Johannes Liechtenauer

Die Zettel
	The Record
Full Title	A Record of the Chivalric Art of Fencing
Ascribed to	Johannes Liechtenauer
Illustrated by	Unknown
Date	Fourteenth century (?)
Genre	Fencing manual ; Wrestling manual ;
Language	Early New High German
Archetype(s)	Hypothetical
Principal; Manuscript(s)	MS 3227a (ca. 1390) ; MS Chart.A.558 (1448) ; Cod.44.A.8 (1452) ;
Manuscript(s)	MS Thott.290.2º (1459) ; Cod.Guelf.78.2 Aug.2º (ca. 1465-80) ; Cgm 1507 (ca.1470) [more]
First Printed; English Edition	Tobler, 2010
Concordance by	Michael Chidester
Translations	Traduction française ; Deutsch-Übersetzung ; Magyar fordítás [more]

Johannes Liechtenauer (Hans Lichtenauer, Lichtnawer) was a late-14th century German fencing master. The only account of his life was written by the anonymous author of the Pol Hausbuch, arguably the earliest text in the tradition, and he may have been alive at that time.^[1] The text reads:

First and foremost, you should notice and remember that there's only one art of the sword, and it was discovered and developed hundreds of years ago, and it's the foundation and core of all fencing arts. Master Liechtenauer understood and practiced this art completely and correctly; as already written, he did not discover or invent it himself, but rather traveled through many lands and searched for the true and correct art for the sake of experiencing and knowing it.^[2]

Liechtenauer was described by his followers as the "high master" or "grand master" of the art, and authored a long poem called the Zettel ("Record"). Early masters in the tradition often wrote extensive glosses (commentaries) on this poem, using it to structure their teachings, and later masters still quoted it even as the tradition evolved and expanded. Liechtenauer's influence on the German fencing tradition as we currently understand it is almost impossible to overstate. The masters on Paulus Kal's roll of the Fellowship of Liechtenauer were responsible for most of the significant fencing treatises of the 15th century, and Liechtenauer's teachings were also the apparent focus of the German fencing guilds, the Marxbrüder (which appeared in the late 15th century and gained a monopoly on certification of fencing masters) and the Veiterfechter (which appeared in the late 16th century and challenged that monopoly).

Additional facts have sometimes been presumed about Liechtenauer based on secondary evidence. The Pol Hausbuch, which is undated internally but commonly placed around 1390 and also presumed to be written by a direct student of Liechtenauer's (though both of these assertions are disputed and the manuscript could be a 15th century work^[3]), has been treated as evidence placing Liechtenauer's career in the late 1300s. Others point to the earliest internally-dated version of the Record, recorded by Hans Talhoffer in the MS Chart.A.558 (ca. 1448), to suggest a career in the early 1400s; an earlier version of the Record of the Long Sword, jumbled and fragmentary, is recorded in MS G.B.f.18a (ca. 1418-28) and apparently attributed to an H. Beringer, which could represent just one of the teachings that Liechtenauer received and compiled over the course of the journeys described in the Pol Hausbuch.

This potential range of dates can be narrowed somewhat by Paulus Kal, who recorded a list of masters associated with Liechtenauer in ca. 1470 which he referred to as the Fellowship of Liechtenauer.^[4] While most of these masters are completely unknown, three of them—Martin Huntsfeld, Andre Lignitzer, and Ott Jud—were already deceased by the time the earliest surviving copies of their treatises were created in 1452 (Cod.44.A.8), which suggests that their careers probably occurred in the early 15th century (if not earlier); likewise, Sigmund Ainring's presumptive student Albrecht III of Bavaria would have required a fencing master as part of his education in the 1410s. These timeframes cohere with the proposed 1390 date of the Pol Hausbuch and with the prospect of Liechtenauer's career beginning in the late 14th century and extending into the early 15th.

Treatise

Liechtenauer's teachings are preserved in a long poem of rhyming couplets called the Zettel ("Record"), covering fencing with the "long" or extended sword (i.e. with both hands at one end of the sword) and dueling on horseback and on foot using the lance/spear, the "short" or retracted sword (i.e. with one hand at either end), and the dagger. These "obscure and cryptic words" were designed to prevent the uninitiated from learning the techniques they represented; they also seem to have offered a system of mnemonic devices to those who understood their significance. The Record was treated as the core of the art by his students, and masters such as Sigmund ain Ringeck, Peter von Danzig zum Ingolstadt, and Lew wrote extensive commentaries that sought to clarify and expand upon these teachings.

In addition to the verses on mounted dueling, several treatises in the Liechtenauer tradition include a group of twenty-six "figures" (figuren)—phrases that are shorter than Liechtenauer's couplets and often arranged into the format of a Medieval tree diagram. These figures seem to encode the same teachings as the verses of the mounted fencing, and both are quoted in the mounted glosses. However, figures follow a very different structure than the Zettel does, and may present an alternative sequence for studying Liechtenauer's techniques. It is not known why the mounted dueling is the only section of the Record to receive figures in addition to verse.

Seventeen manuscripts contain a presentation of at least one section of the Record as a distinct (unglossed) section; there are dozens more presentations of the verse as part of one of the several glosses. The longest version of the Record by far is actually found in one of these glosses, that of Pseudo-Hans Döbringer, which contains almost twice as many verses as any other; however, given that the additional verses tend to either be repetitions from elsewhere in the Record or use a very different style from Liechtenauer's work, they are generally treated as additions by the anonymous author or his instructor rather than being part of the original Record. The other surviving versions of the Record from all periods show a high degree of consistency in both content and organization, excepting only the much shorter version attributed to H. Beringer (which is also included in the writings of Hans Folz).

The following concordance tables include only those texts that quote Liechtenauer's Record in an unglossed form.^[5] Most manuscripts present the Record as prose, and those have had the text separated out into the rhyming couplets to offer a consistent view and make comparison easier.

Note: This article includes a version of Christian Henry Tobler's translation. It was also published in 2021 by Freelance Academy Press as part of The Peter von Danzig Fight Book; it can be purchased in hardcover.

Featured Translation (from the Rome) (2021) [edit]
by Christian Henry Tobler

[1] Here Begin the Notes on the Knightly Art of Combat That Was Composed and Created by Johannes Liechtenauer, Who Was A Great Master in the Art, God Have Mercy on Him; first with the long sword, then with the lance and sword on horseback, and then with the shortened sword in armoured combat. Because the art belongs to princes and lords, knights and squires, and they should know and learn this art, he has written of this art in hidden and secret words, so that not everyone will grasp and understand it, as you will find described below. And he has done this on account of frivolous fight masters who mistake the art as trivial, so that such masters will not make his art common or open with people who do not hold the art in respect as is its due.

[2] This is the Prologue

1	Young knight, learn to love God and revere women;
2	thus your honor will grow. Practice knighthood and learn
3	the Art that dignifies you, and brings you honor in wars.
4	Be a good grappler in wrestling; lance, spear, sword, and messer


5	handle manfully, and foil them in your opponent's hands.

6	Strike in and hasten forth; rush to, let it hit, or go by.
7	Thus those with wisdom, the ones who are revered, will envy him.
8	This you should grasp: All arts have length and measure.

[3] This is a General Teaching of the Long Sword

9	If you want to behold the art, see that you go on the left and strike with the right.
10	And left to right, is how you strongly want to fight.
11	He who follows the strokes, should rejoice little in his art.
12	Strike close whatever you will, no changer will come into your shield.
13	To the head, to the body do not shun the tag-hits.
14	Fight with the entire body, what you powerfully want to do.

15	Listen to what is wrong, do not fight above on the left if you are righthanded;
16	and if you are lefthanded, on the right you limp as well.
17	Before and after, these two things, are to all skill a well-spring.
18	Weak and strong, always remember the word meanwhile.
19	So you may learn to work and defend with skill.
20	If you are easily intimidated, no fencing should you learn.

[4]

21	Learn five strokes from the right side against the opposition.

22	Then we promise that your arts will be rewarded.

[5] This is the text:

23	Wrath stroke, crooked, thwart, squinter and scalper,
24	fool parries chasing, overrunning gives strokes,

25	change through, pull, run through, slice off, press the hands,
26	hang, wind with the openings; strike, catch, slash, thrust with jabs.

[6] The Wrath Stroke

27	Who strikes at you above, the wrath stroke threatens him with the point.
28	If he becomes aware of it, take it away above without fear.
29	Be strong against it; wind, thrust. If he sees that, take it down.
30	Note this: strike, thrust, posture, soft or hard,
31	meanwhile, and before and after. Your war should not be in haste.
32	Who to the war tends above, gets ashamed below.
33	In all winding learn to find stroke, thrust, and slice.
34	Also you should apply stroke, thrust, or slice,
35	in all encounters, if you want to fool the masters.

[7] The Four Openings

36	Four openings know, aim: so you hit certainly,
37	without any danger without regard for how he acts.

[8] To Counter the Four Openings

38	If you want to avenge yourself, break the four openings with skill:
39	double above, transmute below correctly.
40	I say to you truthfully: no one can defend himself without danger;

41	if you have correctly learned, he will scarcely manage to strike.

[9] The Crooked Stroke

42	Crooked on him with nimbleness, throw the point on the hands.
43	Who performs the crooked well, with stepping he hinders many a stroke.
44	Strike crooked to the flats of the masters if you want to weaken them.
45	When it clashes above, then move away, that I will praise.
46	Don't do the crooked, strike short, changing through show with this.
47	Strike crooked to who irritates you, the noble war will confuse him,
48	that he will not know truthfully where he can be without danger.

[10] The Thwart Stroke

49	The thwart stroke takes whatever comes from the roof.
50	Thwart with the strong, note your work with this.
51	Thwart to the plow; to the ox hard together.
52	He who thwarts well with springing, he endangers the head.
53	Whoever conducts the failer from below, he hits at his will.
54	The reverser enforces the running through and also brings wrestling.
55	The elbow take certainly, spring into his balance.

56	Double the failer, if you hit, also make the slice.
57	Twice further on, step to the left and do not be slow.

[11] The Squinting Stroke

58	The squinter breaks into whatever a buffalo strikes or thrusts.
59	Who threatens to change through, the squinter robs him of it.
60	Squint when he is short against you, changing through defeats him.
61	Squint to the point, and take the throat without fear.
62	Squint to the head above if you want to damage the hands.

[12] The Scalp Cut

63	The scalper is a danger to the face,
64	with its turn, very dangerous to the breast.
65	Whatever comes from him, the crown will take it.
66	Slice through the crown, thus you will break it hard through.
67	Press the strokes, with slices pull them away.

[13] The Four Guards

68	Four guards alone hold; and disdain the common.
69	Ox, plow, fool, from the Roof should not be unknown to you.

[14] The Four Oppositions

70	Four are the oppositions that hurt the four guards very much.
71	Beware of parrying. If it happens to you, it troubles you greatly.
72	If you are parried and when that has happened,
73	hear what I advise to you: tear away and strike quickly with surprise.
74	Set upon the four ends. Stay upon them, learn if you want to bring it to an end.

[15] Chasing

75	Learn the chasing twice, or slice into the weapon.
76	Two outer intentions. The work after that begins.
77	And test the attacks if they are soft or hard.
78	Learn the feeling. The word meanwhile slices sharply.
79	Chase twice, if you hit, do the ancient slice as well.

[16] Overrunning

80	Who wants to strike below, overrun him, and he will be shamed.
81	When it clashes above, then strengthen: this I truly do praise.
82	Do your work, or press hard twice.

[17] Setting Aside

83	Learn to set aside, to skillfully hinder stroke and thrust.
84	Who thrusts at you, your point hits and counters his.
85	From both sides hit every time if you want to step.

[18] Changing Through

86	Learn the changing through from both sides, thrust with intent.
87	Whoever binds to you, changing through will find him indeed.

[19] Pulling

88	Step close in binding. The pulling provides good finds.
89	Pull–if he meets, pull more. Find the work that will hurt him.
90	Pull in all encounters against the masters, if you want to fool them.

[20] Running Through

91	Run through, let hang with the pommel. Grasp if you want to wrestle.
92	Who comes strongly at you, the running through then remember.

[21] Slicing Off

93	Slice off the hard ones, from below in both attacks.
94	Four are the slices: two below and two above.

[22] Pressing Hands


95	Turn your edge, press the hands to the flats.

[23] Two Hangings


96	There are two hangings from one side from the ground.
97	In all attacks strike, thrust, posture–soft or hard.

[24] The Speaking Window

98	Do the speaking window, stand blithely and look at his actions.
99	Strike him until he is defeated. When he withdraws from you,

100	I say to you truthfully: no one protects himself without danger.
101	If you have learned this, he can scarcely manage to strike.

[25] This Is the Conclusion of the Notes

102	Who conducts well and breaks properly and finally makes it all right
103	and splits particularly everything into three wounders;
104	who properly well hangs and also executes the windings,
105	and the eight windings views in a righteous way,
106	and each one of those same winds I consider to be triple
107	so they are twenty-four.
108	And count them only, from both sides. Eight windings learn with stepping.
109	And test the bind no more than soft or hard.

[26]

