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Paulus Hector Mair

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Paulus Hector Mair

"Mair", Cod.icon. 312b f 64r
Born 1517
Augsburg, Germany
Died 10 Dec 1579 (age 62)
Augsburg, Germany
Spouse(s) Felizitas Kötzler
Occupation
  • Civil servant
  • Historian
Movement
Influences
Genres
Language
Manuscript(s)
First printed
english edition		 Knight and Hunt, 2008
Concordance by Michael Chidester
Translations
Signature Paulus Hector Mair Sig.png

Paulus Hector Mair (Paul Hektor Mayr, Meyer; 1517 – 1579) was a 16th century German aristocrat, civil servant, and fencer. He was born in 1517 to a wealthy and influential Augsburg patrician family. In his youth, he likely received training in fencing and grappling from the masters of Augsburg fencing guild, and early on developed a deep fascination with fencing treatises. He began his civil service as a secretary to the Augsburg City Council; by 1541, Mair was the city treasurer, and in 1545 he also took on the office of Master of Rations.

Mair's martial background is unknown, but as a citizen of a free city he would have had military obligations whenever the city went to war, and as a member of a patrician family he likely served in the cavalry. He was also an avid collector of fencing treatises and other literature on military history. Like his contemporary Joachim Meyer, Mair believed that the Medieval martial arts were being forgotten, and he saw this as a tragedy, idealizing the arts of fencing as a civilizing and character-building influence on men. Where Meyer sought to update the traditional fencing systems and apply them to contemporary weapons of war and defense, Mair was more interested in preserving historical teachings intact. Thus, some time in the latter part of the 1540s he commissioned what would become the most extensive compendium of German fencing treatises ever made, a massive two-volume manuscript compiling virtually every fencing treatise he could access. He retained the workshop of Jörg Breu the Younger to create the illustrations for the text,[1] and hired two Augsburg fencers to pose for the illustrations.[2] This project was extraordinarily expensive and took at least four years to complete. Ultimately, three copies of this compendium were produced, each more extensive than the last; the first (MSS Dresden C.93/C.94) was written in Early New High German, the second and most artistically ambitious (Cod.icon. 393) in New Latin, and the rougher third version (Cod. 10825/10826) incorporated both languages.

Beginning in the 1540s, Mair began purchasing older fencing manuscripts, some from fellow collector Lienhart Sollinger (a Freifechter who lived in Augsburg for many years) and others from auctions. Perhaps most significant of all of his acquisitions was the partially-completed treatise of Antonius Rast, a Master of the Long Sword and three-time Captain of the Marxbrüder fencing guild. The venerable master left it incomplete when he died in 1549, and in 1553 Mair produced a complete fencing manual (Reichsstadt "Schätze" Nr. 82) based on his notes. Ultimately, he owned over a dozen fencing manuscripts over the course of his life, including the following:

He also used several printed books as source material for his compendia, and presumably owned copies, including Der Allten Fechter gründtliche Kunst (printed by Christian Egenolff), Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, and Ringer Kunst by Fabian von Auerswald.

Mair not only spent incredible sums of money on his fencing interests, but generally lead a lavish lifestyle and maintained his political influence with expensive parties and other entertainments for the burghers and patricians of Augsburg. This habit of living far beyond his means for decades exhausted his family's wealth, eventually leading him to sell the Latin version of his fencing manuscript (netting the princely sum of 800 florins) and finally to begin embezzling money from the Augsburg city coffers. This embezzlement was not discovered for many years (or perhaps was overlooked due to the political favor his parties garnered), until finally a disgruntled assistant reported him to the Augsburg City Council in 1579 and provoked an audit of his books. Mair was arrested, tried, and hanged as a thief at the age of 62. After Mair's death, his effects (including his library) were sold at auction to recoup some of the funds he had embezzled.

Whether viewed as an unwise scholar who paid the ultimate price for his art or an ignoble thief who violated his city's trust, Mair remains one of the most influential figures in the history of Kunst des Fechtens. By completing the fencing manual of Antonius Rast, Mair gave us valuable insight into the Augsburg fencing tradition; his own works are impressive on both an artistic and practical level, and his extensive commentary on the fencing illustrations in his collection serves to make potentially useful training aids out of what would otherwise be mere curiosities. Finally, in purchasing so many important fencing treatises he succeeded in preserving them for future generations; they were purchased by the fabulously wealthy Fugger family after his death and eventually passed to the Augsburg University Library, where they remain to this day.

