Sag 39;s Besser Teil 2 Schlüssel Pdf

[Sebastian Thorndike]

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Joachim Meyer (ca. 1537 - 1571)[1] was a 16th century German cutler, Freifechter, and fencing master. He was the last major figure in the tradition of the German grand master Johannes Liechtenauer, and in the later years of his life he devised at least four distinct and quite extensive fencing manuals. Meyer's writings incorporate both the traditional Germanic technical syllabus and contemporary systems that he encountered in his travels, including Italian rapier fencing. In addition to his fencing practice, Meyer was a Burgher and a master cutler.[2]

Meyer was born in Basel,[3] where he presumably apprenticed as a cutler. He writes in his books that he traveled widely in his youth, most likely a reference to the traditional Walz that journeyman craftsmen were required to take before being eligible for mastery and membership in a guild. Journeymen were often sent to stand watch and participate in town and city militias (a responsibility that would have been amplified for the warlike cutlers' guild), and Meyer learned a great deal about foreign fencing systems during his travels. It's been speculated by some fencing historians that he trained specifically in the Bolognese school of fencing, but this doesn't stand up to closer analysis.[4]

Records show that by 4 June 1560 he had settled in Strasbourg, where he married Appolonia Ruhlman (Ruelman)[1] and was granted the rank of master cutler. His interests had already moved beyond smithing, however, and in 1561, Meyer's petition to the City Council of Strasbourg for the right to hold a Fechtschule was granted. He would repeat this in 1563, 1566, 1567 and 1568;[5] the 1568 petition is the first extant record in which he identifies himself as a fencing master.

Finally, on 24 February 1570, Meyer completed an enormous treatise entitled Grndtliche Beschreibung, der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens, in allerley gebreuchlichen Wehren, mit vil schnen und ntzlichen Figuren gezieret und frgestellet ("A Thorough Description of the Free, Chivalric, and Noble Art of Fencing, Showing Various Customary Defenses, Affected and Put Forth with Many Handsome and Useful Drawings"); it was dedicated to Johann Casimir, Count Palatine of Simmern,[6] and illustrated at the workshop of Tobias Stimmer.[8] It contains all of the weapons of the 1561 and '68 manuscripts apart from fencing in armor, and dramatically expands his teachings on each.

Unfortunately, Meyer's writing and publication efforts incurred significant debts (about 300 crowns), which Meyer pledged to repay by Christmas of 1571.[1] Late in 1570, Meyer accepted the position of Fechtmeister to Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg at his court in Schwerin. There Meyer hoped to sell his book for a better price than was offered locally (30 florins). Meyer sent his books ahead to Schwerin, and left from Strasbourg on 4 January 1571 after receiving his pay. He traveled the 800 miles to Schwerin in the middle of a harsh winter, arriving at the court on 10 February 1571. Two weeks later, on 24 February, Joachim Meyer died. The cause of his death is unknown, possibly disease or pneumonia.[5]

Appolonia remarried in April 1572 to another cutler named Hans Kuele, bestowing upon him the status of Burgher and Meyer's substantial debts. Joachim Meyer and Hans Kuele are both mentioned in the minutes of Cutlers' Guild archives; Kuele may have made an impression if we can judge that fact by the number of times he is mentioned. It is believed that Appolonia and either her husband or her brother were involved with the second printing of his book in 1600. According to other sources, it was reprinted yet again in 1610 and in 1660.[9][10]

Joachim Meyer's writings are preserved in three manuscripts prepared in the 1560s: the 1561 MS Bibl. 2465 (Munich), dedicated to Georg Johannes von Veldenz; the 1563-68 MS A.4.2 (Lund), dedicated to Otto von Solms; and the MS Var. 82 (Rostock), which includes notes on the teachings of Stephan Heinrich von Eberstein and which Meyer may have still been working at the time of his death in 1571. The former two manuscripts are substantially similar in text and organization, and it seems clear that the Munich was the basis for the much shorter Lund.

Dwarfing these works is the massive book he published in 1570 entitled Grndtliche Beschreibung der ...Kunst des Fechtens ("A Thorough Description of the... Art of Fencing"), dedicated to Johann Kasimir von Pfalz-Simmern. Meyer's writings purport to teach the entire art of fencing, something that he claimed had never been done before, and encompass a wide variety of teachings from disparate sources and traditions. To achieve this goal, Meyer seems to have constructed his treatises as a series of progressive lessons, describing a process for learning to fence rather than merely outlining the underlying theory or listing the techniques. In keeping with this, he illustrates his techniques with depictions of fencers in courtyards using training weapons such as two-handed foils, wooden dusacks, and rapiers with ball tips.