Featured Translation (from the Rome) (2021) [edit] by Christian Henry Tobler	Nuremberg Version Ⅰ (1390) Transcribed by Dierk Hagedorn	Gotha Version (1448) [edit] Transcribed by Dierk Hagedorn	Rome Version (1452) [edit] Transcribed by Dierk Hagedorn	Glasgow Version Ⅰ (1508) [edit] Transcribed by Dierk Hagedorn	Krakow Version (1535-40) [edit] Transcribed by Michael Chidester	Augsburg Version Ⅱ (1553) [edit] Transcribed by Werner Ueberschär
[1]						[165v.1] Figuren des Roßfechtens
[2] Direct your spear etc. If it falls etc. Strike in, don’t pull, etc. Gloss: Pull to his left, grasp in his right, so you catch him there without fencing.			[07v.1] Dein Sper bericht etc Ob es emphal etc Haw dreyn nichtt Zuckch etcettera Glosa lingck zu Im ruck · Greyff in sein rechten · so vechst du In ane vechttenn			[18r.14] Dein sper bericht &c wer es entfalle, den end im abschnalle. Hau drein nicht zuckhe, glest linkh &c vnd fach sein rechte.
[3] The 1st figure: Charge from the breast to his right hand.		[22v.1] Jag võ der prust zu seiner rechtñ hant	[07v.2] Die erst figur Jag von der prust zu seiner rechten hand	[74r.1] 1 Jag von deiner prust zw seiner rechten handt	[165v.2] Jag vonn der rechten brust, zu seinner rechtn hannt.~	[18r.1] Jag von derr prust zu seiner recht handt
[4] The 2nd figure: Turn around with the horse, pull his right hand with your left.	[53r.11] ·begreif seyn were · mit dem ros dich vmbekere /	[22v.2] vmbker mit roß sein rechte hant mit deyner lincken	[07v.3] Die ander figur Vmbkere mitt dem Rozz Zewch sein rechte handt mitt deiner lingken	[74r.2] 2 Vmb ker mit dem roß / zeuch sein rechte handt mit deiner lincken	[165v.23] Umbkere mit dem roß zeuch sein rechte hannt mit deiner lincknn	[18r.2] Vmbker mit dem Roß zeuch sein recht hand mit deiner linkhen
[5] The 3rd figure: Upon the encounter, take the stirrup-strap or the weapon.		[22v.3] mit stechñ satel In oder ver plent	[07v.4] Die dritt figur Mitt strayffen Satel ryem · oder wer nymbe	[74r.3] 3 Mit Straÿffen satel riem / oder wer nymbt	[165v.4] Mit straiffenn sattel ryem oder wer nimpt	[18r.3] Mit streffen satel rien[g] oder were Nymbt,
[6] The 4th figure: Plant upon him high, swing, go through or break the sword.	[53r.9] Hoch an du setze · swenke durchfar wiltu in letzen /	[22v.4] Secz an hoch swenck durch var oder swert pricht	[07v.5] Die vyerdt figur Setz an hoch swing durch var · oder Swert prich	[74r.4] 4 Setz an hoch / schwing / durchfar / oder schwert prich	[165v.5] Setz ann hoch schwing durch var oder schwert prich	[18r.4] Secz an, hoch schwing durch vor oder schwert pricht
[7] The 5th figure: The defense precedes all meetings, striking, or thrusting.		[22v.5] des schute~ vorgeng allen treffenn hawe~ stechen	[07v.6] Die funfft figur Daz schuten vorgenngk allen treffenn hawen vnnd stechen	[74r.5] 5 Das schutten / vor geng allen treffen / hawen stechen	[165v.6] Das schutten vorgenngk allenn treffenn hauenn und stechenn	[18r.5] Das Schutten volg genckh allen treffen hawen vnd stechen
[8] The 6th figure: Take the strong with both hands.		[22v.6] Greiff mit peyde~ henden an dye strick	[07v.7] Die sechst figur Greyff an mitt payden henndten die sterck	[74r.6] 6 Greyff an mit paiden henden die sterck	[165v.7] Greiff ann mit paiden henden die sterck	[18r.6] Greiff an mit baiden, henden, die sterkh,
[9] The 7th figure: Now begin to seek the opponent with the pouch stroke.		[22v.9] Hye hebt mã den tasche~ hawe czu such	[07v.8] Die sybendt figur Hie heb an den mann taschen haw zu suechen	[74r.7] 7 Hie heb an den man taschen haw zw suechen	[165v.8] Hie heb ann dem mann taschenn hau zu suchenn	[18r.7] Hie heb an, den mann dass er fare zu suchen
[10] The 8th figure: Turn his right hand, set the point to his eyes.		[22v.7] Went Im dy recht hant secz dein ort czu seine~ gesicht	[07v.9] Die Achtt figur Wenndt Im die recht hanndt · setze den ortt zu den augen sein	[74r.8] 8 Went im die recht handt setz dein ortt zw seinem gesicht	[165v.9] Wennt im die recht hannt setze den ort zu denn augenn sein	[18r.8] Wend jm die recht hannd secz im den ort zu den augen sein
[11] The 9th figure: Who defends against the thrust, grasp his right hand in your left.		[22v.8] weyl der stich wert den vahe sey~ rechte hant dey~ lincke	[07v.10] Die Newnt figur Wer den stich wertt dem vach sein rechte handt in dein lincken	[74r.9] 9 Wer den stich went dem vach sein rechte handt in dem glincke /	[165v.10] Wer denn stich weret dem vach sein rechte hannt mit deiner linckn	[18r.9] Wer den stich wert dem fach sein rechten hand in dein linckhe,
[12] The 10th figure: Seek the openings: arms, leather, gauntlets, under the eyes.		[22v.11] such dy ploß arm dÿ hant scheuch vnter dÿ auge~	[07v.11] Die Zechent figur Suechee die ploss arm leder hanndtschuech vndtir den augen	[74r.11] 11 Suech die plos arm~ leder handt schuech vndter den augen	[165v.11] Such die plös arm leder handschuh unnther den augenn	[18r.10] Such die ploß arm lert hand stich vnder die augen
[13] The 11th figure: Press hard, push from the reins and seek his Messer.	[55r.13] Drük vast mit stössen · vom zawm / süche messer reme der blossen /	[22v.10] truck vast stoß von czam vnd such sey~ meßer	[07v.12] Die ayndlifft figur Druck vast stoss von tzawm · sueche sein Messer	[74r.10] 10 Drück vast stoß vom zaüm vnd suech sein messer	[165v.12] Druck vast stoß vonn zaum suche sein messerr	[18r.11] Druckh vast stoß vom zaum vnd such sein messer
[14] The 12th figure: With the empty hand learn two strokes against all weapons.		[22v.12] mit lerer hant lere czwen stich gege~ aller wer	[07v.13] Die Zwolfft figur Mitt lerer hanndt lere zwen strich gegen aller were	[74r.12] 12 Mit lerer handt lern straich gegen aller were /	[165v.13] Mit lerer hant lere zwen streich gegn der wer	[18r.12] Mit leerer hand leer zwen straich gen allen wöhr,
[15] The 13th figure: The sheep grip defends against all wrestling grips under the eyes.	[55r.3] Der schofgriff / weret · alle griffe vndern awgen veret / [57v.2] Der schofgrif mit lobe · wert alle griffe vndern ogen /</noinclude>	[22v.13] Der schaff griff weret alle griff rings vnt° augñ etc	[07v.14] Die dreitzechent figur Der schaf grif wertt · alle griff Ringens vndter augenn	[74v.1] 13 Der Schaffgriff werdt alle griff ringes vndter auge~	[165v.14] Der schopfgrif weret alle grif ringenns unnther augenn	[18r.13] Der schaffgriff wört alle griff ringens vnder augen,
[16] The 14th figure: Turn around again to where the horses hasten.		[23r.1] Anderweyt kere vmb so dy roß hin hurtñ	[08r.1] Die viertzendt figur Anderwayd kere vmb · so die Rozz hynn hurtten	[74v.2] 14 An der weidt ker vmb / so die roß hyn hurttñ /	[165v.15] Ann der weit kere umb so die ros hin hurtenn	[18v.1] Ander weit ker vmb so dir Ross hin hurtten,
[17] The 15th figure: Up close, catch the hand, turn over his face to where the nape is.		[23r.2] In der auch so vach dy hant v°ber sein antlicz do der nack ist	[08r.2] Die funfftzend figur In der nech vach die hanndt · verkere sein anttlitz da der nack ist	[74v.3] 15 In der nech fach die handt verker sein antlutz do der nacke ist	[166r.1] Inn der nehe vach die hant verker sein antzlig do der nack ist	[18r.2] Im der nch vach die hand, verker sein antlicz do sein nackh ist,
[18] The 16th figure: Catch the weapon from afar while you ride against him.		[23r.3] dye wer fach in der weyt in dem wider treibñ	[08r.3] Die sechtzechend figur Die were vach in der weytt · In dem wider Reytten	[74v.4] 16 Die weer fach in der weitt in dem wider reÿttñ	[166r.2] Die were vach in der weit in dem widerreittenn	[18r.3] Die wöhr vach jm der weit Im dem wider raiten
[19] The 17th figure: If you charge to the left, then fall to the sword pommel, jab under the eyes.		[23r.7] Jagstu linck so greiff auff des swertes ploß stoß In vntter augenn	[08r.4] Daz sybentzechend figur Jagst du lingk so vall auf Swertes Kloss · stoss vndter augenn	[74v.6] 18 Jagstu linck fall aüfs schwertz knopf stos vndter augen	[166r.3] Jagsts du lingk so vall auf schwerts kloß stos unnther augen	[18r.4] Jagstu linckh so fall auf schwerts Clos, stoß vnder augen,
[20] The 18th figure: Charge to the right side with its skill.		[23r.6] Jag czu seiner rechte~ hant mit Irenn chunstenn	[08r.5] Die achttzechendt figur Jage Zu der rechtten hanndt mitt Iren Kunsten	[74v.5] 17 Jag zw der rechtñ handt / mit irñ kunstñ	[166r.4] Jag zu der rechtenn hannt mit yrenn kunnstn	[18r.5] Jag zu der rechten hand mit jren kunsten
[21] The 19th figure: Plant the point upon him to the face.		[23r.4] Secz Im dein ort gege~ dem gesicht	[08r.6] Die Nëwntzechent figur Setz an den ortt gegen dem gesichtte	[74v.7] 19 Setz an den ortt gegen dem gesicht	[166r.5] Setz ann denn ort gegenn dem gesichterr	[18r.6] Secz an den ort gegen dem gesicht,
[22] The 20th figure: Shatter against all hits that ever happen.		[23r.5] Schut gege~ allenn treffenn dye ÿmer werdenn	[08r.7] Die tzwaintzigist figur Schutt gegen allen treffen · Diee ymmer werdenn	[74v.8] 20 Schutt gegen allen treffen die ym~er werdñ	[166r.6] Schut gegenn allenn treffenn die ÿmer werdenn	[18r.7] Schut gegen allen treffen die jmmer merkch
[23] The 21st figure: The strong in the beginning position yourself therein correctly.		[23r.10] dÿ strich zum anhebñ dar Inn schick dich recht	[08r.8] Die ain vnd tzwayntzigist figur Die sterck in dem anheben · Dar Inn dich rechtt schicke	[74v.9] 21 Die stercke in dem an hebñ daryn dich recht schick /	[166r.7] Die sterck in dem anheben darin dich rest schick	[18r.8] Die sterch jm dem anheben dar jm du dich recht schickh
[24] The 22nd figure: He who rushes the spear to the other is met beneath the eyes.		[23r.11] das ist nwe der sper lauff der de~ andñ begege~t vnt° augñ	[08r.9] Die tzwo vnd tzwaintzigst figur Das ist nun der sper lawff · der dem andern begegendt vndter augen	[74v.10] 22 Das ist nun der sper lauff der dem anderñ begegnet vndter augen /	[166r.8] Das is nunn der sperr lauff der dem anndern begegnet unther augenn	[18r.9] Das ist nun der sper lauf der dem andern begegnet vnder augen,
[25] The 23rd figure: The unnamed grip takes the weapon or fells him.		[23r.8] dye vngnnten griff wer nym oder fell In	[08r.10] Die drey vnd tzwaintzigist figur Der vngenant griff · wer nymbtt oder velt In	[74v.11] 23 Der vngenant griff weer ny~t oder felt in	[166r.9] Der ungenant griff wer nÿmbt oderr velt in	[18r.10] Der vngenant griff wer nymbt oder felt jn,
[26] The 24th figure: If an opponent charges you to both sides, turn around left and thus he rightly comes.		[23r.9] ob mã dich jagt võ peyde~ seÿte~ ker linck vmb so er rech ku~pt	[08r.11] Die vier vnd tzwaintzigist figur ob man dich Jagt zu bayden seytten kere vmb lingk so er rechtte kumbt	[74v.12] 24 Ob man dich jagt von paidñ seÿttñ ker vmb linck so er recht kumbt	[166r.10] Ob mann dich iagt zu peidenn seitenn kere umb linck so er recht kumbt	[18r.11] Ob man dich jagt von baiden seiten, ker umb linkh so er recht kunst
[27] The 25th figure: Be mindful to take and hold the Messer.		[23r.12] Der meßer neme~ vnd behaltñ gedenck	[08r.12] Die funff vnd tzwaintzigist figur Der Mezzer nemenn · vnd behalden gedenck	[75r.1] 25 Der messer nemen vnd behalden gedenck	[166r.11] Der messer nemenn unnd behaltenn gedenck	[18r.12] Der messer nemmen vnd behalten gedenckh,
[28] The 26th figure: Grasp over an opponent who falls upon you or ride against him.		[23r.13] vber greiff wer dich an velt thue In wider treyben	[08r.13] Die sechßvndtzwaintzigist figur vbergreif wer dich anvelet · oder thue Im wider Reyttens	[75r.2] 26 Vber greÿff wer dich an felt oder thue im wider reÿttens /	[166r.12] Ubergreiff werr dich ann vellet oder thue im widerreittenns	[18r.13] Vbergriff wer dich anfellt, oder thue jm vnderreittens
[29] If you want to grasp, you should not fail to ride beside him. Execute the sun pointer to the left sleeve if you want to bend. Who attacks you with that, grasp over against him and he will be shamed. Press the arm to the head. This grip often robs the saddle.			[08r.14] Wild du anfazzen neben reittens nit solt du lasen daz sunnen tzaigen lingk ermel treib wildu naygen Wer dir daz rembt vbergreifft den der wierd beschämbt druck arm zu haubt der griff offt sattel berawbett			[18r.14] Wilt du anfassen, neben raiten nicht soltu lassen, das zum len &c Werr dir das remt &c druck arm zu haubt, der grif oft selten beraubt.

Featured Translation (from the Rome) (2021) [edit]
by Christian Henry Tobler

[1] This is Master Johannes Liechtenauer’s Fighting on Horseback

[2]

1	Direct your spear. Riding against destroys.
2	If it drops, the end undoes him.





3	Strike in, don’t pull. From the scabbard, left to him jerk.




4	Grasp to his right thus you catch him without weapons work.





5	The fighting of lance-thrusting. Learn to counter calmly without haste.

[3]

6	If it changes so that the sword is used against the sword,
7	truly seize the strong. You seek the Pouch Stroke,
8	And remember: learn well to strongly defend. In all meetings, press him without danger,
9	plant upon without danger. Who grazes, hang to him to the hair.
10	If you want to calmly charge long, this troubles greatly
11	whoever now defends that. Then wind that hurts also.
12	If he defends against this further, grasp the bridle and do not let it go.
13	Be mindful of the openings, search for the Messer, do not tend to the pommel.

14	Learn two strokes with the empty hand against the weapon.

[4]

15	The sheep grip fends off him who turns to you with wrestling.
16	While under the eyes, grasp him truly with flying.
17	Who attacks you while riding towards, you will be felled.
18	Hanging to the ground. Grasp over against him truly with conduct.
19	To both sides you should learn to ride against him.

[5]

20	If you want to ride The horse run to the other side.
21	Defend strongly, Plant upon him threaten him with this.
22	Who defends against that, grasp his sword from afar, get to the handle.
23	Or turn around to calmly charge for the weapon
24	with all skill. He who charges, acts to his advantage.
25	If you have charged past him and unintentionally charge to the left,
26	follow his sword upwards and wrestle, push also hard.

[6]

27	If one charges on the right, stop; turn around; tend to the fight.
28	With the arm catch. Thus he cannot manage to harm you.

[7]

29	The Messer take. Hold, learn to shame him.
30	The unnamed, against the strong to turn
31	their strike, their thrust, is being defeated without any fencing.

[8]

32	If you want to grasp, you should not fail to ride beside him.
33	The sun pointer. Take the left sleeve if you want to bend.
34	Touch the forehead. Against the nape of the neck press very hard,
35	so that he sways and rarely makes it up again.
36	Who attacks you with that, grasp over against him and he will be shamed.
37	Press the arm to the head. This grip often robs the saddle.
38	If you want to retain yourself from seizing,
39	then take him into custody without wrestling, without any rope.
40	The before grip remember, this indeed breaks his strength.

[9] Here Begins the Art with the Short Sword in Dueling, of Master Johannes Liechtenauer, God Have Mercy on Him.

41	Who dismounts, begins fighting on foot.
42	This do with the spear: two positions begin truly.
43	Spear and point, thrust the initial thrust without fear.
44	Spring, wind set truly upon. If he defends pull, that will defeat him.
45	If you want to thrust before, with pulling learn to break his defense.
46	Note: if he wants to pull back from harm and flee,
47	then approach him to surely attend to grasp.

[10] This Is the Wrestling in Dueling

48	If you want to wrestle, learn to spring correctly behind the leg.
49	A bar shoot forth, that skillfully locks the leg.
50	From both sides, if you want to skillfully end.

[11]

51	If it happens that the sword against the spear is drawn,
52	then behold the thrusts. Spring, catch, hasten to him to wrestle.
53	Strike long with the left hand. Spring surely and seize him.
54	If he wants to draw from the scabbard, grasp and press in,
55	so that his openings with the sword point are troubled.
56	Leather and gauntlets, under the eyes, seek the openings correctly.

[12]

57	The forbidden wrestling, surely learn to use.
58	To lock your foe, the strong thereby overcome.
59	In all teachings turn the point against the openings.

[13]

60	When one sees that from the scabbard both swords are being drawn,
61	then shall one strengthen. The protection now truly remember.
62	Before and after, these two things, explore surely, learn also to spring away.
63	Follow in all meetings if you want to fool the strong.
64	If he defends, then pull. Thrust, if he defends, move to him.
65	If he fights extended, then be artfully instructed.
66	If he also attacks strongly, the thrusting defeats him.
67	With his striking point he defends himself—hit without fear.
68	With both hands learn to turn your point to the eyes.
69	The forward foot with striking you must protect.

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.