Treatise

Much of Mair's content represents his revision and expansion of the older treatises listed above, including adding descriptive content to uncaptioned illustrations. Where available, these illustrations are displayed in the left-most column, labeled "Source Illustrations", for comparison purposes. Mair's own illustrations appear in the second column, alongside the translation. Wherever possible, the version from the manuscript or book that Mair owned is displayed; in some cases, however, the only known copy is in a book that Mair never had access to as far as we know (suggesting the existence of lost manuscripts).

The Dresden version contains the fewest pieces and its artwork is most reminiscent of Breu's style, suggesting that it was the first copy produced. The Munich adds additional plays and sections on top of the Dresden's contents and the Vienna likewise augments the Munich, so it appears that this was order of creation; conversely, the Dresden has no unique content, and the only unique plays in the Munich are in the section on jousting. To give a visual sense of this evolution of the work, the Dresden illustrations are used wherever possible; the Munich illustrations appear only for those plays that are missing from the Dresden, and the Vienna for those that are likewise missing from the Munich.

Additional Resources

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

References

  1. ↑ Breu is not listed in the Augsburg tax records in 1542-3; given Mair's youth, he most likely hired Breu between his return in 1544 and his death in 1547.
  2. ↑ Hils 1985, pp 197-201.
  3. ↑ Further, incidentally.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chronicon Abbatis Urspergensis, the Chronicle of Burchard of Ursberg (13th century), printed in Augsburg 1515.
  5. ↑ The amphitheatre of Fidenae (the modern Borgata Fidena, a suburb of Rome), endowed by a freed slave named Atilius, collapsed in 27 BC under the weight of a large crowd of spectators, apparently due to faults in construction. According to the (likely exaggerated) account by Tacitus (Annales, 4.63), a total of 50,000 people died in the collapse.
  6. ↑ wohl Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus (starb 47 n. Chr.)
  7. ↑ The preceding three paragraphs are missing in the Dresden version.
  8. ↑ Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (ca. 71 – ca. 135), author of De vita Caesarum (ca. AD 120).
  9. ↑ Dresden version: four hundred.
  10. ↑ Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius (225 – 244), Marcus Iulius Philippus (ca. 204 - 249)
  11. ↑ Claudius Galenus of Pergamum (AD 131 – 201)
  12. ↑ This may be in reference to 2 Timothy 2:4, rendered by Luther (1522) as: Niemant streyttet vnnd flicht sich ynn der narung geschefft, auff das er gefalle dem, der yhn zum streytter auffgenomen hat "None who would fight does meddle in the business of sustenance, so that he may please him who employed him as a fighter". Now Luthers narung "sustenance, nutrition, food" offers itself to an interpretation of "gluttony; carnal pleasure", but it translates pragmateiai biou, meaning "the pragmatics of life", i.e. "everyday business". c.f. Tyndale (1526), who has "No man that warreth, entangleth himself with worldly business, and that because he would please him that hath chosen him to be a soldier"; Dresden has "temporal" (zeitlich) rather than "transient" (zergenglich).
  13. ↑ This is a reference to Pliny, Nat. Hist. 30.32: "When a freedman of Nero was giving a gladiatorial show at Antium, the public porticoes were covered with paintings, so we are told, containing life-like portraits of all the gladiators and assistants. This portraiture of gladiators has been the highest interest in art for many centuries now, but it was Gaius Terentius who began the practice of having pictures made of gladiatorial shows and exhibited in public; in honour of his grandfather who had adopted him he provided thirty pairs of Gladiators in the Forum for three consecutive days, and exhibited a picture of the matches in the Grove of Diana."
