Talk:Johan Liechtnawers Fechtbuch geschriebenn (MS Dresd.C.487)

Work	Author(s)	Source	License
Images		Sächsische Landesbibliothek
Translation	Alex and Almirena	Master Sigmund Ringeck
Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Johan Liechtnawers Fechtbuch geschriebenn (MS Dresd.C.487)

Links to process

http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/dokumente/html/obj31600186

HILS:

Das Manuskript ist nach WIERSCHIN (S. 80ff.) von zwei deutlich unterscheidbaren Schreiberhänden geschrieben und demzufolge wahrscheinlich kein Autograph Ringecks. Dessen eigener Hinweis, er sei 'der zyt des hochgebornen fürsten vnd herrenn, hern Aulbrecht, pfaltzgrauen by Rin vnd hertzog in Bayern, schirmaister', läßt die Datierung in die erste Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts zu. Als Gönner Ringecks könnte zwar auch Herzog Albrecht I. von Niederbaiern-Straubing (1336-1404) vermutet werden; aber da sich dieser überwiegend in den Niederlanden aufgehalten hatte, es bei Ringeck aber heißt: 'hertzog in Bayern', muß wohl eher an Albrecht III. von Baiern-München (1401-1460) gedacht werden, der seit 1438 Herzog war.	The manuscript is written by Wierschin (p 80ff.) Of two clearly distinguishable clerk hands and therefore probably not Autograph Ringeck. Its own notice that he was 'the herrenn ZYT of the high-born prince VND hern Aulbrecht, pfaltzgrauen by Rin VND hertzog in Bavaria, schirmaister', lets dating to the first half of the 15th century. As patrons Ringeck could indeed be assumed also Duke Albrecht I of Bavaria-Straubing Lower (1336-1404); but since this had mostly been in the Netherlands, but it is, at Ringeck: 'hertzog in Bavaria', must probably Albrecht III. be thought of Bavaria-Munich (1401-1460), who was Duke since 1438.
Zudem bemerkt Ringeck fol. 10v: 'Hie hept sich an die vszlegung der zedel, in der geschriben stett die ritterlich kunst des langen schwerts, die gedieht vnd gemacht hat Johannes Lichtenawer, der ain grosser maister in der kunst gewesen ist - dem gott genedig sy. Der hatt die zedel lauszen schryben mitt verborgen vnd verdeckten worten...'. Liechtenauer ist zum einen bereits als Verstorbener gekennzeichnet; zum anderen ist aber Ringecks Meinung, die Lehre sei nicht nur mit dessen Wissen, sondern auch in seinem Auftrag aufgezeichnet worden nicht zu verifizieren: beide Angaben sind jedoch Zeugnis dafür, daß sich bei den Nachfolgern Liechtenauers bereits eine legendenartige Vita herausgebildet haben könnte, was wiederum als Zeichen für das Bewußtsein einer historischen Distanz zum verehrten Meister gewertet werden müßte.	In addition Ringeck fol noticed. 10v: 'Hie hept at the vszlegung the zedel in the geschriben Stett has the art of the long sword, the poem gallantly made VND John Lichtenawer, the ain large maister in the art has been - the god genedig sy. The hatt the schryben lauszen zedel mitt hidden VND hidden words ... '. Liechtenauer is the one already marked as deceased; on the other hand is Ringeck opinion, the doctrine had been recorded not only with the knowledge, but also on its behalf, not to verify: however, both figures are testament to that already could have formed a legend like Vita the successors Liechtenauer, which in turn should be seen as a sign for the consciousness of a historical distance to the revered champion.
Ringeck hatte außerdem kein festbestalltes Hofamt beim Baiernherzog, sondern er merkt lediglich an, daß er 'der zyt' Schirmmeister bei ihm sei, also in ein befristetes Dienstverhältnis eingetreten war. Außerdem war Albrecht beim Dienstantritt seines Schirmmeisters bereits Herzog in Bayern, hatte die Regierung also bereits übernommen.	Ringeck also had no festbestalltes Hofamt the Bavarian Duke, but he merely remarked that he 'the ZYT' was Schirmmeister with him, was therefore entered into a short-term contract. In addition, Albrecht was on entering his umbrella master already Duke in Bavaria, the government had thus been adopted.
Ringecks Fechtlehre selbst wird 1452 von Peter von Danzig (HK 42) als Vorlage für seine eigene Handschrift benutzt, wobei er nicht nur dessen Kopie der Lehre Liechtenauers, sondern auch dessen Glossen kopiert und als seine eigenen ausgibt. Der bei Peter ebenfalls kopierte Fechtmeister Andreas Liegnitzer kopierte offenbar seinerseits Ringecks Kunst des Bucklerfechtens und dessen Ringerlehre, wäre also gegebenenfalls als historische Zwischenstufe in der Überlieferung anzusehen.	Ringeck fencing doctrine itself in 1452 by Peter von Danzig (HK 42) is used as a template for his own handwriting, in which he says he is not just copying the copy of the teaching Liechtenauer, but also its glosses and as his own. The Peter also copied fencing champion Andreas Liegnitzer evidently copied in turn Ringeck art of Bucklerfechtens and its Ringer doctrine would be, if appropriate, be regarded as an intermediate in the historical tradition.
Aus allem dem ist zu schließen, daß Ringecks Handschrift wahrscheinlich in den Jahren zwischen 1438, dem Regierungsantritt Albrechts und 1452, dem Entstehungsdatum von Peters Handschrift, geschrieben wurde. Damit rückt Ringeck, zusammen mit seinen beiden Epigonen Andreas Liegnitzer und Martin Hundfeld, der ebenfalls bei Peter von Danzig zitiert ist und Teile aus Ringecks Lehre kopiert, in eine historisch überschaubare Nähe zu Peter, so daß durchaus vermutet werden darf, daß sich diese Fechtmeister persönlich gekannt haben können.	From all the is close to that Ringeck manuscript was probably written in the years between 1438, the accession of Albrecht and 1452 to the date of origin of Peter's handwriting. This brings Ringeck, together with his epigones Andreas Liegnitzer and Martin dog box, which is also quoted by Peter von Danzig and parts of Ringeck doctrine copied in a historically manageable proximity to Peter, so that absolutely must be assumed that this fencing master in person may have known.