Alte Armature und Ringkunst: The Royal Danish Library Ms. Thott 290 2º (2020). Trans. by Rebecca L. R. Garber. Ed. by Michael Chidester; Dieter Bachmann. Somerville: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-04-5.
Kunst und Zettel im Messer: Bavarian State Library Cgm 582 (2021). Ed. by Michael Chidester. Somerville: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-16-8.
Acutt, Jay (2019). Swords, Science, and Society: German Martial Arts in the Middle Ages. Glasgow: Fallen Rook Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9934216-9-3.
Ain ringeck, Sigmund (2003). Sigmund Ringeck's Knightly Art of the Longsword. Trans. by David Lindholm. Boulder: Paladin Press. ISBN 978-1-58160-410-8.
Ain ringeck, Sigmund (2006). Sigmund Ringeck's Knightly Arts of Combat. Trans. by David Lindholm. Boulder: Paladin Press. ISBN 978-1-58160-499-3.
Alderson, Keith (2010). "On the Art of Reading: An Introduction to Using the Medieval German 'Fightbooks'." In the Service of Mars: Proceedings from the Western Martial Arts Workshop, 1999-2009: 251-286. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-0-9825911-5-4.
Alderson, Keith (2014). "Arts and Crafts of War: die Kunst des Schwerts in its Manuscript Context." Can These Bones Come to Life? Insights from Reconstruction, Reenactment, and Re-creation 1: 24-29. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-1-937439-13-2.
Bauer, Matthias Johannes (2014). "Ein Zedel Fechter ich mich ruem/Im Schwert un Messer ungestuem. Fechtmeister als protagonisten und als (fach)literarisches Motiv in den deutschsprachigen Fechtlehren des ittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit." Das Mittelalter 19(2): 302-325. Ed. by Christian Jaser; Uwe Israel. doi:10.1515/mial-2014-0018.
Bauer, Matthias Johannes (2014). "Fechten lehren 'mitt verborgen vnd verdeckten worten'. Fachsprache, Dialekt, Verballhornung und Geheimsprache in frühneuhochdeutschen Zweikampftraktaten." Das Schwert – Symbol und Waffe: 163-172. Ed. by Lisa Deutscher; Mirjam Kaiser; Sixt Wetzler. Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH. ISBN 978-3-89646-795-9.
Bauer, Matthias Johannes (2016). 'Der Alten Fechter gründtliche Kunst' – Das Frankfurter oder Egenolffsche Fechtbuch. Untersuchung und Edition. München: Herbert Utz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8316-4559-6.
Bergner, Ute; Johannes Gießauf (2006). Würgegriff und Mordschlag. Die Fecht- und Ringlehre des Hans Czynner (1538). Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. ISBN 978-3-201-01855-5.
Burkart, Eric (2016). "The Autograph of an Erudite Martial Artist: A Close Reading of Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 3227a." Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books. Transmission and Tradition of Martial Arts in Europe: 451-480. Ed. by Daniel Jaquet; Karin Verelst; Timothy Dawson. Leiden and Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004324725_017. ISBN 978-90-04-31241-8.
Burkart, Eric (2020). "Informationsverarbeitung durch autographe Notizen: Die ältesten Aufzeichnungen zur Kampfkunst des Johannes Liechtenauer als Spuren einer Aneignung praktischen Wissens." Mittelalter. Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Rezeptionsgeschichte S2: 117-158. doi:10.26012/mittelalter-25866.
Cheney, Stephen (2020). Ringeck • Danzig • Lew Longsword. Self-published. ISBN 979-8649845441.
Chidester, Michael; Dierk Hagedorn (2021). 'The Foundation and Core of All the Arts of Fighting': The Long Sword Gloss of GNM Manuscript 3227a. Somerville: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-05-2.
Chidester, Michael (2021). The Long Sword Gloss of GNM Manuscript 3227a. Somerville: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-13-7.
Chidester, Michael; Dierk Hagedorn (2024). Pieces of Ringeck: The Definitive Edition of the Gloss of Sigmund Ainring. Medford: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-41-0.
Finley, Jessica (2021). "'What's in a Name?' A Comparative Analysis of the Nomenclature of Johannes Lecküchner and Johannes Liechtenauer." Kunst und Zettel im Messer: Bavarian State Library Cgm 582: 157-174. Ed. by Michael Chidester. Somerville: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-16-8.
Finley, Jessica; Christian Henry Tobler (2022). "Warp and Weft: The Bauman Fight Book's Place in the Tapestry of German Fechtkunst." Bauman's Fight Book: Augsburg University Library Ⅰ.6.4º 2: 85-102. Ed. by Michael Chidester. Medford: HEMA Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-953683-27-4.
Gaite, Pierre (2018). "Exercises in Arms: the Physical and Mental Combat Training of Men-at-Arms in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries." Journal of Medieval Military History XVI. Ed. by Kelly DeVries; John France; Clifford J. Rogers. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 9781783273102.
Hagedorn, Dierk (2008). Transkription und Übersetzung der Handschrift 44 A 8. Herne: VS-Books. ISBN 978-3-932077-34-0.
Hagedorn, Dierk (2016). "German Fechtbücher from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance." Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books. Transmission and Tradition of Martial Arts in Europe: 247-279. Ed. by Daniel Jaquet; Karin Verelst; Timothy Dawson. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-31241-8.
Hagedorn, Dierk (2017). Jude Lew: Das Fechtbuch. Herne: VS-Books. ISBN 978-3-932077-46-3.
Hagedorn, Dierk (2021). Albrecht Dürer. Das Fechtbuch. Herne: VS-Books. ISBN 9783932077500.
Hagedorn, Dierk; Christian Henry Tobler (2021). The Peter von Danzig Fight Book. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-1-937439-53-8.
Hagedorn, Dierk; Helen Hagedorn; Henri Hagedorn (2021). Renaissance Combat. Jörg Wilhalm's Fightbook, 1522-1523. Barnsley: Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1-78438-656-6.
Hagedorn, Dierk; Daniel Jaquet (2022). Dürer's Fight Book: The Genius of the German Renaissance and his Combat Treatise. Barnsley: Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1-784438-703-7.
Hagedorn, Dierk (2023). Das Ortenburger Fechtbuch. Herne: VS-Books. ISBN 978-3-932077-53-1.
Hergsell, Gustav; Hans Talhoffer (1889). Talhoffers Fechtbuch (Gothaer Codex) aus dem Jahre 1443. Prague: J.G. Calve.
Hergsell, Gustav; Hans Talhoffer (1893, 1901). Livre d'escrime de Talhoffer (codex Gotha) de l'an 1443. Prague: Chez L'Auteur.
Hils, Hans-Peter (1985). Meister Johann Liechtenauers Kunst des langen Schwertes. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang. ISBN 978-38-204812-9-7.
Hull, Jeffrey; Grzegorz Żabiński; Monika Maziarz (2007). Knightly Dueling: The Fighting Arts of German Chivalry. Boulder: Paladin Press. ISBN 978-1-581606744.
Kellett, Rachel E. (2015). "'...Vnnd schuß im vnder dem schwert den ort lang ein zu der brust': The Placement and Consequences of Sword-blows in Sigmund Ringeck's Fifteenth-Century Fencing Manual." Wounds and wound repair in Medieval culture: 128-150. Ed. by Larissa Tracy; Kelly DeVries. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004306455_007.
Lecküchner, Johannes (2015). The Art of Swordsmanship by Hans Lecküchner. Trans. by Jeffrey L. Forgeng. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 9781783270286.
Muhlberger, Steven (2005). Deeds of Arms. Highland Village: Chivalry Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-891448-44-7.
Muhlberger, Steven; Will McLean (2019). Murder, Rape, and Treason: Judicial Combats in the Late Middle Ages. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-1-937439-41-5.
Muhlberger, Steven (2020). Formal Combats in the Fourteenth Century. Witan Publishing. ISBN 979-8-662749-75-7.
Müller, Jan-Dirk (1992). "Bild – Verse – Prosakommentar am Beispiel von Fechtbüchern. Probleme der Verschriftlichung einer schriftlosen Praxis." Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter. Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsstufen: 251-282. Ed. by Hagen Keller; Klaus Grubmüller; Nikolaus Staubach. München: Fink.
R., Harry (2019). Peter von Danzig. Self-published. ISBN 978-0-36-870245-7.
Tobler, Christian Henry (2001). Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship. Union City: Chivalry Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-891448-07-2.
Tobler, Christian Henry (2006). In Service of the Duke: The 15th Century Fighting Treatise of Paulus Kal. Highland Village: Chivalry Bookshelf. ISBN 978-1-891448-25-6.
Tobler, Christian Henry (2010). In Saint George's Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-0-9825911-1-6.
Tobler, Christian Henry (2011). Captain of the Guild: Master Peter Falkner's Art of Knightly Defense. Wheaton: Freelance Academy Press. ISBN 978-1-937439-09-5.
Verelst, Karin (2016). "Finding a Way through the Labyrinth: Some Methodological Remarks on Critically Editing the Fight Book Corpus." Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books. Transmission and Tradition of Martial Arts in Europe: 117-188. Ed. by Daniel Jaquet; Karin Verelst; Timothy Dawson. Leiden and Boston: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004324725_008. ISBN 978-90-04-31241-8.
Vodička, Ondřej (2019). "Origin of the oldest German Fencing Manual Compilation (GNM Hs. 3227a)." Waffen- und Kostümkunde 61(1): 87-108.
Wallhausen, James (2010). Knightly Martial Arts: An Introduction to Medieval Combat Systems. Self-published. ISBN 978-1-4457-3736-2.
Welle, Rainer (2017). "Ein unvollendetes Meisterwerk der Fecht- und Ringkampfliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts sucht seinen Autor: der Landshuter Holzschneider und Maler Georg Lemberger als Fecht- und Ringbuchillustrator?." Codices manuscripti & impressi S12. Purkersdorf: Verlag Brüder Hollinek. ISBN 0379-3621.
Welle, Rainer (2021). Albrecht Dürer und seine Kunst des Zweikampfes: auf den Spuren der Handschrift 26232 in der Albertina Wien. Kumberg: Sublilium Schaffer, Verlag für Geschichte, Kunst & Buchkultur. ISBN 9783950500806.
Wierschin, Martin (1965). Meister Johann Liechtenauers Kunst des Fechtens. München: C. H. Beck.
Żabiński, Grzegorz (2008). "Unarmored Longsword Combat by Master Liechtenauer via Priest Döbringer." Masters of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts: 59-116. Ed. by John Clements. Boulder: Paladin Press. ISBN 978-1-58160-668-3.
Żabiński, Grzegorz (2010). The Longsword Teachings of Master Liechtenauer. The Early Sixteenth Century Swordsmanship Comments in the 'Goliath' Manuscript. Poland: Adam Marshall. ISBN 978-83-7611-662-4.