  14. ↑ Anacharsis the Scythian, according to Herodotus (4.46, 76 f.) brother of the Scythian king Saulinos; attributed to him are inventions such as the anchor, bellows and pottery wheel. He was slain by his brother after he returned from a journey to Greece and began to advocate Greek culture to his countrymen. He is sometimes counted as one of the Seven Sages of Athens. Among a number of letters attributed to him is one addressed to the Lydian king Croesus.
  15. ↑ Johannes Aventinus (Johann Georg Turmair von Abensberg, 1477–1534), historiographer at the Bavarian court.
  16. ↑ Gampar is the seventh king in the (fictional) genealogy of the kings of the ancient Germans going back to the Great Flood in Aventinus' Annales (1522). Aventinus gives Gampar's regnal years as 1711–1667 BC.
  17. ↑ Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 275 – 339)
  18. ↑ Pittakos of Mitylene (Lesbos), 7th c. BC, one of the Seven Sages. He led the Mitylenians against the Athenians and arranged a duel with Phrynon, an Olympic champion in pankration, by which to settle the war. He defeated Phrynon by trapping him in a net. The greater Ajay met Hector in place of Achilles (Iliad 7.181), the fight lasted the entire day and Hector was lightly wounded, and the heroes then parted with mutual respect. Porus, "king of India" was defeated by Alexander in the battle of Hydaspes in 326 BC. I have so far failed to identify Pyrechmen and Degmemnus.
  19. ↑ Mair gives more detail on this judicial duel of 1409 in the second volume. According to this account, the combatants were Wilhelm Marschalk von Dornsberg and Theodor Haschenacker, and the shields of the combatants were preserved in St. Leonard's church outside of the city until the tower of this church was demolished on 3 November 1542.
  20. ↑ Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata ("Sayings of kings and emperors") in Plutarch's Moralia.
  21. ↑ Vienna: mit schaden "with damage", Dresden: mit schanden "with dishonour/ignominy".
  22. ↑ Tacitus' Germania was unknown during the medieval period; rediscovered in 1455, the text was popularized in German humanism only from c. 1500; it is summarized by Aventinus, who is Mair's source, in his Annales ducum Boiariae (1522), the German-language edition of which (Bairische Chronik 1533) was just about ten years old when Mair wrote his text.
  23. ↑ pafese read for gafese (i.e. pavese, the infantry shields comparable to the Roman rectangular shields of the early imperial period)
  24. ↑ Tuisto is the primeval god of the Germanic peoples according to Tacitus. Aventinus euhemerizes him as the grandson of Noah and first king of the Germans (r. 2214–2038 BC). Herman here is not the historical Arminius, but the fifth king in Aventinus' list (r. 1820–1757 BC), founder of the Herminones or continental Germans.
  25. ↑ Mair's source is the Turnierbuch of Georg Rüxner (c. 1490), edited in Augsburg by Marx Würsung (1518). Rüxner describes a series of 36 "imperial tournaments" (Reichs-Turniere) between 938 and 1487, beginning with a legendary tournament held in Magdeburg during what Rüxner makes out as the reign of Henry I the Fowler.
  26. ↑ the successive Habsburg emperors Frederick III, Maximilian I and Charles V, spanning the period since the supposed disestablishment of the knightly tournament and the establishment of the Brotherhood of St. Mark or Marxbrüder. The Freifechter denounced by Mair seem to represent an early form of the guild later known as Federfechter (unless the term still has a generic meaning, frei as in "unincorporated").
  27. ↑ Schlaraffenland is the German adaptation of Coquaigne (Cucania), first encountered in the 15th century (as schlauraff, schluderaffe) and popularised by Hans Sachs (1558). The name seems to originate as an (unattested) medieval slur meaning "lazy idler", schlu(de)r-affe, lit. "drooping ape".
  28. ↑ Ligatura non sequitur.
  29. ↑ Non sequitur.
