Heinrich von und zum Velde

According to his dedicated acolyte Johann Joachim Hynitzsch, Heinrich von und zum Velde was born in 1585 on the Island of Rügen. He died on April 16, 1662 at the age of “77 weniger 6 Wochen” at Leipzig. (This would place his birth around the 28th of May 1585.) He is the younger brother of the later Stralsund City Council Member (Rat[h]sherr) Jürgen zum Velde.

While the “von und zu[m]” in his name would indicate that his family was of ancient nobility (Uradel), he was not a nobleman by birth, but a member of a patrician family—Patricii, as indicated in the Rostock matriculation register, which lists both Heinrich and Georg (Jürgen) a Velde for the spring semester of 1601 (April 22 to September 29, 1601).

In May of 1603, a “Henricus Velt” enrolled at the University of Wittenberg. While his city of origin is mentioned as "Seindensis", this is clearly a clerical error, as he is a "Sundensis"—"one from Stralsund". On May 29, 1609, "Henricus a Velde auss Pommern [from Pomerania]" enrolled at the still brand-new university of Giessen. (On April 2, 1610, "M. Joachimus Köppe, Marburgensis Saxo." enrols at the same institution.) At the time, the Paduan fencing master Giovanni Maria Magagnini was teaching at Giessen on the invitation of Landgrave Philipp.

On July 4, 1616, “Henricus a Velde Pomeranus 30J.", now 30 years old, enrolls at the University of Leyden. Shortly after, “Henricus vom Velde Pomeranus” signs up with the Natio Germanica in Padua on Dec. 7, 1617. He registers with the legisti—the law students. A year later, in 1618, "Henricus a Velde" appears in the Germanica‘s membership rolls in Siena. It bears pointing out that, in 1616, he is still a patrician "zum Velde", not a "von und zum Velde". He returned to Germany in 1619, with a detour to Styria.

It remains unclear if he first met Savator Fabris during the master's sojourn in Denmark or later, during his 1617 stay in Padua.

In 1621, zum Velde, now aged 36, is an unambiguous “von” as he arrives at the Collegiatsstift St. Peter und Paul (also known as Petri-Pauli) in Magdeburg-Neustadt. He continues to be referenced as H[err] Heinrich von Velde in the annals of the Stift. At Petri-Pauli, zum Velde takes on the role as Kanoniker (canon), one of eight unordained, secular but decidedly Protestant cleric-administrators.

In 1631, during the siege and complete destruction of Magdeburg, Velde saved one of the seven registers of the Stift. He is absent from what remained of the city until 1637, when “Herr von Velde [ist] wieder beym Stiffte gekommen.“ The saved Register helped to establish the Stift’s pre-cataclysm sources of income (Einkünffte), probably by documenting ownership interests in the Stift’s not inconsiderable land holdings. The annals then again note zum Velde as one of the eight Canonici in 1642 and as the Senior of Petri-Pauli. The Senior of the Collegiatsstifft, “Heinrich von Velde”, is named as the defendant in a drawn-out civil law suit brought by Canonicus residens Mauritius Cüstermann against the Stift, which lasted from 1642 to 1650. On February 22, 1652, zum Velde is mentioned as Godfather to a child, alongside with Magdeburg’s famous scientist and diplomat Otto G[u]ericke, “Consul Magdeburgienis“, in the oldest Taufbuch or baptismal register of Magdeburg-Neustadt. He is “Henricus von Velde, Senior des Stiffts allhier” and judging from the company he associated with, a local dignitary.

At the beginning of the summer semester of 1660, zum Velde appears as "Heinrich von und zum Feld," in the Matrikel of the university of Leipzig in Saxony, with the annotation dns. eq. Pomer. 1 [Rtl] 16 gr. I S 1660 S 16, ao. aetatis 75. obedientiam promisit.” (Herr (Dominus) Edler of Pomerania, paid 1 Rtlr and 16 Groschen; aged 75 years, he promised obedience.”) His Leipzig stay is contemporaneous with that of Gottfried Kreussler. Velde’s name is found in a catalog of memorial inscriptions, located on his wife's headstone in the Alte GottesAcker (i.e, the Alte Johannisfriedhof in Leipzig). Here, he is listed as the second husband of Catharina, originally from Frankfurt an der Oder: “Der[r] WohlEd[le] Heinrich von und zum Felde[] / Thumherr[] und Senior zu Magdeburg / welcher starb 1662." Hynitzsch provides his exact date of death as April 16, 1662. In his disputatio of 1672, Christian Böhm calls him "Nobilissimus Eques Dn. Heinricus a Velden, e Fionia Danus & per 30 annos Capituli P. Pauli Magdeburgensis Canonicus, elim ipsius Salvatoris Discipulus.

Velde's direct instruction by Fabris, as well as his familiarity with Fabris' assistant "Signor Hermann"'s notes is then attested in the foreword to Hynitzsch's Fabris translation.

Böhm indicates that Kanonikus zum Velde’s teaching was not motivated by necessity, nor did he shill as a Fechtmeister: Non ipse utilitatis allectus, erat enim satisbonarum facultatum, sed ut in decrepita aetate (vixit enim 77 annis) haberet idem exercitium ad sanitatem tuendam, quod habuerat in juventute—"he was not attracted by the idea of utility, for he was of satisfactory means, but engaged in the same Exercitia well into his advanced age (for he lived 77 years), to preserve his health as he had in his youth."

In the brief time between Hynitzsch's relegatio from the University of Jena (January 1662) and Velde's death in April of that year, Velde greatly inspired Hynitzsch. Hynitzsch inherited (or later came by) Velde's notes on Fabris' method, enabling him to carry on his patron's legacy in his 1677 Italian-German translation of Fabris' 1606 original, which is as much a monument to Fabris as it is to Velde, whose portrait Hynitzsch had engraved at not inconsiderable cost to include in his book.

It remains unclear how Velde acquired the noble "von" between 1616 and 1621, why Böhm (knowing his birthplace was Rügen) calls him e Fionia Danus ("a Dane from Fyn"), or why he was placed into a coveted position of influence at Petri-Pauli at a time when Christian IV. of Denmark was actively expanding his expansionist influence in Northern Germany.

However, like his Wittenberg and Giessen contemporary Joachim Köppe, he is not a professional fencing master, nor did he ever consider himself as such. He is a an academic by nature, by avocation a jurist, an able "in-house counsel" and administrator of a large portfolio of frequently contested agricultural properties. He pursued fencing out of dedication to Fabris and as an exercitium corporis. —JCA

• Eigentliche Beschreibung des Stoßfechtens (MS Dresd.C.13)
• Three treatises on the art of fencing (Add MS 17533)
• Veldens Fecht-Buch (HDW FAB 1677)

Biographical Information on Velde: https://fencingclassics.wordpress.com/2023/03/12/the-hidden-fabris-the-disciple-heinrich-von-und-zum-velde/

Amberger, J. Christoph: Lives of the Masters 1: Heinrich von und zum Velde. Baltimore: Secret Archives Press, 2025.

The following is a list of publications containing scans, transcriptions, and translations relevant to this article, as well as published peer-reviewed research.

• Pascha, Johann Georg; Heinrich von und zum Velde (2018). Proper Description of Thrust-Fencing with the Single Rapier. Trans. by Reinier van Noort; Jan Schäfer. Glasgow: Fallen Rook Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9934216-7-9.
• Van Noort, Reinier; Jan Schäfer (2017). "An analysis and comparison of two German thrust-fencing manuscripts." Acta Periodica Duellatorum 5(1): 63-74. doi:10.36950/apd-2017-002.