References

↑ When German writers were aware that a person was dead, they would add a formulaic blessing after their name (i.e., "God be gracious to him"); this manuscript doesn't, but 15th century manuscripts do.
↑ See folio 13v, trans. by Michael Chidester.
↑ Christian Henry Tobler. "Chicken and Eggs: Which Master Came First?" In Saint George's Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts. Wheaton, IL: Freelance Academy Press, 2010. p6
↑ The Fellowship of Liechtenauer is recorded in three versions of Paulus Kal's treatise: MS 1825 (1460s), Cgm 1507 (ca. 1470), and MS KK5126 (1480s).
↑ The figures are also often given as a preamble for the gloss of Lew, and a fragment of the short sword appears at the beginning of one strand of the treatise of Martin Huntsfeld, but those instances will likewise not be included below and instead treated as part of those treatises.
↑ Zettel is a tricky word to translate. The closest English cognate is “schedule” (both come from the Latin schedula), but only in the more obscure legal sense of a formal list, not the familiar sense of a timetable. It’s commonly used in modern German to denote a short list or a scrap of paper that could hold a list (like a receipt). I translate Zettel as “record” here (and capitalize and italicize it as the title of a written work), but other common translations include “epitome”, “notes”, and “recital”.
↑ More literally ‘dem Gott gnädig sei=may God grant him grace’. When German writers were aware that a person was dead, they would add this formulaic blessing after their name.
↑ The direct translation here would be “long sword”, but since it isn’t the sword that’s long and instead it’s holding the sword with both hands on the grip that ‘lengthens’ it, “extended sword” seems clearer. Compare “retracted sword” in the dueling lessons, which refers to placing the left hand on the blade. An alternative interpretation might be that the amount of blade extending in front of the hands is long in the langen Schwert grip and short in the kurtzen Schwert grip.
↑ The spelling ‘Schirmeister’ is ambiguous. A Schirmmeister is a fencing teacher, using the late medieval term for fencing (schirmen rather than fechten). A Schirrmeister is an aristocrat’s stablemaster, or a logistics officer in a military setting in charge of animals and anything pulled by animals (wagons, cannon, etc.). ‘Schirmeister’ could be a spelling of either one; Hans Medel reads it as the former. The Leichmeistere ridiculed by the author of ms. 3227^a in their introduction, often translated as “dance masters” or “play masters”, might be a shortening of this phrase (leichtfertigen schirmaister).
↑ The individual section headings don’t seem to be part of Liechtenauer’s original Record—or at least, the scribes seem to have treated them as non-authoritative and felt free to expand, contract, modify, or omit them entirely. They are only included here in abbreviated form and can be hidden along with the footnotes for easier reading.
↑ Jay Acutt has pointed out that the structure of the Record of the extended sword could be framed in terms of Classical rhetoric following Cicero and others, in which case this preface is the exordium, the introduction that appeals to the audience by declaring the speaker/writer’s ethos.
↑ Some version of this preface to the Record appears in most 15th century witnesses but is absent from most from the 16th; it’s generally included as part of the teaching on fencing with the extended sword, but the author of ms. 3227^a and Antonius Rast include abbreviated versions of it at the beginning of the mounted dueling verses, and Pseudo-Peter von Danzig includes it in their gloss of the retracted sword. Given this, and the fact that its teachings reference weapons only covered in the dueling section, I consider it a general preface to both sections of the Record.
↑ Note that though the preface is quoted by the glossators, it’s rarely discussed by them (see the notes below for exceptions).
↑ Jens P. Kleinau has pointed out that in the first couplet, the second line is much longer than most in the Record, while in this second couplet, the version used by the Lew gloss only includes the first line (as does the Dresden version of Sigmund ain Ringeck's gloss) and the version appearing in H. Beringer and Hans Folz only includes the second line. This may be evidence of a ‘seam’ in the Record where two early proto-Records were merged together, each of which only mentioned loving god in the first couplet and had honoring women as the first line of the second couplet. See his 2020 blog post for more details.
↑ In the same blog post, Jens P. Kleinau points out that the mention of Ehre (rendered “fame” in this line to avoid repetition) may be a later addition to the text, since some versions have sehre instead of zu Ehre, which makes the phrase and meter smoother; additionally, the idea of warfare as an avenue of increasing one’s honor is mostly absent from contemporary literature. Hofieren is to serve, often in a feudal or courtly sense, so the alternate rhymed version would be “And serve you well in war some day”.
↑ Messer is a term that we often associate with the iconic German machete-like knife taught by Johannes Lecküchner and others, but both historically and today it can refer to any kind of knife; mentions of it in the Record are usually interpreted as referring to daggers by the glossators.
↑ More literally “manly”, not “gallant”, but I’ve used ungendered language for the most part in this translation because I want readers to be able to more easily see themselves and their training partners in it regardless of their genders.
↑ Bederben and verderben could be read as synonyms in Early New High German (ENHG), both meaning “to destroy”, but that doesn’t make sense in context so we tend to read bederben in its Middle High German (MHG) definition of “to use”. H. Beringer uniquely has ‘bedurfen=need or make use of’, which reinforces this reading and could represent an earlier, less ambiguous phrasing.
↑ Jens-Peter sees a division here where the moralistic/inspirational address to the young knight ends and practical advice to a fencing student begins. I disagree, and think couplets 6–9 are still about mindset and morality in fighting.
↑ I will generally translate the verb hauwen as “to cut” since that’s the common parlance, but remember that there’s no connotation that the intent is to cleave anything or otherwise directly hit your opponent. The word is instead often used to describe a cutting motion that will set up further techniques (such as cutting in order to hit with a thrust).
↑ More literally “Charge in, let it hit or pass”.
↑ Couplet 6 isn’t directly glossed, but is mentioned by the author of ms. 3227^a in their gloss of the common lesson.
↑ The Lew gloss replaces couplet 7 with a completely different one:
So that your art and skill surely
Will then be praised as masterly.
Lew then omits couplet 8 entirely. This could be seen as part of the same ‘seam’ mentioned in the note on couplet 2.
↑ This word pair is translated in all kinds of ways, from the abstract/geometric (dimension and extension) to the colloquial (time and place, weighed and measured) to the fencing-specific (distance and reach). My translation goes with a more moralistic read, outlining two qualities the young knight needs to develop, both of which point to the cardinal virtue of temperance. This couplet isn’t directly glossed, but is mentioned by the author of ms. 3227^a in their gloss of the common lesson; it’s also invoked and connected to teachings in sword section of the Augsburg Group manuscripts.
↑ This couplet might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous one as two very long lines of a single couplet: "ettlich biderman in anden hanten veder ben / kunt er chunst er mocht wol eren erwerb".
↑ This couplet might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous one as two very long lines of a single couplet: "ettlich in andern hanten verderben / kündt er kunst er möcht ere erwerben".
↑ First letter almost illegible.
↑ First letter illegible.
↑ Classical rhetoric would label this section the narratio, the statement of basic facts and the nature of the things being discussed. This would suggest that this section is describing the basic model of how a ‘fight’ works: one fencer attacks with a downward blow from the proper side using proper footwork and threatens their opponent with the point, provoking a parry (the author of ms. 3227^a terms this a ‘Vorschlag=Leading Strike’); after this, the attacker progresses to the skirmish, attacking whatever target the parry has exposed (termed a ‘Nachschlag=Following Strike’).
↑ The early glosses interpret this as an admonition against passively waiting for your opponent’s actions, but I phrased it in a way that it could also lead Andre Paurenfeyndt and Joachim Meyer to turn it into a teaching about footwork.
↑ Couplet 11 is glossed separately in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew while 12–14 are grouped together as a sestain, but Sigmund ain Ringeck (and Hans Medel, who copies his text here) combine all four couplets into a single octet. The interpretation is the same in both groupings.
↑ This line is contentious because it encapsulates two approaches to striking among students of Liechtenauer in the 21st century: it either advises you to approach close to your opponent and then cut so you’re sure of hitting their head or body with your edge, or it advises you to cut so that your sword approaches close to your opponent and you can hit their face or chest with your point; I hold with the latter interpretation, which seems most in line with the instructions in the Sigmund ain Ringeck, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig, and Lew (RDL) glosses.
↑ ‘Schilt=shield’ is often treated as synonymous with the flanges that appear on some 15th-16th century fencing swords, but there’s no textual support for this (no, not even in Joachim Meyer’s treatises). ‘Shield’ instead seems to refer to the entire lower portion of the sword most often used for defense: the crossguard, the Strength of the blade (see below), and yes, also any flanges that appear near the shoulder of the sword.
↑ More literally “don’t avoid the skirmish”; German loves using double-negatives to emphasize a positive. Zecken is typically translated with a variety of words suggesting minor strikes (and Zeck also means “tick”, leading some to read it as something like “bug bites”), but the Lexer gives an alternative reading of “skirmish” or harassing actions. Rühren is “to stir up”, “to cause something to move”, and “to touch or hit” (including “to land a blow in fencing”); I summarize these senses as “harrying”. Zeckrühr doesn’t appear in Grimm or the Lexer, so I read it as a compound of these two words and render it as “harrying strikes” to express the idea of harassing during a skirmish. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for digging up the zecken lemma.) The terms Zecken and Zeckrühr are not used again in the Record or in the glosses for any other section, so it’s hard to be sure what this term means. There are hints, though: Hans Medel’s gloss repeats this couplet when it covers the take-away (after couplet 28), the misser is described as rühren (see couplet 53), and two specific pieces are given in the gloss of this couplet in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig and Lew. Based on these examples, I surmise that it's the term for actions that exit a bind and strike to a new exposure, creating a nice contrast between the skirmish and the ‘Krieg=war’ (mentioned in two places below, in which you remain in the bind and attack by turning your sword).
↑ More literally “When you want to drive something strongly, fence with your whole body”, but I went with this translation because one of my objectives was to make this stick in people’s brains, and “always fight with all your strength” has been part of our collective subconscious in Kunst des Fechtens ever it since was used by Sigmund ain Ringeck translators at the turn of the 21st century. Also, not much rhymes with ‘strength’.
↑ Schlecht often means “bad”, but it can also mean “straight, direct, simple”, and that makes more sense here (as Stephen Cheney pointed out), and really in most usages in this text.
↑ This quatrain is typically interpreted as referring to right- and left-handed fencers and translated accordingly, but the text just says “right” and “left” and it’s not clear whether it’s referring to handedness, which side of the body the sword is held on (regardless of handedness), or which foot is forward (thus echoing the first lesson, just as the fourth lesson—on Before and After—echoes the second lesson—on attacking to provoke a parry rather than waiting to parry the opponent’s attack). It would be odd indeed for Liechtenauer to make this one solitary mention of handedness when that subject is never addressed again, neither in his writings nor in the subsequent two centuries of writings based on his teachings.
↑ This line is the same as the first line of dueling couplet 62.
↑ Here the Record begins introducing what are sometimes called the ‘Five Words’: ‘Vor=Before’, ‘Nach=After’, ‘Stark/Stärke=Strong/Strength’, ‘Schwach/Schwäche=Weak/Weakness’, and ‘Indes=Within/Inside’. (There are two other words that are sometimes lumped in here, ‘Hart/Härte=Hard/Hardness’ and ‘Weich/Weiche=Soft/Softness’, though no one talks about Seven Words.) I generally capitalize these words, but in this translation I'll leave them lowercase to avoid unnecessary reification.
↑ RDL read this as referring to the parts of the sword—the ‘Strength’ of the sword is the part closer to the hand and the ‘Weakness’ of the sword is part near the tip (perhaps specifically from the center of mass to the cross and from the center of percussion to the tip, as swordsmith Paul Champagne (God rest his soul) once opined.); in between is the ‘middle’, and this is where two other words, ‘Hardness’ and ‘Softness’, are felt. Conversely, the author of ms. 3227^a doesn’t clearly distinguish these two sets of words and typically refers to things as being both “Hard and Strong” or “Soft and Weak” (perhaps owing to their love of hendiadys).
↑ The meaning of the word Indes changes significantly from MHG to ENHG. It may be translated “within” or “inside” in both languages, but in MHG, Indes was primarily a spatial adverb (i.e., within a place or location) and in ENHG it became primarily a temporal adverb (i.e., within a time or event). Liechtenauer’s Record seems to have been written in the midst of this transition and straddles both senses: the word ‘Within’ is used to describe actions the instant (time) when you have felt the pressure of the bind (place) and must choose a response. By the time of Joachim Meyer, this linguistic evolution was complete and this is perhaps what lead him to accuse masters who taught a spatial interpretation of Indes of conflating it with the Latin word Intus, which does indeed align closely with the MHG definition.
↑ Erschricken is often translated as “frighten”, but according to Grimm, it’s in the sense of a ‘jump-scare’ rather than a feeling of terror. This verse isn’t about cowardice or running away, but rather about panicking and doing something stupid when attacked (as Jessica Finley has pointed out).
↑ With full extension
↑ This couplet seems to replace the first line of couplet 15, leaving the second line of 15 as an orphan.
↑ Text terminates at this point. The leaves with the rest of the text are missing.
↑ kam
↑ deinen
↑ faler
↑ l corrected from t.
↑ This quatrain is often appended to the end of the common lesson, but the author of ms. 3227^a places it as the beginning of the list of main pieces of the Record, and I think it makes the most sense there, where the five are actually listed and named.
↑ “Speed” is an addition to serve the rhyme.
↑ Couplet 22 is omitted from the Record in ms. 3227^a; it’s also worded awkwardly (in German) and doesn’t rhyme. It’s possible that this was a late addition to the Record and perhaps even not authored by Liechtenauer.
↑ In Classical rhetoric, the third segment would be the partitio, the outline of the argument. It introduces the ‘hauptstuck=main pieces’ of the Record; curiously, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew describes this list as five strikes and twelve main pieces, while Sigmund ain Ringeck (and Hans Medel, who reproduces his gloss of this section) describes it as seventeen main pieces. The author of ms. 3227^a doesn't use the term “main pieces” and instead mentions the five strikes and “the other pieces”
↑ Krumm und twer is an expression meaning something like “to and fro” (per Jessica Finley). Likewise, the cut of wrath is described by both RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a as a ‘schlect haw=straight cut’, and schlect und krumm is an expression meaning “straight and crooked” (per Christian Trosclair). But since this couplet is clearly designed to be mnemonic rather than a functional description, I devised something memorable.
↑ Schiller mit Scheitler is listed as one of the six ‘master cuts’ that the Brotherhood of St. Mark would test prospective masters on, but neither RDL nor the author of ms. 3227^a make any effort to explain these two things in context with each other. Hans Medel offers a play that he labels that way, though, and Hans Talhoffer modifies couplet 62 in the cockeye to include a reference to the part (see below).
↑ Note that den alber der versazung is another one of the six ‘master cuts’ that the Brotherhood of St. Mark would test prospective masters on. the author of ms. 3227^a adds this unique quatrain to the description of the foolish guard that also connects it to parrying:
Whenever they will cut or thrust
The foolish one may break through thus:
By angling in, or sweeping up,
Pursuit, or parrying abrupt.
↑ Couplet 24 is strange: it can be read as describing the first five main pieces, but if that were the intent, we’d expect to see:
Leger versetzt
Nachreisen überlauff absetzt
(which would even have the same meter). Instead, it says ‘Alber=poplar tree or foolish’ (see the note in the section on lairs) rather than Leger in the first line and ‘haw setzt=set [aside?] the cut’ (or, more commonly in other witnesses, ‘haw letzt=hinders cuts’) rather than absetzt in the second. This might signify that it was manipulated to make it more memorable than a simple list would be, so I similarly tried to phrase it into a narrative sentence. (Lew is unique in that the Record quoted there does indeed have absetzt, but no extant copy of the Record has Leger instead of Alber.)
↑ I’ve tried to emphasize opposing pairs whenever they are apparent, even if the Record doesn’t call attention to them. ‘Stossen=push’ and ‘zucken=pull’ are such a pair; they might be translated even better as “shove” and “yank”, emphasizing the forcefulness of the action, but I hate both of those translations (not for any good reason, they’re just not part of my dialect so they sound unnatural to me) so I’m going with push and pull.
↑ Or “crush”
↑ Or “twirl”
↑ According to Classical rhetoric, the partitio would be followed by the confirmatio (arguments) and refutatio (counterarguments), which might be separated or mixed together. This is the weakest part of the hypothesis, since you have to really work to frame the descriptions of five strikes and the first eleven of the twelve main pieces as argument and counterargument.
↑ This is the ‘schlecht haw=straight cut’, so I wrote this section to be simple and direct.
↑ Who is wrathful here? In Medieval art, the concept of ‘wrath’ is often represented as a man stabbing himself to show its self-destructive nature; the name of the ‘wrath cut’ may thus be meant to indicate that you are offering your point for a wrathful opponent to impale themselves upon (as Jessica Finley has pointed out). The author of ms. 3227^a indicates that this strike is meant to be used against a person in their anger and wrath (as Maciej Talaga has pointed out), which supports this interpretation. However, RDL offer the instruction to “cut wrathfully” against your opponent’s cut, implying that you are the wrathful one. With respect to that, it’s worth noting that Grimm states that Zorn began as a term for excitement in battle, not an expression of irritation or hatred. The Record doesn’t explicitly assign wrath to either side, which I tried to preserve in my phrasing here, though it does contain admonitions to remain calm and controlled while using the ‘wrath cut’ and its pieces which could be a reminder not to be wrathful yourself.
↑ Lew and Hans Medel group this couplet together with the next one as a quatrain while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig and Sigmund ain Ringeck separate them; they all seem to have at least a somewhat shared understanding of the underlying techniques, though.
↑ Werner Ueberschär has suggested that there may be a double-meaning in this verse: ohne Fahr would be “without danger” (rendered as “care not” here), but ohne Farr would be “without ox”, emphasizing that this technique is used instead of turning your sword into guard of the ox (which the next couplet describes).
↑ In this quatrain, we have taking off above and below. Lew presents these as equal options that you’re free to choose between, whereas Sigmund ain Ringeck and Pseudo-Peter von Danzig offer specific cues that lead you to choose one or the other, and both the author of ms. 3227^a and Paulus Kal present them as a sequence of motions, taking off below only after you’ve taken off above.
↑ This line is the same as the second line of couplet 97, in the section on the angles.
↑ Some witnesses have vor instead of far or var, and the alternate rhymed version would be “‘Within’ the after and before”.
↑ As mentioned above, the ‘Krieg=war’ could be read as the counterpart to ‘zecken=skirmish’. The war is defined in RDL as a term for attacking by turning your sword toward new exposures in the bind, but once it’s introduced here and mentioned once in the final quatrain of the curve, it doesn’t appear again in the Record. Instead, the verb “to turn” is preferred. The contrasting admonitions to ‘embrace the skirmish’ but ‘don’t rush to war’ are interesting, and would be more interesting if these terms were commonly used to describe fencing in the Liechtenauer tradition (but they aren’t).
↑ The Gotha ms. inserts a new title here: Das ist der krieck (“This is the War”), separating the following couplets from the wrath cut. No other witness divides the Record that way.
↑ Couplet 32 uses similar phrasing to 80, in the section on overrunning, and dueling couplet 36.
↑ Sigmund ain Ringeck groups this couplet together with the previous quatrain as a single sestain (as does Hans Medel, who copies his text here), while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew separates it; the interpretation of the verses is the same in either arrangement.
↑ The RDL glosses discuss shaming the opponent both above and below, and Werner Ueberschär has pointed out that this couplet could be read to support that (‘If they aim at the war, bring them shame above and below’) since there’s no punctuation to force a specific division of words, but I think the Record intends to contrast high and low rather than join them, and in the other places where this phrasing is used, the glosses do place one fencer high and one low. Curiously, the Lew gloss uniquely moves oben before rehmet, solidifying the ‘war above’ reading even as it describes war above and below.
↑ I render winden as “to turn”, following Harry R. and Dierk Hagedorn, which I agree makes the text read more smoothly. It also avoids some of the stranger interpretations that people have imposed based on the more popular translation of “to wind”.
↑ The text actually names the three attacks again, but I have “which one of them” to avoid redundancy and make the text smoother.
↑ Werner Ueberschär has suggested that this couplet would make more sense if it appeared after the couplet about confounding the masters (35) rather than before, though I don’t see a reason for his complaint. The statement of the Record at the beginning of the Dresden manuscript moves couplet 35 before the one about turning (33), but it’s unique in making this change.
↑ ‘Treffen=touch, meet, hit, contact, encounter, etc.’ can be ambiguous. It's not talking about a conference with the masters, nor is it about hitting the masters with your sword; instead, when treffen is used in the Record, the glosses agree that it refers to one sword hitting another sword, and I try to make that explicit in this translation.
↑ Couplet 35 is very close to 90, in the section on pulling, and dueling couplet 63.
↑ Effen, translated “confound” here, can also mean “to imitate”, so this could alternatively be read as a statement about acting like a master. RDL frequently invoke the archetype of the ‘master’, which is a fencer who seeks to bind and turn (essentially the opposite of the ‘buffalo’ mentioned below), and this could be another reference to that. However, the other places where this construction is used are more clearly about causing trouble for the opponent, not imitating them.
↑ Or “This is the about the Wrath cut, which slices apart.”
↑ Or “wind more broadly”
↑ I.e. to the action described next
↑ ^{Jump up to: 83.0} ^83.1 remen => räumen, meaning “to make space, clear away, evacuate”.
↑ This section is often grouped together with the wrath cut, but its teachings seem to be more general. Together with the common lesson, in bookends the presentation of the ‘straight fight’. The only other segment of the Record to be separated out with its own title that isn't one of the main pieces is the spreading window, which is also part of the straight fight and also concludes with the same quatrain.
↑ Could also be “openings”, but I think “exposure” is more evocative of what’s being expressed. When fighting in literal armor, you do indeed attack the openings (i.e., gaps) in their armor, but unarmored, it’s all about which parts of your opponent are left exposed by their movements. Furthermore, Bloß literally means “nudity” or “nakedness” (Mayr’s Latinist renders it nuditas), and this meaning is encompassed by ‘exposure’ but not by ‘opening’. (I suspect the word ‘opening’ is imposed on the text as a borrowing from the lexicon of modern sports rather than because someone thought it was an accurate translation.)
↑ I generally read this verb as ‘rähmen/rehmen=aim, strive for, frame’, but it could also be ‘raumen=clear away, make space for’ (which is how Andre Paurenfeyndt and his followers render it). In this instance, I was able to fold in both meanings.
↑ Fahr/gefahr has two different branches of meaning: the first is ‘travelers, the movement of travelers, or the path or direction traveled’, and the second is ‘risk, hazard, danger’ (which originates from the risk of ambush while traveling, leading back to the first one). Both senses are present in the Record, and it’s possible that both senses are implied simultaneously. In this translation, I’ve stuck with “threat/danger” as the more obvious sense in most cases.
↑ I read this as ‘brauchen=apply, use, exploit, abuse’, but it could also be intended as ‘brechen=break, counter’; the latter doesn’t seem to make sense here since whenever brechen is used elsewhere, it describes countering an action or position of the opponent, not an inherent quality of their anatomy/geometry.
↑ This would more literally just be “doubling”, but “redoubling” has the same meaning in English and ‘doubling’; has taken on the very different meaning of “simultaneously hitting and being hit” in the parlance of the Kunst des Fechtens community.
↑ This quatrain is very close to 100–101, in the section on the angles.
↑ Or “to the right”
↑ Or “slow”
↑ There is no space between "Dupliere" and "doniden", the "D" was possibly added later.
↑ In keeping with the contrast between straight and crooked, I translated this section in a way that suggests deception and subterfuge. In the glosses, its plays demonstrate how to artfully violate all the instructions given in the common lesson.
↑ An interesting facet of the Record on the extended sword that we see here and in the remaining three cuts is that Liechtenauer avoids reifying them—i.e., turning them into formalized ‘things’. For example, at no point does Liechtenauer tell you to “cut a crooked cut”; instead, he tells you to curve here, or to go crookedly there. It’s the glosses that turn these descriptions into formally-defined jargon like “the crooked cut”, and then this jargon is imposed onto the Record by the scribes adding red section headers.
↑ Krumm can mean both “curved” and “crooked”; it specifically describes a thing that is usually straight but has unnatural curvature. The spine of someone with scoliosis is krumm, whereas a lightning bolt definitely is not. A winding path is also krumm, because it curves back and forth rather than following a straight line. Physically, a person who is krumm is hunched or bent over. However, krumm also has shade of ethical meaning—a person is metaphorically krumm if they deviate from the ‘straight and narrow’ path of righteousness (we also have this sense in English with terms like ‘crooked politician’). I use “curved” as the adjective form and “crookedly” as the adverb.
↑ “Down low” is an addition to text to create a rhyme, but it’s supported by the glosses and establishes a nice pair with the next quatrain, which mentions going high.
↑ Couplet 43 doesn’t seem to be glossed by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew; it’s grouped with the previous couplet as a quatrain and the gloss makes no mention of ‘versetzen=displacing’ or ‘absetzen=luring/enticing or setting aside’ (or any other -setzen verb). Sigmund ain Ringeck glosses the verse as describing absetzen with the crooked cut, and my translation reflects this.
↑ More literally “Weaken the masters”.
↑ Couplet 44 is grouped together with the next one by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck, but they all present the same teaching for it.
↑ Could be any one of ‘glänzen=to spark or flash’, ‘glitschen=to slide or slip’, or ‘klitschen=to make a sound by striking something’. Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latinist reads it as the first one and renders it ‘coruscare=to spark, flash, gleam’. Rebecca L. R. Garber notes that in order for a cut to produce sparks, it strikes at an angle, slips along the edge, and moves off; this means that all three verbs are potentially active simultaneously when you smack your opponent’s blade.
↑ Couplet 45 uses similar phrasing to 81, in the section on overrunning.
↑ RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a parse the first line, Krumm nicht kurz haw, very differently, and it’s hard for a singly translation to accommodate both interpretations. The author of ms. 3227^a reads it as something like “Don’t cut the curve short” (essentially placing a comma after Krumm), while RDL reads it as something like “Don’t curve, cut short instead” (essentially placing a comma after nicht). The former becomes advice about recovering from a curved cut that misses, and the latter about feinting with the curved cut. (Note that it's distinctly possible that the author of ms. 3227^a had a piece like the one in RDL in mind when they wrote that the verses on the ‘Fehler=misser’ should be assigned to this section; see below.)
↑ This quatrain is the second and final place where the ‘Krieg=war’ is mentioned (this time labeled ‘edel=noble’) and describes ‘verwirren=ensnaring or confusing’ your opponent by continually turning your sword toward their exposures. However, Sigmund ain Ringeck and by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew frame it quite differently; in the former, it’s a counter to your opponent’s crooked cut, while in the latter, it’s advice about pressing your attack if your opponent parries your crooked cut (the rhymed version of this latter reading would be something like “When down a crooked path you lead”).
↑ Corrected from »Im«.