  30. ↑ Ninus: the legendary founder of Nineveh according to Ctesias (Persica, ca. 400 BC); Ctesias' Sardanapolus corresponds to Ashurbanipal (669 - 627 BC); Ctesias is a rather unreliable source by comparison with Herodotus and the Ptolemaic king list; but in any case knowledge on the Assyrian empire was very limited before the decipherment of cuneiform in the 1850s.
  31. ↑ Gideon: Judges 7:4-7; David: Psalm 144:1: "Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight" (KJV).
  32. ↑ Mair writes “Kunstfechtbuch”; “art of fencing” would be “Fechtkunst”. It is not clear whether this is just a question of usage or a deliberate difference.
  33. ↑ “Welsch” refers to neighbouring peoples speaking a romance language, so it could mean French, Italian, Spanish or Romansh.
  34. ↑ German rappier, Latin ensibus Hispanis
  35. ↑ The Cod. icon. 393 text translates to “Fencing on foot, in which we use round shields and Spanish swords, in the fashion of the Italians, is 56 plays”).
  36. ↑ Mair here uses “die Wag” (pl. “Wagen”), which I am assuming refers to “balance scale” (die Waage, pl. Waagen), and by extension the structure providing for the balance. It could also be derived from “wagen” (to dare), but the derivation is not convincing. A derivation from “der Wagen” (cart, carriage) is linguistically not supported. The other two MS do not contain this passage, so a comparison is not possible.
  37. ↑ 37.000 37.001 37.002 37.003 37.004 37.005 37.006 37.007 37.008 37.009 37.010 37.011 37.012 37.013 37.014 37.015 37.016 37.017 37.018 37.019 37.020 37.021 37.022 37.023 37.024 37.025 37.026 37.027 37.028 37.029 37.030 37.031 37.032 37.033 37.034 37.035 37.036 37.037 37.038 37.039 37.040 37.041 37.042 37.043 37.044 37.045 37.046 37.047 37.048 37.049 37.050 37.051 37.052 37.053 37.054 37.055 37.056 37.057 37.058 37.059 37.060 37.061 37.062 37.063 37.064 37.065 37.066 37.067 37.068 37.069 37.070 37.071 37.072 37.073 37.074 37.075 37.076 37.077 37.078 37.079 37.080 37.081 37.082 37.083 37.084 37.085 37.086 37.087 37.088 37.089 37.090 37.091 37.092 37.093 37.094 37.095 37.096 37.097 37.098 37.099 37.100 37.101 37.102 37.103 37.104 37.105 37.106 37.107 37.108 37.109 37.110 37.111 37.112 37.113 37.114 37.115 37.116 37.117 37.118 37.119 37.120 37.121 37.122 37.123 37.124 37.125 37.126 37.127 37.128 37.129 37.130 37.131 37.132 37.133 37.134 37.135 37.136 37.137 37.138 37.139 37.140 37.141 37.142 37.143 37.144 37.145 37.146 37.147 37.148 37.149 37.150 37.151 37.152 37.153 37.154 37.155 37.156 37.157 As in the illustration.
  38. ↑ 'Long edge' is not listed in ty.
  39. ↑ sic : beide
  40. ↑ Alber, "Fool".
  41. ↑ 41.00 41.01 41.02 41.03 41.04 41.05 41.06 41.07 41.08 41.09 41.10 41.11 41.12 41.13 As in the left side of the illustration.
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 42.3 42.4 42.5 42.6 42.7 42.8 As in the right side of the illustration.
  43. ↑ Marginalie unleserlich
  44. ↑ ”streck dein leyb und deine armen wol”
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Uberlauffen.
  46. ↑ sic : seinem ?
  47. ↑ Also matches the illustration.
  48. ↑ The words are marked with numbers above. Probably it is to keep track of word order.
  49. ↑ sic : hinndersich
  50. ↑ As in the illustration before dropping the sword.
  51. ↑ The Hacken or "Leg Hook".
  52. ↑ As in the illustration, though it shows the attack to the wrong side.
  53. ↑ sic : widerumb
  54. ↑ sic : seinem
  55. ↑ sic : schniten
  56. ↑ Force it upward
  57. ↑ sic : seinnen ?
  58. ↑ 21r
  59. ↑ Likely at your right shoulder.
  60. ↑ Move out of the way.
  61. ↑ Thrust.
  62. ↑ Step
  63. ↑ As in the illustration, though there is an artistic error.
  64. ↑ The illustration suggests that this action should be done to your left side, rather than to your right.
  65. ↑ Literally: put
  66. ↑ Literally: pull back the left foot
  67. ↑ German: his
  68. ↑ German: grab with your left hand from below outside over his right arm
  69. ↑ rechten
  70. ↑ Note: Change of grip required, or the illustration does not match.
  71. ↑ Dagger transfer necessary at this point.
  72. ↑ Note: person on left side starts with the dagger in the left hand according to the illustration.