The second section is designed to address newer weapons gaining traction in German lands, the dusack and the rapier, and thereby find places for them in the German tradition. His early Munich and Lund manuscripts present a more summarized syllabus of techniques for these weapons, while his printed book goes into greater depth and is structured more in the fashion of lesson plans.[11] Meyer's dusack system, designed for the broad-bladed sabers that spread into German lands from Eastern Europe in the 16th century,[12] combines the old Messer teachings of Johannes Leckchner and the dusack teachings of Andre Paurenfeyndt with other unknown systems (some have speculated that they might include early Polish or Hungarian saber systems). His rapier system, designed for the lighter single-hand swords spreading north from Iberian and Italian lands, seems again to be a hybrid creation, integrating both the core teachings of the 15th century thrust-centruc Liechtenauer tradition as well as components that are characteristic of the various regional Mediterranean fencing systems (including, perhaps, teachings derived from the treatise of Achille Marozzo). Interestingly, Meyer's rapier teachings in the Rostock seem to represent an attempt to unify these two weapon systems, outlining a method for rapier fencing that includes key elements of his dusack teachings; it is unclear why this method did not appear in his book, but given the dates it may be that they represent his final musings on the weapon, written in the time between the completion of his book in 1570 and his death a year later.

The third section is omitted from the Lund manuscript but present in the Munich and the 1570, and covers dagger, wrestling, and various pole weapons; to this, the Munich adds a short section on armored fencing. His dagger teachings, designed primarily for urban self-defense, seem to be based in part on the writings of Bolognese master Achille Marozzo,[13] but also include much unique content of unknown origin (perhaps the anonymous dagger teachings in his Rostock manuscript). His staff material makes up the bulk of this section, beginning with the short staff, which, like Paurenfeyndt, he uses as a training tool for various pole weapons (and possibly also the greatsword), and then moving on to the halberd before ending with the long staff (representing the pike). As with the dagger, the sources Meyer based his staff teachings on are largely unknown.

[IIIr.1] Dem Durchleuchtigen hochgebornen Fursten vndHern, Hern Grg Hansen Pfaltzgraff en bey RheinHertzog In Bayern, Graff en zu Veldentz vnd Herren zu Lutzelstein, meinem GnedigenFursten vnd Herren.

Noble high-born Prince, Your Princely Grace, my submissive obedient willing and diligent service is ready at all times, gracious Lord. The ancient scholars have not in vain made the art of fencing famous with all praise and diligence to all and the same enthusiastic princes and lords imagined especially because of the greater part of chivalrous fights and excellent deeds, hence an origin was taken and credibly told, by which many of the most famous minds are so awakened and strengthened that they may be praised and honored for their high observance and administration of war, and will be magnificent. Therefore, up to the present day, the inspired practice and the art of fencing has not fallen to any decline but has retained its old praises and worthiness by all, the youth are instructed in many noble deeds and practices, solely in accordance with all the arts, intact and undamaged, in the old traditional standings, and have become infatuated. But since I have heard and understood how that Your Princely Grace bears no displeasure to such honorable fencing but much more gracious respect to such fighting Stucken, and how they are not to be divided, and that as such, their virtues are composed in writing, the same to give Your Grace an easy account of all these Stucke, done to keep and retain the much covered arts quite free from defects, in subservience, I shall not spare my diligence, in which, Your Princely Grace, through my submissive means and ways, and as much as I have learned from youth and sought to describe and show here. Which and although it might be a little longer than I myself hoped, and that Your Princely Grace shall forgive and take into account that such multiple works require so much time and effort to write. To this end, it would not be enough that one weapon, two or three is taught and delivered to you, but rather that one Stuck is attached to the other like in a chain, one thing after another is noted, and experience is gained, and one weapon is the teacher of another, I have been caused to assemble the entire fencing art, as if it was very proper and I, in consideration, have ascribed this tract to Your Princely Grace as a princely person, and have produced it solely by the limited Stucken of the same, for Your Princely Grace, giving their proper titles and names, how I know and am obliged to do, also in good part so that the teaching can be clearly understood, and brought to this point, that some Stucken are so completely incomprehensible for and to the hand, that I myself may scarcely understand again their same proper titles and reverence, not to mention where the honorific words should remain, so that it might be of use to someone, that thus not intentionally, but rather without obscuring the art, the pieces have been written with general words. I must show that the understanding is clearly taken without any error, even where one can apply a school law, the following may you learn and understand for yourself, but with what effort and work it will be done, an art that must be arranged and learned in practice alone, delivered here in writing for the eyes, and equally beheld as if they were to be practiced with the hands and the whole body. Put to paper and penned, especially those which were previously attempted and understood by few, I submissively give Your Princely Grace a high princely understanding and a graceful submission for your acceptance, from my slight ability to reveal the fencing arts in an understandable way, and to disclose the same in an intelligible manner sparing neither diligence nor effort (although the same content might be unremarkable). However, Your Princely Grace, I am most hopeful that you will graciously accept and embrace such a work as I have done, which has been carried out according to my will and how then such work has verily flowed from a loyal heart to Your Princely Grace in all possible service and in devoted submissiveness, from me as a faithful servant hereby most diligently commanded in graciousness, dated 7 March 1561.

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