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Welcome to the Wiktenauer!
The world's largest collection of Historical European Martial Arts resources.
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Wiktenauer is an autonomous project sponsored by the Historical European Martial Arts Alliance, open for contribution from all researchers and practitioners in the Western martial arts community. Our mission is to collect all of the primary source literature that makes up our text, as well as all related research, and to organize and present it in an accessible format. Here are a few basic categories of pages that are being constructed:
- Master Pages host biographical information about each master, as well as the transcription and translation of his complete works. In cases of multiple copies of a master's work, the transcriptions are laid out side-by-side to facilitate the most accurate master translation possible. To aid in interpretation, the writings will also be illustrated with images from the masters' work as available. A bibliography at the end of each page lists additional transcriptions, translations, and manual scans that are available in print. The template for this category of pages is Johannes Liechtenauer. Ultimately, every master in all of the traditions of Western Martial Arts will have a dedicated page.
- Manual Pages host all relevant data on a book or manuscript, including description, provenance, table of contents (with links to the appropriate master pages), gallery of manual scans, and bibliography of additional print resources. The template for manuscripts is the Goliath Fechtbuch, and the template for printed books is Ergrundung Ritterlicher Kunst der Fechterey. Ultimately, every manual in the corpus of Historical European Martial Arts literature will have a dedicated page.
- Technique Pages compile all of the relevant information from all of the relevant manuals on a particular technique, including transcriptions, translations, and images. There is also a section at the end of each page where groups may embed videos of their interpretations. The template for techniques is the Zornhaw. Ultimately, every technique mentioned in the manuals will have a dedicated page.
The wiki also features pages for HEMA groups, pages for HEMA events, general information pages, and so on. If you're not sure if something is appropriate, feel free to post it and find out.
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If you're looking to contribute, here is a list of perpetual jobs:
If you don't know where to start, simply consult the Master Task List and choose a job. Please familiarize yourself with the formatting precedents established on pages already submitted before editing a new page. The pages that must be kept consistent are Master, Manual and Technique/Concept pages. User pages, group pages, general information pages and the like should simply be formatted in an intuitive and pleasing fashion, but do not have to be consistent. Please view the Rules of the Wiki for advice and warnings about posting to and editing this wiki. Use Browse Categories to the left to begin browsing, or jump straight to one of the traditions beneath it. Thanks to everyone who is contributing to the Wiktenauer.Work Note of the Day
There is still a lot of content that can be ported from Wikipedia. Please do not port general medieval or martial arts articles like 'martial arts' or 'middle ages'. Only port articles directly relating to HEMA like pages on our weapons or pages for masters.
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What's New?
Fiore Furlano de’i Liberi de Cividale d’Austria (Fiore delli Liberi, Fiore Furlano, Fiore de Cividale d’Austria; ca. 1340s - 1420s) was a late 14th century knight, diplomat, and fencing master. He was born in Cividale del Friuli, a town in the Patriarchal State of Aquileia in the Friuli region of modern-day Italy, and was the son of Benedetto delli Liberi of Premariacco. His surname indicates his status as a member of the milites liberi, the Germanic unindentured knightly class which formed the lowest tier of nobility; this is significant because the liberi had in this period nearly vanished, replaced by the indentured milites ministeriale. Liberi wrote that he had a natural inclination to the martial arts and began training at a young age, ultimately studying with “countless” masters from both Italy and Germany. He had ample opportunity to interact with both, as Friuli was a possession of the Holy Roman Empire in this period and under heavy Germanic influence. Unfortunately, not all of these encounters were friendly: Liberi wrote of meeting many false masters in his travels, most of whom lacked even the limited skill he'd expect in a good student. He further mentions that on five separate occasions he was forced to fight duels for his honor against certain of these masters who he described as envious because he refused to teach them his art; the duels were all fought with sharp longswords, unarmored except for gambesons and leather gloves, and he won each without injury. Writing very little on his own career as a commander and master at arms, Liberi instead attempted to establish his credentials for his readers through other means. He stated that foremost among the masters who trained him was