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Nicolaes Petter

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Nicolaes Petter
Born 1624
Mommenheim
Died 1672 (aged 48)
Amsterdam
Resting place Leidsche Kerkhof, Amsterdam
Occupation
Nationality German
Genres Wrestling manual
Language Dutch
Notable work(s) Klare Onderrichtinge der
Voortreffelijke Worstel-Konst

(1674)
First printed
english edition
Blanes 2011
Concordance by Michael Chidester
Translations Deutsch-Übersetzung
Signature Nicolaes Petter Sig.jpg

Nicolaes Petter (1624 – 1672) was a 17th century German wine merchant and wrestling master. He was born in Mommenheim, Germany, and took on an apprenticeship in Amsterdam, Netherlands as a young man.[citation needed] He then joined the wine guild and went on to become a successful wine merchant. Petter practiced a style of grappling known as luctorius, and was known in his time as an undefeatable wrestler.[citation needed] His clientele seems to have consisted mostly of upper-class gentlemen, and the techniques he taught were considered more "civilized" than common wrestling.[citation needed]

Petter wrote an extensive treatise on grappling as a means of urban self-defense titled Klare Onderrichtinge der Voortreffelijke Worstel-Konst ("Clear Education in the Magnificent Art of Wrestling"), but did not publish it before his death in 1672. His widow inherited the manuscript and published it with illustrator Romeyn de Hooghe in 1674,[citation needed] and it was reprinted and translated many times in the following centuries. Sydney Anglo describes this text as "historically speaking, [one of] the [two] most important treatises on unarmed combat ever printed", and notes that "in many ways, the finest of all wrestling books—and deservedly the most famous—was the treatise by Nicolaes Petter and Romeyn de Hooghe".[1]

Treatise

Additional Resources

References

  1. Anglo, Sydney. The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. p 190-192