Date

Any details on this watermark issue?

In the source given [1], Hoffmann says "Anfang 16. Jh.".

What is the source of the much more precise range "between 1504 and 1519"?

And where are these watermarks? Do they apply to the entire manuscript? --Dieter Bachmann 08:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The dating was discussed in greater detail here in German and here in English.

~ Michael Chidester ^(Contact) 14:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

I see you have restored the "between 1504 and 1519". Well, I am certainly not going to start an "edit war" over this, but frankly, this range is excessively accurate, and was apparently just thrown around in the arsgladii forum.

The date given by Hoffmann is "beginning of 16th century", which is at least adequately vague.

As for the watermark, I understand the 1504-1519 range is the known range of production of "Piccard Ochsenkopf V Nr 183". The general type of ox head watermark with a cross has a much wider range, beginning in the early 15th century.

There are apparently scores of nearly identical watermarks, and you need to be an expert to tell one from another.

If an expert in a scholarly publication claims "between 1504 and 1519" I am sure we should report that, but just because someone threw this around on a forum doesn't make it very conclusive.

My gut reaction to this is that of CH Tobler on the thread you have linked,

First, the handwriting looks very 15th c.; it has a lot in common with hands seen in the earlier 15th c. works, albeit a bit sloppier than most. Granted, I'm not an expert in that field, but it sure doesn't look like the 16th c. manuscripts I've seen; what few 16th c. works don't use a humanistic hand tend to have a script that's quite different looking. Particularly compelling is the large rubricated initial letter "I", the one that begins "In Sant Jorgen namen..."; this could almost be out of Hs. 3227a, which uses very similar initial capitals. [Alas, I can't spot any watermarks in 3227a...does anyone know if there are any?] Beyond that, the link seems to imply this conclusion of a later date is based on the watermark. If so, that's strange - the 'Ringeck' manuscript has a variation of the bull's head w/cross watermark seen all over 15th century manuscripts (including the Thott Talhoffer). From what I've read, this paper was Italian in origin, often of high quality. All references I've come across put the bull's head squarely in the 15th century. If anything, the particular bull mark in Ringeck looks like an earlier, perhaps cruder, variant.

