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Hans Talhoffer/First Manuscript

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Personal Edition
MS Chart.A.558 027r.jpg
Hans Talhoffer is welcomed as he arrives at a town
to do a job (folio 27r).
Author(s) Hans Talhoffer
Illustrated by Unknown
Date 1448
Genre
Language Early New High German
Archetype(s) MS Chart.A.558
Manuscript(s)

The archetype of this version of Hans Talhoffer's fencing manual, the MS Chart.A.558 (Gotha version), was created in 1448. It has been postulated to be a personal reference manual for Talhoffer himself, but given the variety of contents and its apparently unfinished state, it seems more likely that it was an independent project that Talhoffer contributed certain sections to. In addition to the contents below, the Gotha manuscript and the texts copied from it tend to contain writings by Johannes Liechtenauer, Johannes Hartlieb, and Ott Jud. At least four additional manuscript copies were created over the course of several centuries, with the last being dated 1820, and it was later reproduced in a facsimile by Gustav Hergsell and published in 1889.

In addition to the four manuscripts which reproduce all or parts of the contents of the Gotha version, there are two others that only reproduce the material on dueling with longshields. These are the Wolfenbüttel and Coburg versions (which date to the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively), and they are also different from the other copies in that they have captions for many of the illustrations in this section. It's unclear who wrote the text or when it was written, but it's possible that it comes from Talhoffer himself, and that the Gotha version is actually a draft or incomplete copy of another, now lost, Talhoffer manuscript. In the absense of more information, it seems prudent to treat it as integral to the overall text.

Treatise

Since Wolfenbüttel and Coburg versions only contain the longshield section, they are included at the far-right side of that table and not included in any other sections.

Additional Resources

References

  1. Unleserliche Streichung. Illegible deletion.
  2. Partly cut off.