one Johannes Suevi, who he notes was a disciple of Nicholai von Toblem. Though the identities of these masters are currently uncertain, we may assume that one or both were well-known in Liberi's time. He further offered an extensive list of his famous students, including Piero Paolo del Verde, Nikolo von Urslingen, Galeazzo Cattaneo dei Grumelli, Lancillotto Beccaria di Pavia, Giovannino da Baggio di Milano, and Guglielmo Azzone Francesco di Castelbarco, and also highlights some of their martial exploits. Based on Liberi's autobiographical account, he can tentatively be placed in Perugia in 1381 when Piero Paolo del Verde likely fought a duel with Pietro Cornuald della Corona. That same year, a minor civil war broke out in Friuli as an alliance of towns lead by Udine opposed the appointment of Filippo d’Alençon to the position of Patriarch. Liberi fought on the side of Udine, and in 1383 there is record of him being given command of an artillery unit (including large crossbows and catapults) in defense of the city. He also worked as a diplomat and magistrate during this conflict, and though his name is not mentioned in municipal records after 1384, it seems likely that he remained involved until the war’s conclusion in 1389. In 1395, Liberi can be placed in Padua training the mercenary captain Galeazzo Cattaneo dei Grumelli for a duel with the French Marshal Jean II Le Maingre (also known as “Boucicaut”). Cattaneo made the challenge when Boucicaut called into question the valor of Italians at the royal court of France, and the duel was ultimately set for Padua on 15 August. Both Francesco Novello da Carrara, Lord of Padua, and Francesco Gonzaga, Lord of Mantua, were in attendance. The duel was to begin with spears on horseback, but Boucicaut became impatient and dismounted, attacking his opponent before he could mount his own horse. Cattaneo landed a solid blow on the Frenchman’s helmet, but was subsequently disarmed. At this point, Boucicaut reached for his poleaxe but the lords intervened to end the duel. Liberi appears again in Pavia 1399, this time training Giovannino da Baggio di Milano for a duel with a German squire named Sirano. It was fought on the 24th of June and attended by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, as well as the Duchess and other nobles. The duel was to consist of three bouts each of mounted lance, poleaxe, estoc, and dagger (accounts vary on whether the weapons were sharp or blunted). They ultimately rode two additional passes and on the fifth, Baggio impaled Sirano’s horse through the chest, slaying the horse but losing his lance in the process. They fought the other nine bouts as scheduled, and due to the strength of their armor, both combatants reportedly emerged from these exchanges unharmed. Liberi was likely involved in at least one other duel that year, that of his final student Guglielmo Azzone Francesco di Castelbarco and Giovanni degli Ordelaffi, as the latter is known to have died in 1399. After Castelbarco’s duels, Liberi’s activities are unclear. At some point in the first decade of the 1400s, he may have become associated with Niccolò III d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara, Modena, and Parma. Francesco Novati and D. Luigi Zanutto both assumed that he served as fencing master to the court of Ferrara, and Zanutto went so far as to speculate that he trained Niccolò for his 1399 passage at arms. However, all that is certain is that two of the manuscripts of The Flower of Battle bear a dedication to the Marquis. Indeed, based on the allegiances of the various knights Liberi trained later in his career he seems more likely to have been associated with the court of Milan than that of Ferrara; the treatises dedicated to Niccolò might then have been written as a diplomatic gift. (Read more...)
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| Recent Wiktenauer Feature Additions
Wiktenauer's mission and activities have unfortunately forced us to contend regularly with matters of copyright vs. public domain and other such controversies current in the world today. Over the past few months, Wiktenauer's administrators have been discussing this issue with the leadership of the HEMA Alliance, and ultimately we have developed new copyright policies and procedures that should allow us to avoid any further entanglements.
The major concern we seek to address with this policy is proper author attribution for our transcriptions and translations. While we have always been careful to list the authors of all of our content, moving forward we will be pursuing more thorough documentation of our sources. On each article's Talk Page, there is a table that lists not only the authors of each article segment, but also a link to the original document where possible, and the specific licensing terms that apply to that segment. See, for example, Talk:Martin Syber. A complete list of all supported licenses, as well as their specific terms and conditions, can be found on our Copyright Policy page. This feature has now been implemented across the wiki. (Going forward, I'd also like to add translation and transcription notes for all of our content as seen on Syber's page, but that's a labor-intensive process that will happen more slowly.)
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