Tobler later gets support from Keith Alderson,

As someone who has tried to date things based on watermarks (I found 8 examples of my own efforts last night) - this is a very difficult thing to do with certainty for a whole variety of reasons. Most of the watermarks I have examined in a transmission from 1449 to 1547 are ‘Ox Head’ – using Piccard didn’t help much and I have personally abandoned this as my basis for dating things – too many unknowns (how long was the paper stock on hand, when is the earliest work with which we can associate this mark and on and on and on). Anyone who tells you that watermarks are gospel is not well informed. I did also focus on your comment about the rubricated initials and spent some hours looking at a variety of 'I's' in 15th century works (specifically one 1449 Frankish ms. and two 1476 Swabian “humanist” manuscripts). Of course this too is not definitive, but the 'I' in Ringeck looks to be completely in line with mid 15th century examples and not at all very much different from 3227a. The form of letters, especially those of the Briefmaler's art (who did the rubrics most often) tend to be long lived and so cover a hundred years or more of use. Looking at capital and lowercase 'D's' I feel that Ringeck isn't as old as 3227a - but neither is it true 'Humanist script' as we would find in the 16th century. Also the habit of ‘rubricating’ things isn’t really as popular in the mid 1500’s, much more a scribal tradition of earlier times (IMO).

In sum, Ringeck looks and feels and reads like a mid 15th century work (plus or minus 25 years?)

So yes, we should note that Hoffmann wants to place this "at the beginning of the 16th century", but we shold not present this as if it was the last word, let alone getting stuck with the "1504-1519" range which somebody dropped in some forum.

The text of this manuscript certainly dates to around the mid 15th century. The ms itself may perhaps be a copy made a few decades later, who knows. But this entire watermark thing so far seems to be rather far from settled. --Dieter Bachmann 14:22, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That's fair. The limit to my caring in this very low, and my main reason for not wanting to make small changes like 1504-1519 vs. early 1500s is that most of these pages also list that date and will likewise need to be updated. But the primary reason I reverted the last edits is that I didn't have time to fix the formatting--Semantic MediaWiki only accepts certain sorts of information for specific attributes, and in the case of dating it must be a number. By changing it to "early 16th century" and removing the semantic date tag, you effectively removed it from the manual index--those indexes are generated by the semantic engine and only list articles in Category:Manuals which have the attribute it's sorting for (dates in this case). I've just changed it to "early 1500s", but I'll have to worry about updating the other pages later.

~ Michael Chidester ^(Contact) 17:48, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I see you are using some pretty advanced wikimagic here. I will take care not to break this in the future. On the content side, it appears from a neutral perspective (which you will take if your 'limit to caring' is low) we will need to say the ms. has been dated to anywhere between 1440 and 1520, without giving any preference to early vs. late dates in this range. --Dieter Bachmann 08:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I will also need to retract the "dropped on some forum" comment on the 1504-1519 range, as I just figured out where it came from. Hoffmann gives this as his range for the watermark here. --Dieter Bachmann 08:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Semantic MediaWiki is pretty cool. It should also allow a search interface like this one, if my technical admins ever get around to building it. Your history of dating the ms. is good, I'm going to restructure it and move most of it above the fold. I realize that it's not how Wikimedia sites do it, but on this wiki I try to put all miscellaneous information in the first section, and keep the rest of each article carefully structured. Cheers.

~ Michael Chidester ^(Contact) 15:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Alzo, I should point out that the Additional Resources section is strictly for printed works that can supplement the resources in the article (generally either a translation or biographical work). Electronic resources either go in the source table on the talk page (if they contain a translation, transcription, or image that we've used), the "bottom" field of the infobox (if they contain a translation in a foreign language), or in the footnotes (if they contain useful information that was used in writing the article). This is to avoid the "link inflation" that I often see in HEMA articles on Wikipedia, where everyone seems to want to make themselves feel important by sticking a link to some article they wrote once with no useful information or to their own little club because they happen to have studied the treatise in question. We eliminated all external links sections in our articles early on, because if a link is useful to our readers it will appear somewhere else.

The only reason I bring it up is to point out that the link to manuscripta-mediaevalia.de will have to be moved into footnotes. At some point I need to write a Wiktenauer style guide so that these conventions are obvious, but at the moment our design is still evolving so it's a bit premature. Cheers.

~ Michael Chidester ^(Contact) 19:54, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The information about dating Ringeck's life (and Ringeck's Albrecht) is already in Ringeck's bio so I've removed it here.

~ Michael Chidester ^(Contact) 21:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)