"Young knight learn, to love God and revere women, so that your honour grows. Practice knighthood and learn the Art that dignifies you, and brings you honour in wars. Wrestle well and wield lance, spear, sword and dagger manfully; whose use in others’ hands is wasted."

Thus began the teaching of Master Johannes Liechtenauer, the premier master-at-arms of medieval Germany, whose martial art dominated German swordsmanship for over two centuries.

In the late 14th century, Germany was a patchwork of warring principalities, bishoprics, mercantile leagues, and free-cities - all nominally united under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire. Besides full-scale wars of conquest, crusades and imperial succession, petty, “private wars,” were fought between every conceivable combination of princeling, town and bishop. Renegade “robber knights,” prayed upon travelers on the lonely roads through the dense, German forest. Yet, at the same time, roots of the Renaissance were already being lain. This was the dangerous, paradoxical world into which Johannes Liechtenauer was born.

Liechtenauer spent his youth traveling through Central and Eastern Europe, studying with masters from locales as far-off as Krakow and Prague. Through these wanderings, he developed his own unique and deadly form of martial art, that fully integrated sword, spear, dagger and grappling, for use in and out of armour; on foot and horseback. Gathering a select circle of students around him, Liechtenauer transmitted his teachings into cryptic, mnemonic verses and swore his students to secrecy. These students, in turn, became masters-at-arms to the greatest noble-houses of the Empire.

In the 15th century, Sigmund Ringeck, master-at-arms to Albrecht, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, and one of the descendants of the “Liechtenauer school,” broke the secrecy, and sought to explain the mysterious verses. Working through the verses line-by-line, he added explanatory commentary on the tactical and mechanical principles of the system. Ringeck’s commentaries reveal a sophisticated system of fighting, based on natural, underlying bio-mechanics, and a fighting philosophy built around maintaining control of initiative.

Christian Henry Tobler has rendered this key text into English for the first time, and provides photographic interpretation and commentary for each technique of this “secret” martial art. The result is a must for serious Western martial artists, students of medieval history, hoplologists, and medieval reenactors.

First in a series of medieval fighting manuals translated and interpreted by today's eminent Western Martial Arts practitioners, the Chivalry Bookshelf is proud to present this most important and impressive introduction to the medieval fighting arts.
 
 

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