↑ The text doubles the title of this section.
↑ H. Beringer’s use of the term ‘vom Himmel=from heaven/the heavens’ gives a bit of religious flavor to the first couplet, and I leaned into that further in translating this section.
↑ Twer has two basic meanings: across or crosswise, and aslant or slantwise. Paulus Hector Mayr's Latinist renders it ‘transversarius=transverse’, which has the same range of meaning. Back in 2006, Jeffrey Forgeng offered the watershed translation “thwart”, derived from “athwart”, a nautical term which refers to movement across something or working at cross-purposes to something. “Thwart” is cool because it sort of sounds like Twer, but is less cool because it’s quite obscure and 21st century people who read “thwart strike” don’t think of an adjective that means crosswise, they think of the verb “to thwart”, meaning to obstruct or oppose. This also ‘makes sense’ as a thing that the strike can do, but it’s irrelevant to the actual meaning of the German term here so it’s sort of a linguistic trap. I translate Twer as “cross”, “across”, or “crosswise”, depending on which fits the sentence and meter better.
↑ This line is pure filler, since I used up all the text of this couplet in the first line.
↑ Both RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a agree that couplet 51 is referring to the four exposures but assigning them cute little nicknames that are also the names of two of the guards. This explanation is nonsensical and these alleged names of the exposures are never invoked again (instead, exposures are uniformly described as upper/lower and left/right), so I suspect it’s an example of the glossators having no idea what Liechtenauer’s intent with this couplet was. Alternatively, it could possibly be another ‘seam’ in the Record—a place where Liechtenauer left evidence of one of the older teachings he integrated (one in which the four exposures were always named rather than described). Note that Hans Medel, on the other hand, does indeed give instructions for attacking these two guards with the crosswise cut, and brings this up again in the gloss of displacing the guards further on.
↑ Couplet 52 is grouped together with the previous one by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck, but they all present the same teaching for them.
↑ This is based on the witnesses that have Fehler ver führt, but others have ‘Fehler wer führt=Who leads by missing skillfully’; the second line would then be “Goes low and harries skillfully”.
↑ A Fehler is the opposite of a ‘Treffer=hitter’ and signifies something that doesn’t hit whatever target it was aimed at. Here, it’s clearly an intentional miss. Harry R. renders it “avoidance”, which is similar in intent. I dislike the translation “failer”, even though I’m fond of cognates, because it doesn’t give any impression of what specifically is failing.
↑ Curiously, the author of ms. 3227^a seems to indicate that verses 53–57 should appear before the crosswise cut, and also includes a statement that seems to associate them with the crooked cut. No other witness supports this change. However, the pieces described in the various glosses are only tenuously connected to the crosswise cut, and frequently disagree about whether they include the crosswise at all or are performed beginning with any cut from above or below, so they all could be transferred to the crooked cut with little or no modification. Werner Ueberschär has suggested that the only reason the misser is grouped with one of the five strikes at all rather than being listed as an additional main piece is because of the numerological importance of numbers like 5 and 12.
↑ Couplet 56 uses similar phrasing to 79, in the section on pursuit.
↑ More literally “Twice further”, but I think my reading captures the intent better (at least as far as the glosses interpret it).
↑ These two couplets are grouped together by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck. In this case their interpretations vary in significant ways; of the two, Ainringck’s explanation includes two missers (as the Record suggests) while Pseudo-Danzig/Lew’s only includes one. Oddly, Lew actually glosses this quatrain twice with different text each time—once in its proper place and again in between the cockeye and parter—and the second time, the interpretation is similar to Ainringck’s rather than Pseudo-Danzig’s.
↑ Fehler is the opposite of a Treffer, which is something that hits or succeeds. The Fehler is the losing throw in dice, the missed shot in archery and shooting. It is, however, an action that might hit, but it is assumed that it will miss.
↑ This line might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous ones as two lines of a single couplet: "den elenbog nym in der waug / und mach den fäler nit träg".
↑ ^{Jump up to: 120.0} ^120.1 Corrected from »Twir«.
↑ haust
↑ These three fragments of lines were probably intended to be combined into a single line: "Zwifach mit macht virbas".
↑ This section uses several words that can be used to describe crime, so I decided to lean into that. Maybe it should be “the shifty-eyed cut”.
↑ ‘Buffel=buffalo’ is explained as simply “a peasant” by the author of ms. 3227^a, but RDL offer a more sophisticated explanation: a ‘buffalo’ is a fencer who doesn't try to feel hard and soft in the bind (Pseudo-Danzig/Lew) and instead seeks to win purely through superior strength (Ainringck). Note that this doesn't require a lack of skill or knowledge of fencing, merely an attitude that their opponent's intentions don't matter because the ‘buffalo’ can overpower them no matter what.
↑ Schielen is a tricky verb because it has a double meaning of “askew” and “cross-eyed” or “having a lazy eye” (both were once upon a time called ‘squint-eyed’), and the text relies on both meanings. “Cockeyed” is the closest we can get to both senses in one English word. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for suggesting this translation.) When shielen is used to tell you to look at rather than strike something, I render it “cock [i.e., turn] your eye”.
↑ Kürtzen means “to shorten”, and the glosses interpret it as referring to an opponent who fails to extend properly in fencing, but it also has a financial meaning of failing to pay someone the full amount they are owed, just as we refer to ‘shorting’ or ‘short-changing’ someone in English. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for the ‘shortchanging’ idea.)
↑ “Take your revenge” would more literally be “defeat them”.
↑ I decided to read obern Haubt as equivalent to Schaitel just like Hans Talhoffer does in order bridge the cockeye and parter slightly and to give us some Schiller mit Schaitler (as mentioned earlier).
↑ Or “destroy”
↑ Or “skill”
↑ Scheitel refers to the top of the front of the head, the hairline, and the part of the hair. The verb scheiden means “to divide or separate”, and the noun Schaiden refers to damage or harm. Thus, while Sigmund ain Ringeck is clear that the name refers to starting from the part of your hair (i.e., over your head) rather than targeting their hairline, the other potential meaning of “to part” (divide the opponent in half) may also be intended.
↑ I also decided to turn ‘Antlitz=face, countenance, visage’ into ‘under Augen=under the eyes, in their face’ (as a borrowing from the dueling verses), in order bridge the cockeye and parter slightly and to give us some Schiller mit Schaitler (as mentioned earlier).
↑ More literally “chest”, but “heart” is more poetic.
↑ Both this couplet and the previous one end in the word ‘Gefähr=threat’, which is weird and unusually awkward even for Liechtenauer. It's even more awkward when some witnesses combine each couplet into a single line, producing one extra-long couplet where both lines end with the same word. I don't know what this tells us about the Record, but it's weird.
↑ “Refuse to kneel” is an addition to the text to serve the rhyme and make it more evocative.
↑ ‘Streichen=to sweep’ is generally understood to refer to rising short-edge cuts from below, and is the subject of the short treatise Stuck im aufstreichen (“Pieces of sweeping-upon”). None of the glosses discuss sweeping in the section on the parter, despite it being a primary form of attack from the foolish guard and a likely response to the parter, so this may be another instance where the glossators are unaware of or failing to record Liechtenauer's complete teaching.
↑ Unusually, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew gloss this entire section as a single block of ten lines; witnesses of Sigmund ain Ringeck vary in how they divide up the section, ranging from grouping 63–64 and 65–67 together to treating 63, 64, and 65 separately and only grouping 66–67.
↑ Whatever comes from the Skull cut.
↑ This is the most obvious potential ‘seam’ in the Record on the extended sword. The common lesson and the five strikes form a coherent sequence of teaching that build upon each other layer by layer, but at this point, the teaching seems to start over. References to previous teachings are almost non-existent in the subsequent sections of the glosses, and instead it begins from basic principles with how to stand, then how to parry, then how to attack, etc. If Liechtenauer constructed his Record from shorter teachings that he learned in his travels, then this sort of abrupt discontinuity is exactly the sort of evidence of that process that we might expect to see.
↑ A Leger is a lair or place to lie down and also a military encampment (especially a siege camp). A Hut is a defensive position or guard (and cognate with the English word for a small, rough shelter). It has been proposed based on these meanings that Leger could have originally indicated a position used offensively and Hut a position used defensively, but there’s no evidence of this distinction in any treatises from Liechtenauer’s tradition and the terms are used interchangeably.
↑ On the subject of lairs/guards, the author of ms. 3227^a offers another saying of Liechtenauer which isn't part of the Record and appears in no other source in the tradition: “The living move around, while the dead lie still” (or in longer form, “Whoever lies still, they are dead; whoever moves around, they yet live”).
↑ While ‘ox’ refers to bovines trained as draft animals—usually castrated males, but sometimes bulls or cows—the term Ochs also encompassed the aurochs, the wild ancestor of domestic cows that was prized for its leather and hunted to extinction by the 17th cen. Unlike domestic cattle, the aurochs had horns that pointed inward.
↑ Albern is an adjective meaning “foolish” whereas Alber is a noun meaning “poplar tree”; Joachim Meyer interprets it as the former, which he justifies with the explanation that only a fool would use such a worthless guard; Paulus Hector Mayr reads it as the latter, and his Latin translator renders it ‘populus arbor=poplar tree’ without any explanation (PMM: 89r.2–90r.3). There’s no way to be sure which one Liechtenauer intended, but PD: 2r renders it Alwer, a MHG word meaning “simple or worthless”, and Hans Medel uses ‘alberlich=foolishly’ in relation to it (HM: 32r.5), giving the barest suggestion of a shared understanding early in the tradition.
↑ Could also be ‘von Dach=from the roof’. I went with “day” to match the pastoral theme of the others, and for the similarity to H. Beringer, which uniquely has ‘von Himmel=from the sky’.
↑ Note that the actual positions described by these names vary between texts. RDL assign the name ‘ox’ to the upper angle, ‘plow’ to the lower angle, ‘fool’ to the low guard, and ‘from the day’ to the high guard, the author of ms. 3227^a and Hans Medel assign the name ‘plow’ to the low guard; 3227^a then assigns the name ‘fool’ to the lower angle, while Medel assign the name ‘fool’ to the upper angle and the name ‘ox’ to the lower angle. These two also describe ‘from the day’ as the ‘long point’ or ‘spreading window’. The only other early Liechtenauer sources that address the names of guards are the treatises of Paulus Kal, which generally agree with RDL, and the Cl. 23842 (anonymous but connected in some way to Peter Falkner), which labels each position with both RDL’s and Medel’s preferred names and also shows a version of ‘from the day’ which resembles Kal’s ‘spreading window’.
↑ Or “flee”
↑ In the 15th century, the word ‘versetzen’ encompassed both ‘versetzen=to move or shift location’ and ‘vorsetzen=to place in front’, and in this text it refers to a defensive action we might label a ‘parry’.
↑ The various glossators uniformly ignore the word ‘auch=also’ in this line: the author of ms. 3227^a focuses on the first line and introduces four parrying actions without discussing guards, while RDL focuses on the second line and alludes to ways of attacking guards that were covered earlier in the five strikes with no mention of parrying.
↑ The sense of a hunter driving an animal from its lair comes from hunting literature, and Jessica Finley is responsible for the pioneering work on connecting hunting and fencing terminology.
↑ I’ve written before about the problems with couplet 71: existing witnesses of the Record include two different contradictory versions. One group essentially says, ‘parrying is risky, watch out’, while the other says, ‘parrying is awesome, do it a lot’. So I sort of tried to combine both meanings here, since sorting out which one Liechtenauer intended is Somebody Else’s Problem.
↑ Pseudo-Peter von Danzig separates couplets 70 and 71, while Lew, Sigmund ain Ringeck, and Hans Medel combine them into a quatrain. Curiously, the Salzburg witness of Lew separates the two couplets like Pseudo-Danzig, and it groups the standard Lew gloss under couplet 70 and then adds a paragraph from Ainringck as the gloss of 71. Despite these differences, RDL show a largely shared understanding of the meaning of the verses (whereas Medel has a different interpretation).
↑ ‘Ansetzen=to set upon’ is rare in the extended sword but common in the spear and the retracted sword; it refers to placing your point on your opponent, and in armor is associated with ‘dringen=to crowd’, which refers to lodging your point in your opponent's armor and using it to push and lever them around. A sharp sword would presumably penetrate an unarmored opponent, but a blunt sword could be used to similarly push them around after setting upon them.
↑ I translate Enden as “extremities” here, but it could also be “ends” (the cognate) or “extents”; regardless, the glosses interpret it as a reference to the four exposures.
↑ After noting the awkward endings of couplets 63–64 in the parter section, this section gives us dich/dich (71), ist/ist (72), and enden/enden (74), the only couplets in the entire Record to rhyme a word with itself. This is probably not significant, but it is weird.
↑ Note that “pursuit” implies not only following or chasing something, but specifically overtaking and catching it.
↑ Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew combine this verse with the next quatrain, while Sigmund ain Ringeck glosses it separately (as does Hans Medel, who copies his text here). Ainringck presents two pursuits under this couplet, while Pseudo-Danzig/Lew only present the first one before moving on to the outer [mumble]; note that rather than appearing here, the second of Ainringck’s pursuits is discussed by Pseudo-Danzig under dueling couplet 63.
↑ The second word in the name of this piece is sometimes spelled ‘myn=form’ and sometimes ‘nym=take’. Myn tends to appear more commonly in the 15th cen. and nym in the 16th, but both appear in the earliest witnesses (sometimes even in the same witness) so it’s hard to say which one is the original term. Either would capture the essence of the piece, which is actions from a bind on the ‘outside’ (left) instead of the ‘inside’ (right). I decided to use both words in this translation.
↑ As before, “threat” could also be read as “path”, such as the path of a traveler or the trail left by a hunter's quarry.
↑ Couplet 77 is very close to 109, in the section on the turns.
↑ It’s interesting that these two couplets seem to form a strong quatrain, but separated by RDL and Hans Medel.
↑ RDL and Hans Medel include an additional eight-line poem about the word ‘within’ which isn't part of Liechtenauer’s Record:
‘Within’ above redoubles blows,
And transmutes strikes to go below.
‘Within’ runs through, their space invades,
And changes through from off their blades.
‘Within’ takes slices to suppress,
And wrestles equally no less.
‘Within’ takes swords when it requires,
And grants all that your heart desires.
This could be evidence of another teaching poem used by Liechtenauer which he didn't include in the Record.
↑ This verse technically says “pursue twice”, but all the glosses explain it as another outer takeforming, so I decided to render zweifach as “again”, which I admit is a stretch but it makes the verse make more sense.
↑ Couplet 79 uses similar phrasing to 56, in the section on the misser. The “old slice” is probably meant to mean ‘slice just like last time’, referring to that couplet.
↑ This line might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous ones as two long lines of a single couplet: "nun lerne in daß / den alten schnit mit macht".
↑ Hier hat der Schreiber offensichtlich ein Häkchen vergessen.
↑ Couplet 80 uses similar phrasing to 32, in the section on the cut of wrath, and dueling couplet 36.
↑ This is ‘overrunning’ in the sense of a river that overruns its banks or a cup that runneth over.
↑ Couplet 81 uses similar phrasing to 45, in the section on the curved cut.
↑ Absetzen is generally translated “setting aside” or “setting off”, but another sense of the word is “to lure someone away”, and RDL rely heavily on this meaning in the pieces they present for it. In a legal context, it means “to refute, to nullify, to abolish, to repeal”, and this sense is possibly represented in the second line here.
↑ Couplet 85 uses similar phrasing to 108, in the section on the turns.
↑ Or “counters”
↑ Or “him”
↑ “Your sword untied” is an addition to the text to support the rhyme, but is supported by the RDL glosses.
↑ Both ‘durchwechseln=changing through’ and ‘zucken=pulling’ are sometimes translated as “disengaging” by others, presumably in a misguided attempt to impose terminology from Modern Olympic Fencing on Liechtenauer’s teachings. It isn’t the literal meaning of either verb, and imposing it on the text just seems to add more potential for misunderstanding.
↑ Werner Ueberschär points out that Bünde, which replaces Binde in a minority of witnesses, is a term used in fortifications. Johannes Lecküchner leans more heavily into the terminology of fortifications and siege warfare, but this could be an example of Liechtenauer doing the same.
↑ For a discussion of translating zucken, see the note for couplets 25–26.
↑ Couplet 90 is very close to 35, in the section on the cut of wrath, and dueling couplet 63.
↑ should be "dreffen"
↑ This section is followed by one titled "Von durchlauffen ab seczen", which repeat the verse on Absetzen.
↑ Sigmund ain Ringeck combines these two couplets into a quatrain, while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew gloss them separately. The plays that the latter cover under couplet 93 are instead included by Ainring under couplets 72–73 in the second on displacement, and he doesn’t appear to offer any teachings specifically for 93.
↑ Note that Paulus Hector Mayr understands this as ‘pressing’ in the sense of crushing using a press (such as a wine press or a printing press), not in the sense of merely pushing; his Latinist calls it ‘ratio qua hostis manus comprimuntur=the method by which the hands of the enemy are crushed’.
↑ I don't understand why this is a different main piece from slicing off, since it seems to just be an application of the four slices introduced in the previous verses. Given that the teachings in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew for couplet 93 are unrelated to those given in RDL for couplet 94. It would be reasonable therefore to assign 94 to this main piece and make the four slices part of the teaching about hand-crushing. Unfortunately, there are no witnesses that specifically group the couplets in this way (though there are several that don't include any divisions at all).
↑ Or “crushing”
↑ Or “yell”
↑ “To hang” is the cognate for hengen, but as much as I like cognates, “to angle” is the definition that will make the most sense and be the most actionable for most readers. Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latin translator agrees and used ‘inclinatio=inclination or angle’.
↑ This line is the same as the second line of couplet 30, in the section on the cut of wrath.
↑ The spreading window is not one of the five strikes or twelve key pieces, but it’s assigned a title whenever a witness gives any section a title. The only other segment of the Record to be separated out with its own title that isn't one of the main pieces is the four exposures, which also concludes with the same quatrain.
↑ Sprechfenster is often read as Sprachfenster, meaning “window for speaking” and the term for the screen through which cloistered monastics could communicate with the outside world (but not, as far as I can tell, the term for a wicket—the small window inside a door that can be used to talk without opening the door). However, Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latin translator renders it ‘fenestra patula=spread-open window’, which seems to be based on reading it as Spreichfenster from ‘spreien=spread’. This is an intriguing possibility, and I incorporated both meanings here. (Liechtenauer could, of course, have also intended it to be read both ways.)
↑ This could equally be meant as ‘freilich=freely’ or ‘safely (due to freedom)’ or ‘fröhlich=joyfully, cheerfully, or funnily’; both spellings are attested in early witnesses of Liechtenauer’s Record. (Again, it could be intended to encompass both.)
↑ This is a bit of artistic license to draw the quatrain together; the text says to snap at them, but doesn't mention the window.
↑ Some witnesses reverse the two lines of this couplet.
↑ This quatrain is very close to 40–41, in the section on the four exposures.
↑ Or “spraying”, or possibly “speaking”
↑ Perhaps the strongest argument for the Record being intended to follow the structure of Classical rhetoric is that this final section is typically labeled the conclusion or resolution of the Record (i.e., the peroratio required by that structure) despite the fact that it summarizes little and instead introduces new concepts and techniques just like most previous sections.
↑ Sometimes translated as “three wounders”, based on ‘Wunde=wound’, but this form of the word doesn’t seem to be supported in Grimm or Lexer or any other source I’ve consulted. Wunder is pretty much always “miracle”, “wonder”, or similar. (Thanks to Rebecca L. R. Garber for pointing this out to me.) It’s possible, of course, that readers were expected to notice the parallelism between these two words and read “thing that wounds” into the term, but there’s no way to be sure of that. Since this is the only part of the Record and gloss that uses the term, the specific meaning may not actually be all that important. (Since I wrote this note, Christian Trosclair has succeeded in locating a single Swiss source that seems to use wunder to refer to ‘a person who wounds’, so “wounder” is no longer out of the question; I remain unconvinced that that’s the intended meaning, and I still don’t think it’s very important what the word specifically means.)
↑ Couplet 108 uses similar phrasing to 85, in the section on setting aside.
↑ Couplet 109 is very close to 80, in the section on pursuit.
↑ Illegible word. Could be read as either ‘zo’ or ‘w’. In the glosses on 37r it says ‘zw’.
↑ Unlike the fencing verses, the dueling teaching has little overt structure. There are no section titles assigned apart from one (of the two) segments of wrestling in the dismounted dueling, and it certainly doesn’t follow any Classical rhetorical structures. Apart from a couple shared lines (see the footnotes), this section has so little in common with the fencing verses that it’s hard to believe they had the same author (the writing style is also different in ways that are hard to describe). This could be further evidence of Liechtenauer’s role as a compiler and editor rather than an author in the modern sense.
↑ I went a little bit metaphoric at the beginning here because the glosses don't really have much relevance to the text of the Record anyway.
↑ This line uses similar wording to couplet 6 in the preface, so I translated it accordingly.
↑ ‘But pull them left’ carries over from couplet 3; these two are always presented as a quatrain in the glosses so this spillover seems fine, but annoyingly, the author of ms. 3227^a inserts several extra couplets in between them in his unglossed presentation of the Record, which divorces this clause from its context a bit.
↑ Stechen could simply mean “to stab”, but is also a term for one category of jousting games (the other category being rennen), which seems relevant here.
↑ Sittlich or sittiglich is a little tricky and doesn't quite make sense here; it primarily means things like “according to custom” or “in a moral way”, but from there it gains connotations of “temperately” or “moderately” (i.e. demonstrating the moral virtue of temperance), and from there becomes things like “politely” or “decently”. The translation “calmly” tries to capture the sense of tempering one's haste and using moderation.
↑ A Taschen is a belt pouch or purse worn on the side toward the back; I was sadly unable to work Jessica Finley's imagery of a cutpurse (i.e. pickpocket) into this translation. I'm not sad to not be using Stephen Cheney's imagery of a ‘fanny pack’ (also called a ‘belt bag’, I assume by people who weren't there in the 1980s and ’90s).
↑ Here we see a major difference between the fencing and dueling verses: where the fencing verses offer descriptions which the glosses then turn into formal names (reifying them in ways that may or may not have been Liechtenauer's intent), the dueling verses are prone to directly assign formal names to things. So here, the Record literally says something like “Seek and remember the Belt-pouch Cut”. In this translation, I have un-reified this terminology for aesthetic and mnemonic reasons, but be aware that this is going to be happening in the German through the rest of the text.
↑ ‘Ohne Fahr=without danger’ (rendered here as “care not” to match earlier uses) appears in both this line and the next one, so I omitted it here to avoid the redundancy. A final instruction to cause distress seems to have been added purely to complete Liechtenauer’s rhyme scheme and syllable count, but is omitted due to hitting my syllable cap.
↑ Literally “from stirrup to hair”; Grimm indicates that ‘from soles to hair’ was an expression equivalent to ‘from head to toe’, so I assume this is similar.
↑ This “knife” is interpreted as a dagger by the glossators.
↑ A Schaff is a large bucket, basket, or wash basin, and the name may arise from the method of carrying it by the handles (Thanks to Dierk Hagedorn for pointing this out to me.). Other translators have read it as ‘Schaf=sheep’, perhaps making a reference to holding sheep still for shearing. Paulus Hector Mayr reads it as Schopf and his Latinist renders it juba, meaning “horse mane” or “helmet crest”. This is another instance of the Record assigning something a proper name: “the bucket hold”.
↑ ‘Unter Augen=under the eyes’ is an expression suggesting it happens very close to them. I chose ‘under their nose’ as an equivalent English expression; Jessica Finley suggests ‘in their face’ as another equivalent expression, and Jack Gassmann suggests ‘when toe-to-toe’. Note that in exactly one instance further down (couplet 56), the glossators interpret it literally and tell you to attack their physical eyes.
↑ Jagen is literally “to hunt”, but also has a sense of “to run as if hunting or hunted” which might be intended here and all other instances of the word.
↑ Literally just “the knife disarm”, but the glossators interpret it as a sword disarm, suggesting the reading that you're applying a dagger technique to the sword. Lew uniquely has “the sword disarm” instead.
↑ Should be ‘shame’, not ‘strife’, but rhyming is hard.
↑ The direct translation of this line is just ‘the nameless [hold]’.
↑ “Have your revenge” is standing in for a phrase that would be more directly translated ‘verderben=spoil, ruin, destroy’.
↑ The direct translation of this line is just ‘the sun show’ (bowing is pulled from the next line). This is a piece in which you turn your opponent’s face upward to ‘show them the sun’, but it could also be understood as a reference to the gnomon or ‘pointer arm’ (Zeiger) of a sundial (Sonnenuhr).
↑ Couplet 36 uses similar phrasing to fencing 32, in the section on the wrath cut, and 80, in the section on overrunning.
↑ This time it’s ‘messen=measured’ rather than sittiglich, which is also one of the two virtues prescribed in couplet 8 of the preface.
↑ Literally ‘fuhren=to lead or guide’ rather than “found”, though this verb is missing from the Rome ms. (breaking the rhyme scheme).
↑ Vorgriffen is usually read as ‘vor=before’ + ‘griffen=grabbing’, but Jessica Finley has pointed out that, just as angriffen means both “grab” + “on” and “attack”, vorgriffen could also mean “attack before” and perhaps even be related to the ‘Vorschlag=leading strike’ that is the centerpiece of the author of 3227^a’s gloss of the common lesson. For this reason, and because the term isn’t otherwise clearly defined, I’ve translated it similarly to that text. Only the Pseudo-Peter von Danzig gloss clearly associates this verse with Before and After.
↑ “Work great deeds” is an addition to serve the rhyme.
↑ A guide letter “w” is visible under the “U” (apparently ignored by the rubricator), making the intended word “Wer”.
↑ Covering a deletion.
↑ This section title comes from Antonius Rast's ms., since it's less wordy than the Rome.
↑ Sigmund ain Ringeck groups couplet 42 together with the previous one as a quatrain, but Pseudo-Peter von Danzig glosses them separately.
↑ Sigmund ain Ringeck groups couplet 44 together with the previous one as a quatrain, but Pseudo-Peter von Danzig glosses them separately.
↑ This Vorstich also tends to be glossed in a way reminiscent of the description of the ‘Vorschlag=leading strike’ that is the centerpiece of the author of 3227^a’s gloss of the common lesson, so I’ve again translated it similarly.
↑ I can’t for the life of me understand why this is the only ‘section title’ in the entire dueling Record apart from the introductions to mounted and dismounted. It’s not even the only wrestling segment (nor even the only dismounted wrestling segment), and most of the verses after it aren’t about wrestling. It's interesting to note, though, that couplets 41–47 are included at the beginning of one branch of Martin Huntsfeld's armored fencing treatise, and that two witnesses—Salzburg and Rostock—begin with couplet 48 and skip 41–47 entirely.
↑ ‘Schaden=injury, harm’ and ‘Scheiden=scabbard, sheath’ can be spelled the same, and the verb zucken can equally mean drawing a weapon or drawing yourself back (in fear), so it's not always clear which one is intended in the Record. I use the interpretations in RDL to guide my choices here.
↑ This is generally ‘unter Augen=under the eyes’, but a minority reading has ‘und Augen=and the eyes’, which makes more sense in a list of potential targets.
↑ Again, the direct translation of this line is just “The Forbidden Wrestling” (“learn” is from the next line).
↑ This line is the same as the first line of fencing couplet 17, in the common lesson.
↑ Couplet 63 is very close to fencing couplet 35, in the section on the cut of wrath, and 90, in the section on overrunning.
↑ This couplet is skipped in the Pseudo-Peter von Danzig gloss.
↑ More literally “their eyes”.
↑ This line is pure filler, since I used up all the text of this couplet in the first line.
↑ Apparently the writer misplaced the space here.

