Sollinger compiled the Munich Cgm 3712 in 1556, drawing on Cgm 3711 and the Glasgow copy, and, according to Wiktenauer, also the Wolfenbüttel Cod.Guelf.38.21 Aug.2º of 1588. Around 1600 Jeremias Schemel von Augsburg included Wilhalm's text in compilations on horsemanship and tournaments, Cod.Guelf.1.6.3 Aug.2º and MS KK5247 (Reit und Turnierbuch). MS KK5247 takes over Wilhalm's original text, not Mair's revisions. A copy, MS 23.279, was still made from it in 1838. A concordance of the individual manuscripts was compiled by Michael Chidester.

People and martial arts

• Jörg Wilhalm HutterAuthor
• Lienhart SollingerEditor
• Jeremias Schemel von AugsburgEditor

Details

Form

Manuscript

Repository

Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg

Shelfmark

Cod.I.6.4º.5