  73. ↑ Note: push down, not out
  74. ↑ Arbait - technical term: work, force, struggle
  75. ↑ Vienna and Munich MS Latin: right.
  76. ↑ read: locitur
  77. ↑ Latin: snatch up.
  78. ↑ Note: the illustration shows ice-pick grip.
  79. ↑ "You will lick it!" Not pleasant if the dagger is lying on it. Especially in cold weather.
  80. ↑ May not represent the changing though described.
  81. ↑ Note illustration shows ice-pick grip.
  82. ↑ Note: left is corrected from a right. Left is correct.
  83. ↑ This seems to imply both parallel action and simultaneity.
  84. ↑ Reib - strong twisting, bending, rotating motion.
  85. ↑ Image shows left.
  86. ↑ From the inner side.
  87. ↑ From the Latin text
  88. ↑ Correct from underich.
  89. ↑ Could also mean immediately
  90. ↑ zucken; Latin – to withdraw
  91. ↑ Only in the Latin.
  92. ↑ Inn - unclear whether directional or locational.
  93. ↑ The one in the left hand?
  94. ↑ Only in the Latin.
  95. ↑ ge..nen/ge..ch?; tibia in Latin
  96. ↑ weakness, hardship, trouble, difficulty, vulnerability, out of balance
  97. ↑ Possible abbreviation of gegen – geg.
  98. ↑ Odd squiggle in the middle—f from previous line?
  99. ↑ Scribal error for pungito?
  100. ↑ Strange squiggle above the c.
  101. ↑ Squiggle – looks like the Munich MS symbol for us?
  102. ↑ Error for interim?
  103. ↑ Written as “in Clinando”
  104. ↑ NB, likely scribal error for “laevam”
  105. ↑ Second u has three dots almost like ǜ.
  106. ↑ Error for dextrum?
  107. ↑ Barred, or bolted.
  108. ↑ Pliers, or fire-tongs.
  109. ↑ Wrestlers wear a leather collar? Hmmm...
  110. ↑ Comb, carder?
  111. ↑ A variant on the o-goshi in judo.
  112. ↑ sic : Im mit
  113. ↑ »sst« oberhalb der Zeile korrigiert aus »fft«
  114. ↑ A technique for putting the opponent down head first with his feet in the air.
  115. ↑ Dagger pommel?! I have actually no idea what he is thinking here. My only guess is that it was late on Friday afternoon, and must have mistaken ”kopff” with ”knopff”.
  116. ↑ 116.0 116.1 Choosing to read this as equivalent to modern German einengen. “Trapped” as a translation for eineinden follows from this choice. Buyer beware.
  117. ↑ Corrections indicate it should be zu Im hinein
  118. ↑ "Not the lower point". Why the awkward construction here? Why not say superiorem mucronem (or proper Latin equivalent)?
  119. ↑ Verborgnen Stich/Ort: "Concealed Thrust/Point".
  120. ↑ sic : verborgnen
  121. ↑ Should be left.
  122. ↑ Latin text says “footman's”, which is probably just a miss on the scribe's behalf.
  123. ↑ Latin: How to use lance against an opponent with a sword.
  124. ↑ Latin: Another defence with sword against lance.
  125. ↑ Latin: A technique where you lower the lance over the right shoulder and thus fell the opponent's horse.
  126. ↑ Latin: A way of stopping the opponent from turning the horse.
  127. ↑ Latin: A technique where you grab hold of the chest of the opponent with both hands and abduct him.
  128. ↑ Latin: A throwing technique by inserting a hook, by which insert without him knowing.
  129. ↑ How to pull the bridle off a horse.
  130. ↑ Latin: Horses.
  131. ↑ While the text is identical, the illustration in the Dresden version is different from that of Munich and Vienna versions.
  132. ↑ The text is a bit ambiguous on how this is done, but judging from the picture it seems as the you are already having the pommel on your right side and the strike to the face and the parry is done in the same motion.
  133. ↑ In both Latin and German, foot and leg can be the same word.
  134. ↑ Tong hold – see wrestling chapter.
  135. ↑ One knee on the ground.
  136. ↑ "With" is crossed over and replaced with a smaller text "against" in the Latin text. It is most probably "against", as the text reads in the German text.
Early Germanic Traditions
Common Fencing Johannes Liechtenauer reversed.jpg
Wrestling
Liechtenauer
Tradition
Beringer Verse
Augsburg Tradition
Other Works
Fabris Tradition
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