[1] When German writers were aware that a person was dead, they would add a formulaic blessing after their name (i.e., "God be gracious to him"); this manuscript doesn't, but 15th century manuscripts do.

[2] See folio 13v, trans. by Michael Chidester.

[3] Christian Henry Tobler. "Chicken and Eggs: Which Master Came First?" In Saint George's Name: An Anthology of Medieval German Fighting Arts. Wheaton, IL: Freelance Academy Press, 2010. p6

[4] The Fellowship of Liechtenauer is recorded in three versions of Paulus Kal's treatise: MS 1825 (1460s), Cgm 1507 (ca. 1470), and MS KK5126 (1480s).

[5] The figures are also often given as a preamble for the gloss of Lew, and a fragment of the short sword appears at the beginning of one strand of the treatise of Martin Huntsfeld, but those instances will likewise not be included below and instead treated as part of those treatises.

[6] Zettel is a tricky word to translate. The closest English cognate is “schedule” (both come from the Latin schedula), but only in the more obscure legal sense of a formal list, not the familiar sense of a timetable. It’s commonly used in modern German to denote a short list or a scrap of paper that could hold a list (like a receipt). I translate Zettel as “record” here (and capitalize and italicize it as the title of a written work), but other common translations include “epitome”, “notes”, and “recital”.

[7] More literally ‘dem Gott gnädig sei=may God grant him grace’. When German writers were aware that a person was dead, they would add this formulaic blessing after their name.

[8] The direct translation here would be “long sword”, but since it isn’t the sword that’s long and instead it’s holding the sword with both hands on the grip that ‘lengthens’ it, “extended sword” seems clearer. Compare “retracted sword” in the dueling lessons, which refers to placing the left hand on the blade. An alternative interpretation might be that the amount of blade extending in front of the hands is long in the langen Schwert grip and short in the kurtzen Schwert grip.

[9] The spelling ‘Schirmeister’ is ambiguous. A Schirmmeister is a fencing teacher, using the late medieval term for fencing (schirmen rather than fechten). A Schirrmeister is an aristocrat’s stablemaster, or a logistics officer in a military setting in charge of animals and anything pulled by animals (wagons, cannon, etc.). ‘Schirmeister’ could be a spelling of either one; Hans Medel reads it as the former. The Leichmeistere ridiculed by the author of ms. 3227^a in their introduction, often translated as “dance masters” or “play masters”, might be a shortening of this phrase (leichtfertigen schirmaister).

[10] The individual section headings don’t seem to be part of Liechtenauer’s original Record—or at least, the scribes seem to have treated them as non-authoritative and felt free to expand, contract, modify, or omit them entirely. They are only included here in abbreviated form and can be hidden along with the footnotes for easier reading.

[11] Jay Acutt has pointed out that the structure of the Record of the extended sword could be framed in terms of Classical rhetoric following Cicero and others, in which case this preface is the exordium, the introduction that appeals to the audience by declaring the speaker/writer’s ethos.

[12] Some version of this preface to the Record appears in most 15th century witnesses but is absent from most from the 16th; it’s generally included as part of the teaching on fencing with the extended sword, but the author of ms. 3227^a and Antonius Rast include abbreviated versions of it at the beginning of the mounted dueling verses, and Pseudo-Peter von Danzig includes it in their gloss of the retracted sword. Given this, and the fact that its teachings reference weapons only covered in the dueling section, I consider it a general preface to both sections of the Record.

[13] Note that though the preface is quoted by the glossators, it’s rarely discussed by them (see the notes below for exceptions).

[14] Jens P. Kleinau has pointed out that in the first couplet, the second line is much longer than most in the Record, while in this second couplet, the version used by the Lew gloss only includes the first line (as does the Dresden version of Sigmund ain Ringeck's gloss) and the version appearing in H. Beringer and Hans Folz only includes the second line. This may be evidence of a ‘seam’ in the Record where two early proto-Records were merged together, each of which only mentioned loving god in the first couplet and had honoring women as the first line of the second couplet. See his 2020 blog post for more details.

[15] In the same blog post, Jens P. Kleinau points out that the mention of Ehre (rendered “fame” in this line to avoid repetition) may be a later addition to the text, since some versions have sehre instead of zu Ehre, which makes the phrase and meter smoother; additionally, the idea of warfare as an avenue of increasing one’s honor is mostly absent from contemporary literature. Hofieren is to serve, often in a feudal or courtly sense, so the alternate rhymed version would be “And serve you well in war some day”.

[16] Messer is a term that we often associate with the iconic German machete-like knife taught by Johannes Lecküchner and others, but both historically and today it can refer to any kind of knife; mentions of it in the Record are usually interpreted as referring to daggers by the glossators.

[17] More literally “manly”, not “gallant”, but I’ve used ungendered language for the most part in this translation because I want readers to be able to more easily see themselves and their training partners in it regardless of their genders.

[18] Bederben and verderben could be read as synonyms in Early New High German (ENHG), both meaning “to destroy”, but that doesn’t make sense in context so we tend to read bederben in its Middle High German (MHG) definition of “to use”. H. Beringer uniquely has ‘bedurfen=need or make use of’, which reinforces this reading and could represent an earlier, less ambiguous phrasing.

[19] Jens-Peter sees a division here where the moralistic/inspirational address to the young knight ends and practical advice to a fencing student begins. I disagree, and think couplets 6–9 are still about mindset and morality in fighting.

[20] I will generally translate the verb hauwen as “to cut” since that’s the common parlance, but remember that there’s no connotation that the intent is to cleave anything or otherwise directly hit your opponent. The word is instead often used to describe a cutting motion that will set up further techniques (such as cutting in order to hit with a thrust).

[21] More literally “Charge in, let it hit or pass”.

[22] Couplet 6 isn’t directly glossed, but is mentioned by the author of ms. 3227^a in their gloss of the common lesson.

[23] The Lew gloss replaces couplet 7 with a completely different one:
So that your art and skill surely
Will then be praised as masterly.
Lew then omits couplet 8 entirely. This could be seen as part of the same ‘seam’ mentioned in the note on couplet 2.

[24] This word pair is translated in all kinds of ways, from the abstract/geometric (dimension and extension) to the colloquial (time and place, weighed and measured) to the fencing-specific (distance and reach). My translation goes with a more moralistic read, outlining two qualities the young knight needs to develop, both of which point to the cardinal virtue of temperance. This couplet isn’t directly glossed, but is mentioned by the author of ms. 3227^a in their gloss of the common lesson; it’s also invoked and connected to teachings in sword section of the Augsburg Group manuscripts.

[25] This couplet might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous one as two very long lines of a single couplet: "ettlich biderman in anden hanten veder ben / kunt er chunst er mocht wol eren erwerb".

[26] This couplet might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous one as two very long lines of a single couplet: "ettlich in andern hanten verderben / kündt er kunst er möcht ere erwerben".

[27] First letter almost illegible.

[28] First letter illegible.

[29] Classical rhetoric would label this section the narratio, the statement of basic facts and the nature of the things being discussed. This would suggest that this section is describing the basic model of how a ‘fight’ works: one fencer attacks with a downward blow from the proper side using proper footwork and threatens their opponent with the point, provoking a parry (the author of ms. 3227^a terms this a ‘Vorschlag=Leading Strike’); after this, the attacker progresses to the skirmish, attacking whatever target the parry has exposed (termed a ‘Nachschlag=Following Strike’).

[30] The early glosses interpret this as an admonition against passively waiting for your opponent’s actions, but I phrased it in a way that it could also lead Andre Paurenfeyndt and Joachim Meyer to turn it into a teaching about footwork.

[31] Couplet 11 is glossed separately in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew while 12–14 are grouped together as a sestain, but Sigmund ain Ringeck (and Hans Medel, who copies his text here) combine all four couplets into a single octet. The interpretation is the same in both groupings.

[32] This line is contentious because it encapsulates two approaches to striking among students of Liechtenauer in the 21st century: it either advises you to approach close to your opponent and then cut so you’re sure of hitting their head or body with your edge, or it advises you to cut so that your sword approaches close to your opponent and you can hit their face or chest with your point; I hold with the latter interpretation, which seems most in line with the instructions in the Sigmund ain Ringeck, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig, and Lew (RDL) glosses.

[33] ‘Schilt=shield’ is often treated as synonymous with the flanges that appear on some 15th-16th century fencing swords, but there’s no textual support for this (no, not even in Joachim Meyer’s treatises). ‘Shield’ instead seems to refer to the entire lower portion of the sword most often used for defense: the crossguard, the Strength of the blade (see below), and yes, also any flanges that appear near the shoulder of the sword.

[34] More literally “don’t avoid the skirmish”; German loves using double-negatives to emphasize a positive. Zecken is typically translated with a variety of words suggesting minor strikes (and Zeck also means “tick”, leading some to read it as something like “bug bites”), but the Lexer gives an alternative reading of “skirmish” or harassing actions. Rühren is “to stir up”, “to cause something to move”, and “to touch or hit” (including “to land a blow in fencing”); I summarize these senses as “harrying”. Zeckrühr doesn’t appear in Grimm or the Lexer, so I read it as a compound of these two words and render it as “harrying strikes” to express the idea of harassing during a skirmish. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for digging up the zecken lemma.) The terms Zecken and Zeckrühr are not used again in the Record or in the glosses for any other section, so it’s hard to be sure what this term means. There are hints, though: Hans Medel’s gloss repeats this couplet when it covers the take-away (after couplet 28), the misser is described as rühren (see couplet 53), and two specific pieces are given in the gloss of this couplet in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig and Lew. Based on these examples, I surmise that it's the term for actions that exit a bind and strike to a new exposure, creating a nice contrast between the skirmish and the ‘Krieg=war’ (mentioned in two places below, in which you remain in the bind and attack by turning your sword).

[35] More literally “When you want to drive something strongly, fence with your whole body”, but I went with this translation because one of my objectives was to make this stick in people’s brains, and “always fight with all your strength” has been part of our collective subconscious in Kunst des Fechtens ever it since was used by Sigmund ain Ringeck translators at the turn of the 21st century. Also, not much rhymes with ‘strength’.

