Le Jeu de la Hache (MS Français 1996)

Le Jeu de la Hache is an anonymous treatise on poleaxe fighting, written in Middle French. Sources disagree on its date: according to English Wikipedia the text was composed around 1400, while according to Wiktenauer it was written between 1460 and 1485. Dupuis and Deluz discuss the dating in detail in a study and edition from 2017. The only surviving manuscript is held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris under the shelfmark MS Français 1996. The manuscript has ten parchment folios measuring about 245 × 166 mm and an 18th-century binding. Spaces for miniatures and initials were left blank, so it is without illustrations. The text consists of 73 numbered paragraphs: after the prologue comes the main part (paragraphs 4 to 51) and a shorter part (paragraphs 52 to 73), which advises how to fight a left-handed opponent. The techniques are sorted by stance (croix, queue, demy hache, dague, mail) and by whether the opponent is right-handed or left-handed. The prologue stresses moral and spiritual preparation and depicts the game of the axe as honourable and useful for preserving the body of a nobleman and a commoner alike. Among other weapons it mentions the light spear, the dagger and the great and small sword. The manuscript belonged to the library of King Francis I at Blois, from where it was transferred to Fontainebleau in 1544. Wiktenauer describes it as the oldest surviving treatise on the use of the poleaxe. An edition with an English translation was published by Sydney Anglo in 1991, and a German edition was prepared by Dierk Hagedorn in 2024.

Martial arts in this work

Origin

We have not been able to document in the sources who wrote the treatise and for whom, so the author remains unknown. The manuscript's trail begins in the library of King Francis I at Blois. On its move to Fontainebleau in 1544, it was entered as Le jeu de la hache, couvert de veloux noir, that is, a volume covered in black velvet. In 1622 Nicolas Rigault listed it in the Bibliothèque du Roi inventory under the title Le jeu de la hache d'armes, in 1645 it appears in the Dupuy inventory, and later passed into the holdings of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It is kept there under the shelfmark MS Français 1996, and the BnF has made it available in the Gallica digital library in high resolution and as microfilm.

Editions and translations

An edition with an English translation was published by Sydney Anglo in 1991 in the journal Archaeologia (volume 109, pp. 113–128) under the title Le Jeu de la Hache. A Fifteenth-Century Treatise on the Technique of Chivalric Axe Combat. Anglo also included a chapter on the treatise in the book Masters of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts, published in 2008 by Paladin Press. A critical edition linked with an analysis of the dating was published by Dupuis and Deluz in 2017 in the journal Acta Periodica Duellatorum (volume 5, issue 1, pp. 3–62). A German translation under the title Das Spiel mit der Axt was prepared by Dierk Hagedorn and published by VS-Books in 2024. A Greek translation also appeared in 2021 on the blog Byzantine Hoplomachía.

People and martial arts

• Sydney AngloEditor
• Dierk HagedornEditor
• Sydney AngloTranslator

Details

Form

Manuscript

Repository

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Shelfmark

MS Français 1996

Folios

10

Material

Parchment

Illustrations

0

Library digitisation

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000955p

Editions

• 1991 · EN · Le Jeu de la Hache. A Fifteenth-Century Treatise on the Technique of Chivalric Axe Combat · Archaeologia 109 · translation
• 2008 · EN · Masters of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts · Paladin Press · translation
• 2017 · FR · Le Jeu de la Hache · Acta Periodica Duellatorum
• 2024 · DE · Das Spiel mit der Axt · VS-Books · translation