[36] Schlecht often means “bad”, but it can also mean “straight, direct, simple”, and that makes more sense here (as Stephen Cheney pointed out), and really in most usages in this text.

[37] This quatrain is typically interpreted as referring to right- and left-handed fencers and translated accordingly, but the text just says “right” and “left” and it’s not clear whether it’s referring to handedness, which side of the body the sword is held on (regardless of handedness), or which foot is forward (thus echoing the first lesson, just as the fourth lesson—on Before and After—echoes the second lesson—on attacking to provoke a parry rather than waiting to parry the opponent’s attack). It would be odd indeed for Liechtenauer to make this one solitary mention of handedness when that subject is never addressed again, neither in his writings nor in the subsequent two centuries of writings based on his teachings.

[38] This line is the same as the first line of dueling couplet 62.

[39] Here the Record begins introducing what are sometimes called the ‘Five Words’: ‘Vor=Before’, ‘Nach=After’, ‘Stark/Stärke=Strong/Strength’, ‘Schwach/Schwäche=Weak/Weakness’, and ‘Indes=Within/Inside’. (There are two other words that are sometimes lumped in here, ‘Hart/Härte=Hard/Hardness’ and ‘Weich/Weiche=Soft/Softness’, though no one talks about Seven Words.) I generally capitalize these words, but in this translation I'll leave them lowercase to avoid unnecessary reification.

[40] RDL read this as referring to the parts of the sword—the ‘Strength’ of the sword is the part closer to the hand and the ‘Weakness’ of the sword is part near the tip (perhaps specifically from the center of mass to the cross and from the center of percussion to the tip, as swordsmith Paul Champagne (God rest his soul) once opined.); in between is the ‘middle’, and this is where two other words, ‘Hardness’ and ‘Softness’, are felt. Conversely, the author of ms. 3227^a doesn’t clearly distinguish these two sets of words and typically refers to things as being both “Hard and Strong” or “Soft and Weak” (perhaps owing to their love of hendiadys).

[41] The meaning of the word Indes changes significantly from MHG to ENHG. It may be translated “within” or “inside” in both languages, but in MHG, Indes was primarily a spatial adverb (i.e., within a place or location) and in ENHG it became primarily a temporal adverb (i.e., within a time or event). Liechtenauer’s Record seems to have been written in the midst of this transition and straddles both senses: the word ‘Within’ is used to describe actions the instant (time) when you have felt the pressure of the bind (place) and must choose a response. By the time of Joachim Meyer, this linguistic evolution was complete and this is perhaps what lead him to accuse masters who taught a spatial interpretation of Indes of conflating it with the Latin word Intus, which does indeed align closely with the MHG definition.

[42] Erschricken is often translated as “frighten”, but according to Grimm, it’s in the sense of a ‘jump-scare’ rather than a feeling of terror. This verse isn’t about cowardice or running away, but rather about panicking and doing something stupid when attacked (as Jessica Finley has pointed out).

[43] With full extension

[44] This couplet seems to replace the first line of couplet 15, leaving the second line of 15 as an orphan.

[45] Text terminates at this point. The leaves with the rest of the text are missing.

[46] kam

[47] deinen

[48] faler

[49] rrected from t.

[50] This quatrain is often appended to the end of the common lesson, but the author of ms. 3227^a places it as the beginning of the list of main pieces of the Record, and I think it makes the most sense there, where the five are actually listed and named.

[51] “Speed” is an addition to serve the rhyme.

[52] Couplet 22 is omitted from the Record in ms. 3227^a; it’s also worded awkwardly (in German) and doesn’t rhyme. It’s possible that this was a late addition to the Record and perhaps even not authored by Liechtenauer.

[53] In Classical rhetoric, the third segment would be the partitio, the outline of the argument. It introduces the ‘hauptstuck=main pieces’ of the Record; curiously, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew describes this list as five strikes and twelve main pieces, while Sigmund ain Ringeck (and Hans Medel, who reproduces his gloss of this section) describes it as seventeen main pieces. The author of ms. 3227^a doesn't use the term “main pieces” and instead mentions the five strikes and “the other pieces”

[54] Krumm und twer is an expression meaning something like “to and fro” (per Jessica Finley). Likewise, the cut of wrath is described by both RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a as a ‘schlect haw=straight cut’, and schlect und krumm is an expression meaning “straight and crooked” (per Christian Trosclair). But since this couplet is clearly designed to be mnemonic rather than a functional description, I devised something memorable.

[55] Schiller mit Scheitler is listed as one of the six ‘master cuts’ that the Brotherhood of St. Mark would test prospective masters on, but neither RDL nor the author of ms. 3227^a make any effort to explain these two things in context with each other. Hans Medel offers a play that he labels that way, though, and Hans Talhoffer modifies couplet 62 in the cockeye to include a reference to the part (see below).

[56] Note that den alber der versazung is another one of the six ‘master cuts’ that the Brotherhood of St. Mark would test prospective masters on. the author of ms. 3227^a adds this unique quatrain to the description of the foolish guard that also connects it to parrying:
Whenever they will cut or thrust
The foolish one may break through thus:
By angling in, or sweeping up,
Pursuit, or parrying abrupt.

[57] Couplet 24 is strange: it can be read as describing the first five main pieces, but if that were the intent, we’d expect to see:
Leger versetzt
Nachreisen überlauff absetzt
(which would even have the same meter). Instead, it says ‘Alber=poplar tree or foolish’ (see the note in the section on lairs) rather than Leger in the first line and ‘haw setzt=set [aside?] the cut’ (or, more commonly in other witnesses, ‘haw letzt=hinders cuts’) rather than absetzt in the second. This might signify that it was manipulated to make it more memorable than a simple list would be, so I similarly tried to phrase it into a narrative sentence. (Lew is unique in that the Record quoted there does indeed have absetzt, but no extant copy of the Record has Leger instead of Alber.)

[58] I’ve tried to emphasize opposing pairs whenever they are apparent, even if the Record doesn’t call attention to them. ‘Stossen=push’ and ‘zucken=pull’ are such a pair; they might be translated even better as “shove” and “yank”, emphasizing the forcefulness of the action, but I hate both of those translations (not for any good reason, they’re just not part of my dialect so they sound unnatural to me) so I’m going with push and pull.

[59] Or “crush”

[60] Or “twirl”

[61] According to Classical rhetoric, the partitio would be followed by the confirmatio (arguments) and refutatio (counterarguments), which might be separated or mixed together. This is the weakest part of the hypothesis, since you have to really work to frame the descriptions of five strikes and the first eleven of the twelve main pieces as argument and counterargument.

[62] This is the ‘schlecht haw=straight cut’, so I wrote this section to be simple and direct.

[63] Who is wrathful here? In Medieval art, the concept of ‘wrath’ is often represented as a man stabbing himself to show its self-destructive nature; the name of the ‘wrath cut’ may thus be meant to indicate that you are offering your point for a wrathful opponent to impale themselves upon (as Jessica Finley has pointed out). The author of ms. 3227^a indicates that this strike is meant to be used against a person in their anger and wrath (as Maciej Talaga has pointed out), which supports this interpretation. However, RDL offer the instruction to “cut wrathfully” against your opponent’s cut, implying that you are the wrathful one. With respect to that, it’s worth noting that Grimm states that Zorn began as a term for excitement in battle, not an expression of irritation or hatred. The Record doesn’t explicitly assign wrath to either side, which I tried to preserve in my phrasing here, though it does contain admonitions to remain calm and controlled while using the ‘wrath cut’ and its pieces which could be a reminder not to be wrathful yourself.

[64] Lew and Hans Medel group this couplet together with the next one as a quatrain while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig and Sigmund ain Ringeck separate them; they all seem to have at least a somewhat shared understanding of the underlying techniques, though.

[65] Werner Ueberschär has suggested that there may be a double-meaning in this verse: ohne Fahr would be “without danger” (rendered as “care not” here), but ohne Farr would be “without ox”, emphasizing that this technique is used instead of turning your sword into guard of the ox (which the next couplet describes).

[66] In this quatrain, we have taking off above and below. Lew presents these as equal options that you’re free to choose between, whereas Sigmund ain Ringeck and Pseudo-Peter von Danzig offer specific cues that lead you to choose one or the other, and both the author of ms. 3227^a and Paulus Kal present them as a sequence of motions, taking off below only after you’ve taken off above.

[67] This line is the same as the second line of couplet 97, in the section on the angles.

[68] Some witnesses have vor instead of far or var, and the alternate rhymed version would be “‘Within’ the after and before”.

[69] As mentioned above, the ‘Krieg=war’ could be read as the counterpart to ‘zecken=skirmish’. The war is defined in RDL as a term for attacking by turning your sword toward new exposures in the bind, but once it’s introduced here and mentioned once in the final quatrain of the curve, it doesn’t appear again in the Record. Instead, the verb “to turn” is preferred. The contrasting admonitions to ‘embrace the skirmish’ but ‘don’t rush to war’ are interesting, and would be more interesting if these terms were commonly used to describe fencing in the Liechtenauer tradition (but they aren’t).

[70] The Gotha ms. inserts a new title here: Das ist der krieck (“This is the War”), separating the following couplets from the wrath cut. No other witness divides the Record that way.

[71] Couplet 32 uses similar phrasing to 80, in the section on overrunning, and dueling couplet 36.

[72] Sigmund ain Ringeck groups this couplet together with the previous quatrain as a single sestain (as does Hans Medel, who copies his text here), while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew separates it; the interpretation of the verses is the same in either arrangement.

[73] The RDL glosses discuss shaming the opponent both above and below, and Werner Ueberschär has pointed out that this couplet could be read to support that (‘If they aim at the war, bring them shame above and below’) since there’s no punctuation to force a specific division of words, but I think the Record intends to contrast high and low rather than join them, and in the other places where this phrasing is used, the glosses do place one fencer high and one low. Curiously, the Lew gloss uniquely moves oben before rehmet, solidifying the ‘war above’ reading even as it describes war above and below.

[74] I render winden as “to turn”, following Harry R. and Dierk Hagedorn, which I agree makes the text read more smoothly. It also avoids some of the stranger interpretations that people have imposed based on the more popular translation of “to wind”.

[75] The text actually names the three attacks again, but I have “which one of them” to avoid redundancy and make the text smoother.

[76] Werner Ueberschär has suggested that this couplet would make more sense if it appeared after the couplet about confounding the masters (35) rather than before, though I don’t see a reason for his complaint. The statement of the Record at the beginning of the Dresden manuscript moves couplet 35 before the one about turning (33), but it’s unique in making this change.

[77] ‘Treffen=touch, meet, hit, contact, encounter, etc.’ can be ambiguous. It's not talking about a conference with the masters, nor is it about hitting the masters with your sword; instead, when treffen is used in the Record, the glosses agree that it refers to one sword hitting another sword, and I try to make that explicit in this translation.

[78] Couplet 35 is very close to 90, in the section on pulling, and dueling couplet 63.

[79] Effen, translated “confound” here, can also mean “to imitate”, so this could alternatively be read as a statement about acting like a master. RDL frequently invoke the archetype of the ‘master’, which is a fencer who seeks to bind and turn (essentially the opposite of the ‘buffalo’ mentioned below), and this could be another reference to that. However, the other places where this construction is used are more clearly about causing trouble for the opponent, not imitating them.

[80] Or “This is the about the Wrath cut, which slices apart.”

[81] Or “wind more broadly”

[82] I.e. to the action described next

[HTKremen-83] {Jump up to: 83.0} ^83.1 remen => räumen, meaning “to make space, clear away, evacuate”.

[84] This section is often grouped together with the wrath cut, but its teachings seem to be more general. Together with the common lesson, in bookends the presentation of the ‘straight fight’. The only other segment of the Record to be separated out with its own title that isn't one of the main pieces is the spreading window, which is also part of the straight fight and also concludes with the same quatrain.

[85] Could also be “openings”, but I think “exposure” is more evocative of what’s being expressed. When fighting in literal armor, you do indeed attack the openings (i.e., gaps) in their armor, but unarmored, it’s all about which parts of your opponent are left exposed by their movements. Furthermore, Bloß literally means “nudity” or “nakedness” (Mayr’s Latinist renders it nuditas), and this meaning is encompassed by ‘exposure’ but not by ‘opening’. (I suspect the word ‘opening’ is imposed on the text as a borrowing from the lexicon of modern sports rather than because someone thought it was an accurate translation.)

[86] I generally read this verb as ‘rähmen/rehmen=aim, strive for, frame’, but it could also be ‘raumen=clear away, make space for’ (which is how Andre Paurenfeyndt and his followers render it). In this instance, I was able to fold in both meanings.

[87] Fahr/gefahr has two different branches of meaning: the first is ‘travelers, the movement of travelers, or the path or direction traveled’, and the second is ‘risk, hazard, danger’ (which originates from the risk of ambush while traveling, leading back to the first one). Both senses are present in the Record, and it’s possible that both senses are implied simultaneously. In this translation, I’ve stuck with “threat/danger” as the more obvious sense in most cases.

[88] I read this as ‘brauchen=apply, use, exploit, abuse’, but it could also be intended as ‘brechen=break, counter’; the latter doesn’t seem to make sense here since whenever brechen is used elsewhere, it describes countering an action or position of the opponent, not an inherent quality of their anatomy/geometry.

[89] This would more literally just be “doubling”, but “redoubling” has the same meaning in English and ‘doubling’; has taken on the very different meaning of “simultaneously hitting and being hit” in the parlance of the Kunst des Fechtens community.

[90] This quatrain is very close to 100–101, in the section on the angles.

[91] Or “to the right”

[92] Or “slow”

[93] There is no space between "Dupliere" and "doniden", the "D" was possibly added later.

[94] In keeping with the contrast between straight and crooked, I translated this section in a way that suggests deception and subterfuge. In the glosses, its plays demonstrate how to artfully violate all the instructions given in the common lesson.

[95] An interesting facet of the Record on the extended sword that we see here and in the remaining three cuts is that Liechtenauer avoids reifying them—i.e., turning them into formalized ‘things’. For example, at no point does Liechtenauer tell you to “cut a crooked cut”; instead, he tells you to curve here, or to go crookedly there. It’s the glosses that turn these descriptions into formally-defined jargon like “the crooked cut”, and then this jargon is imposed onto the Record by the scribes adding red section headers.

[96] Krumm can mean both “curved” and “crooked”; it specifically describes a thing that is usually straight but has unnatural curvature. The spine of someone with scoliosis is krumm, whereas a lightning bolt definitely is not. A winding path is also krumm, because it curves back and forth rather than following a straight line. Physically, a person who is krumm is hunched or bent over. However, krumm also has shade of ethical meaning—a person is metaphorically krumm if they deviate from the ‘straight and narrow’ path of righteousness (we also have this sense in English with terms like ‘crooked politician’). I use “curved” as the adjective form and “crookedly” as the adverb.

[97] “Down low” is an addition to text to create a rhyme, but it’s supported by the glosses and establishes a nice pair with the next quatrain, which mentions going high.

[98] Couplet 43 doesn’t seem to be glossed by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew; it’s grouped with the previous couplet as a quatrain and the gloss makes no mention of ‘versetzen=displacing’ or ‘absetzen=luring/enticing or setting aside’ (or any other -setzen verb). Sigmund ain Ringeck glosses the verse as describing absetzen with the crooked cut, and my translation reflects this.

[99] More literally “Weaken the masters”.

[100] Couplet 44 is grouped together with the next one by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck, but they all present the same teaching for it.

[101] Could be any one of ‘glänzen=to spark or flash’, ‘glitschen=to slide or slip’, or ‘klitschen=to make a sound by striking something’. Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latinist reads it as the first one and renders it ‘coruscare=to spark, flash, gleam’. Rebecca L. R. Garber notes that in order for a cut to produce sparks, it strikes at an angle, slips along the edge, and moves off; this means that all three verbs are potentially active simultaneously when you smack your opponent’s blade.

[102] Couplet 45 uses similar phrasing to 81, in the section on overrunning.

[103] RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a parse the first line, Krumm nicht kurz haw, very differently, and it’s hard for a singly translation to accommodate both interpretations. The author of ms. 3227^a reads it as something like “Don’t cut the curve short” (essentially placing a comma after Krumm), while RDL reads it as something like “Don’t curve, cut short instead” (essentially placing a comma after nicht). The former becomes advice about recovering from a curved cut that misses, and the latter about feinting with the curved cut. (Note that it's distinctly possible that the author of ms. 3227^a had a piece like the one in RDL in mind when they wrote that the verses on the ‘Fehler=misser’ should be assigned to this section; see below.)

[104] This quatrain is the second and final place where the ‘Krieg=war’ is mentioned (this time labeled ‘edel=noble’) and describes ‘verwirren=ensnaring or confusing’ your opponent by continually turning your sword toward their exposures. However, Sigmund ain Ringeck and by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew frame it quite differently; in the former, it’s a counter to your opponent’s crooked cut, while in the latter, it’s advice about pressing your attack if your opponent parries your crooked cut (the rhymed version of this latter reading would be something like “When down a crooked path you lead”).

[105] Corrected from »Im«.

[106] The text doubles the title of this section.

[107] H. Beringer’s use of the term ‘vom Himmel=from heaven/the heavens’ gives a bit of religious flavor to the first couplet, and I leaned into that further in translating this section.

[108] Twer has two basic meanings: across or crosswise, and aslant or slantwise. Paulus Hector Mayr's Latinist renders it ‘transversarius=transverse’, which has the same range of meaning. Back in 2006, Jeffrey Forgeng offered the watershed translation “thwart”, derived from “athwart”, a nautical term which refers to movement across something or working at cross-purposes to something. “Thwart” is cool because it sort of sounds like Twer, but is less cool because it’s quite obscure and 21st century people who read “thwart strike” don’t think of an adjective that means crosswise, they think of the verb “to thwart”, meaning to obstruct or oppose. This also ‘makes sense’ as a thing that the strike can do, but it’s irrelevant to the actual meaning of the German term here so it’s sort of a linguistic trap. I translate Twer as “cross”, “across”, or “crosswise”, depending on which fits the sentence and meter better.

[109] This line is pure filler, since I used up all the text of this couplet in the first line.

[110] Both RDL and the author of ms. 3227^a agree that couplet 51 is referring to the four exposures but assigning them cute little nicknames that are also the names of two of the guards. This explanation is nonsensical and these alleged names of the exposures are never invoked again (instead, exposures are uniformly described as upper/lower and left/right), so I suspect it’s an example of the glossators having no idea what Liechtenauer’s intent with this couplet was. Alternatively, it could possibly be another ‘seam’ in the Record—a place where Liechtenauer left evidence of one of the older teachings he integrated (one in which the four exposures were always named rather than described). Note that Hans Medel, on the other hand, does indeed give instructions for attacking these two guards with the crosswise cut, and brings this up again in the gloss of displacing the guards further on.

[111] Couplet 52 is grouped together with the previous one by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck, but they all present the same teaching for them.

[112] This is based on the witnesses that have Fehler ver führt, but others have ‘Fehler wer führt=Who leads by missing skillfully’; the second line would then be “Goes low and harries skillfully”.

[113] A Fehler is the opposite of a ‘Treffer=hitter’ and signifies something that doesn’t hit whatever target it was aimed at. Here, it’s clearly an intentional miss. Harry R. renders it “avoidance”, which is similar in intent. I dislike the translation “failer”, even though I’m fond of cognates, because it doesn’t give any impression of what specifically is failing.

[114] Curiously, the author of ms. 3227^a seems to indicate that verses 53–57 should appear before the crosswise cut, and also includes a statement that seems to associate them with the crooked cut. No other witness supports this change. However, the pieces described in the various glosses are only tenuously connected to the crosswise cut, and frequently disagree about whether they include the crosswise at all or are performed beginning with any cut from above or below, so they all could be transferred to the crooked cut with little or no modification. Werner Ueberschär has suggested that the only reason the misser is grouped with one of the five strikes at all rather than being listed as an additional main piece is because of the numerological importance of numbers like 5 and 12.

[115] Couplet 56 uses similar phrasing to 79, in the section on pursuit.

[116] More literally “Twice further”, but I think my reading captures the intent better (at least as far as the glosses interpret it).

[117] These two couplets are grouped together by Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew and glossed separately by Sigmund ain Ringeck. In this case their interpretations vary in significant ways; of the two, Ainringck’s explanation includes two missers (as the Record suggests) while Pseudo-Danzig/Lew’s only includes one. Oddly, Lew actually glosses this quatrain twice with different text each time—once in its proper place and again in between the cockeye and parter—and the second time, the interpretation is similar to Ainringck’s rather than Pseudo-Danzig’s.

[118] Fehler is the opposite of a Treffer, which is something that hits or succeeds. The Fehler is the losing throw in dice, the missed shot in archery and shooting. It is, however, an action that might hit, but it is assumed that it will miss.

[119] This line might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous ones as two lines of a single couplet: "den elenbog nym in der waug / und mach den fäler nit träg".

[Twir-120] {Jump up to: 120.0} ^120.1 Corrected from »Twir«.

[121] haust

[122] These three fragments of lines were probably intended to be combined into a single line: "Zwifach mit macht virbas".

[123] This section uses several words that can be used to describe crime, so I decided to lean into that. Maybe it should be “the shifty-eyed cut”.

[124] ‘Buffel=buffalo’ is explained as simply “a peasant” by the author of ms. 3227^a, but RDL offer a more sophisticated explanation: a ‘buffalo’ is a fencer who doesn't try to feel hard and soft in the bind (Pseudo-Danzig/Lew) and instead seeks to win purely through superior strength (Ainringck). Note that this doesn't require a lack of skill or knowledge of fencing, merely an attitude that their opponent's intentions don't matter because the ‘buffalo’ can overpower them no matter what.

[125] Schielen is a tricky verb because it has a double meaning of “askew” and “cross-eyed” or “having a lazy eye” (both were once upon a time called ‘squint-eyed’), and the text relies on both meanings. “Cockeyed” is the closest we can get to both senses in one English word. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for suggesting this translation.) When shielen is used to tell you to look at rather than strike something, I render it “cock [i.e., turn] your eye”.

[126] Kürtzen means “to shorten”, and the glosses interpret it as referring to an opponent who fails to extend properly in fencing, but it also has a financial meaning of failing to pay someone the full amount they are owed, just as we refer to ‘shorting’ or ‘short-changing’ someone in English. (Thanks to Christian Trosclair for the ‘shortchanging’ idea.)

[127] “Take your revenge” would more literally be “defeat them”.

[128] I decided to read obern Haubt as equivalent to Schaitel just like Hans Talhoffer does in order bridge the cockeye and parter slightly and to give us some Schiller mit Schaitler (as mentioned earlier).

[129] Or “destroy”

[130] Or “skill”

[131] Scheitel refers to the top of the front of the head, the hairline, and the part of the hair. The verb scheiden means “to divide or separate”, and the noun Schaiden refers to damage or harm. Thus, while Sigmund ain Ringeck is clear that the name refers to starting from the part of your hair (i.e., over your head) rather than targeting their hairline, the other potential meaning of “to part” (divide the opponent in half) may also be intended.

[132] I also decided to turn ‘Antlitz=face, countenance, visage’ into ‘under Augen=under the eyes, in their face’ (as a borrowing from the dueling verses), in order bridge the cockeye and parter slightly and to give us some Schiller mit Schaitler (as mentioned earlier).

[133] More literally “chest”, but “heart” is more poetic.

[134] Both this couplet and the previous one end in the word ‘Gefähr=threat’, which is weird and unusually awkward even for Liechtenauer. It's even more awkward when some witnesses combine each couplet into a single line, producing one extra-long couplet where both lines end with the same word. I don't know what this tells us about the Record, but it's weird.

[135] “Refuse to kneel” is an addition to the text to serve the rhyme and make it more evocative.

[136] ‘Streichen=to sweep’ is generally understood to refer to rising short-edge cuts from below, and is the subject of the short treatise Stuck im aufstreichen (“Pieces of sweeping-upon”). None of the glosses discuss sweeping in the section on the parter, despite it being a primary form of attack from the foolish guard and a likely response to the parter, so this may be another instance where the glossators are unaware of or failing to record Liechtenauer's complete teaching.

[137] Unusually, Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew gloss this entire section as a single block of ten lines; witnesses of Sigmund ain Ringeck vary in how they divide up the section, ranging from grouping 63–64 and 65–67 together to treating 63, 64, and 65 separately and only grouping 66–67.

[138] Whatever comes from the Skull cut.

[139] This is the most obvious potential ‘seam’ in the Record on the extended sword. The common lesson and the five strikes form a coherent sequence of teaching that build upon each other layer by layer, but at this point, the teaching seems to start over. References to previous teachings are almost non-existent in the subsequent sections of the glosses, and instead it begins from basic principles with how to stand, then how to parry, then how to attack, etc. If Liechtenauer constructed his Record from shorter teachings that he learned in his travels, then this sort of abrupt discontinuity is exactly the sort of evidence of that process that we might expect to see.

[140] A Leger is a lair or place to lie down and also a military encampment (especially a siege camp). A Hut is a defensive position or guard (and cognate with the English word for a small, rough shelter). It has been proposed based on these meanings that Leger could have originally indicated a position used offensively and Hut a position used defensively, but there’s no evidence of this distinction in any treatises from Liechtenauer’s tradition and the terms are used interchangeably.

[141] On the subject of lairs/guards, the author of ms. 3227^a offers another saying of Liechtenauer which isn't part of the Record and appears in no other source in the tradition: “The living move around, while the dead lie still” (or in longer form, “Whoever lies still, they are dead; whoever moves around, they yet live”).

[142] While ‘ox’ refers to bovines trained as draft animals—usually castrated males, but sometimes bulls or cows—the term Ochs also encompassed the aurochs, the wild ancestor of domestic cows that was prized for its leather and hunted to extinction by the 17th cen. Unlike domestic cattle, the aurochs had horns that pointed inward.

[143] Albern is an adjective meaning “foolish” whereas Alber is a noun meaning “poplar tree”; Joachim Meyer interprets it as the former, which he justifies with the explanation that only a fool would use such a worthless guard; Paulus Hector Mayr reads it as the latter, and his Latin translator renders it ‘populus arbor=poplar tree’ without any explanation (PMM: 89r.2–90r.3). There’s no way to be sure which one Liechtenauer intended, but PD: 2r renders it Alwer, a MHG word meaning “simple or worthless”, and Hans Medel uses ‘alberlich=foolishly’ in relation to it (HM: 32r.5), giving the barest suggestion of a shared understanding early in the tradition.

[144] Could also be ‘von Dach=from the roof’. I went with “day” to match the pastoral theme of the others, and for the similarity to H. Beringer, which uniquely has ‘von Himmel=from the sky’.

[145] Note that the actual positions described by these names vary between texts. RDL assign the name ‘ox’ to the upper angle, ‘plow’ to the lower angle, ‘fool’ to the low guard, and ‘from the day’ to the high guard, the author of ms. 3227^a and Hans Medel assign the name ‘plow’ to the low guard; 3227^a then assigns the name ‘fool’ to the lower angle, while Medel assign the name ‘fool’ to the upper angle and the name ‘ox’ to the lower angle. These two also describe ‘from the day’ as the ‘long point’ or ‘spreading window’. The only other early Liechtenauer sources that address the names of guards are the treatises of Paulus Kal, which generally agree with RDL, and the Cl. 23842 (anonymous but connected in some way to Peter Falkner), which labels each position with both RDL’s and Medel’s preferred names and also shows a version of ‘from the day’ which resembles Kal’s ‘spreading window’.

[146] Or “flee”

[147] In the 15th century, the word ‘versetzen’ encompassed both ‘versetzen=to move or shift location’ and ‘vorsetzen=to place in front’, and in this text it refers to a defensive action we might label a ‘parry’.

[148] The various glossators uniformly ignore the word ‘auch=also’ in this line: the author of ms. 3227^a focuses on the first line and introduces four parrying actions without discussing guards, while RDL focuses on the second line and alludes to ways of attacking guards that were covered earlier in the five strikes with no mention of parrying.

[149] The sense of a hunter driving an animal from its lair comes from hunting literature, and Jessica Finley is responsible for the pioneering work on connecting hunting and fencing terminology.

[150] I’ve written before about the problems with couplet 71: existing witnesses of the Record include two different contradictory versions. One group essentially says, ‘parrying is risky, watch out’, while the other says, ‘parrying is awesome, do it a lot’. So I sort of tried to combine both meanings here, since sorting out which one Liechtenauer intended is Somebody Else’s Problem.

[151] Pseudo-Peter von Danzig separates couplets 70 and 71, while Lew, Sigmund ain Ringeck, and Hans Medel combine them into a quatrain. Curiously, the Salzburg witness of Lew separates the two couplets like Pseudo-Danzig, and it groups the standard Lew gloss under couplet 70 and then adds a paragraph from Ainringck as the gloss of 71. Despite these differences, RDL show a largely shared understanding of the meaning of the verses (whereas Medel has a different interpretation).

[152] ‘Ansetzen=to set upon’ is rare in the extended sword but common in the spear and the retracted sword; it refers to placing your point on your opponent, and in armor is associated with ‘dringen=to crowd’, which refers to lodging your point in your opponent's armor and using it to push and lever them around. A sharp sword would presumably penetrate an unarmored opponent, but a blunt sword could be used to similarly push them around after setting upon them.

[153] I translate Enden as “extremities” here, but it could also be “ends” (the cognate) or “extents”; regardless, the glosses interpret it as a reference to the four exposures.

[154] After noting the awkward endings of couplets 63–64 in the parter section, this section gives us dich/dich (71), ist/ist (72), and enden/enden (74), the only couplets in the entire Record to rhyme a word with itself. This is probably not significant, but it is weird.

[155] Note that “pursuit” implies not only following or chasing something, but specifically overtaking and catching it.

[156] Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew combine this verse with the next quatrain, while Sigmund ain Ringeck glosses it separately (as does Hans Medel, who copies his text here). Ainringck presents two pursuits under this couplet, while Pseudo-Danzig/Lew only present the first one before moving on to the outer [mumble]; note that rather than appearing here, the second of Ainringck’s pursuits is discussed by Pseudo-Danzig under dueling couplet 63.

[157] The second word in the name of this piece is sometimes spelled ‘myn=form’ and sometimes ‘nym=take’. Myn tends to appear more commonly in the 15th cen. and nym in the 16th, but both appear in the earliest witnesses (sometimes even in the same witness) so it’s hard to say which one is the original term. Either would capture the essence of the piece, which is actions from a bind on the ‘outside’ (left) instead of the ‘inside’ (right). I decided to use both words in this translation.

[158] As before, “threat” could also be read as “path”, such as the path of a traveler or the trail left by a hunter's quarry.

[159] Couplet 77 is very close to 109, in the section on the turns.

[160] It’s interesting that these two couplets seem to form a strong quatrain, but separated by RDL and Hans Medel.

[161] RDL and Hans Medel include an additional eight-line poem about the word ‘within’ which isn't part of Liechtenauer’s Record:
‘Within’ above redoubles blows,
And transmutes strikes to go below.
‘Within’ runs through, their space invades,
And changes through from off their blades.
‘Within’ takes slices to suppress,
And wrestles equally no less.
‘Within’ takes swords when it requires,
And grants all that your heart desires.
This could be evidence of another teaching poem used by Liechtenauer which he didn't include in the Record.

[162] This verse technically says “pursue twice”, but all the glosses explain it as another outer takeforming, so I decided to render zweifach as “again”, which I admit is a stretch but it makes the verse make more sense.

[163] Couplet 79 uses similar phrasing to 56, in the section on the misser. The “old slice” is probably meant to mean ‘slice just like last time’, referring to that couplet.

[164] This line might instead have been intended to be combined with the previous ones as two long lines of a single couplet: "nun lerne in daß / den alten schnit mit macht".

[165] Hier hat der Schreiber offensichtlich ein Häkchen vergessen.

[166] Couplet 80 uses similar phrasing to 32, in the section on the cut of wrath, and dueling couplet 36.

[167] This is ‘overrunning’ in the sense of a river that overruns its banks or a cup that runneth over.

[168] Couplet 81 uses similar phrasing to 45, in the section on the curved cut.

[169] Absetzen is generally translated “setting aside” or “setting off”, but another sense of the word is “to lure someone away”, and RDL rely heavily on this meaning in the pieces they present for it. In a legal context, it means “to refute, to nullify, to abolish, to repeal”, and this sense is possibly represented in the second line here.

[170] Couplet 85 uses similar phrasing to 108, in the section on the turns.

[171] Or “counters”

[172] Or “him”

[173] “Your sword untied” is an addition to the text to support the rhyme, but is supported by the RDL glosses.

[174] Both ‘durchwechseln=changing through’ and ‘zucken=pulling’ are sometimes translated as “disengaging” by others, presumably in a misguided attempt to impose terminology from Modern Olympic Fencing on Liechtenauer’s teachings. It isn’t the literal meaning of either verb, and imposing it on the text just seems to add more potential for misunderstanding.

[175] Werner Ueberschär points out that Bünde, which replaces Binde in a minority of witnesses, is a term used in fortifications. Johannes Lecküchner leans more heavily into the terminology of fortifications and siege warfare, but this could be an example of Liechtenauer doing the same.

[176] For a discussion of translating zucken, see the note for couplets 25–26.

[177] Couplet 90 is very close to 35, in the section on the cut of wrath, and dueling couplet 63.

[178] should be "dreffen"

[179] This section is followed by one titled "Von durchlauffen ab seczen", which repeat the verse on Absetzen.

[180] Sigmund ain Ringeck combines these two couplets into a quatrain, while Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew gloss them separately. The plays that the latter cover under couplet 93 are instead included by Ainring under couplets 72–73 in the second on displacement, and he doesn’t appear to offer any teachings specifically for 93.

[181] Note that Paulus Hector Mayr understands this as ‘pressing’ in the sense of crushing using a press (such as a wine press or a printing press), not in the sense of merely pushing; his Latinist calls it ‘ratio qua hostis manus comprimuntur=the method by which the hands of the enemy are crushed’.

[182] I don't understand why this is a different main piece from slicing off, since it seems to just be an application of the four slices introduced in the previous verses. Given that the teachings in Pseudo-Peter von Danzig/Lew for couplet 93 are unrelated to those given in RDL for couplet 94. It would be reasonable therefore to assign 94 to this main piece and make the four slices part of the teaching about hand-crushing. Unfortunately, there are no witnesses that specifically group the couplets in this way (though there are several that don't include any divisions at all).

[183] Or “crushing”

[184] Or “yell”

[185] “To hang” is the cognate for hengen, but as much as I like cognates, “to angle” is the definition that will make the most sense and be the most actionable for most readers. Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latin translator agrees and used ‘inclinatio=inclination or angle’.

[186] This line is the same as the second line of couplet 30, in the section on the cut of wrath.

[187] The spreading window is not one of the five strikes or twelve key pieces, but it’s assigned a title whenever a witness gives any section a title. The only other segment of the Record to be separated out with its own title that isn't one of the main pieces is the four exposures, which also concludes with the same quatrain.

[188] Sprechfenster is often read as Sprachfenster, meaning “window for speaking” and the term for the screen through which cloistered monastics could communicate with the outside world (but not, as far as I can tell, the term for a wicket—the small window inside a door that can be used to talk without opening the door). However, Paulus Hector Mayr’s Latin translator renders it ‘fenestra patula=spread-open window’, which seems to be based on reading it as Spreichfenster from ‘spreien=spread’. This is an intriguing possibility, and I incorporated both meanings here. (Liechtenauer could, of course, have also intended it to be read both ways.)

[189] This could equally be meant as ‘freilich=freely’ or ‘safely (due to freedom)’ or ‘fröhlich=joyfully, cheerfully, or funnily’; both spellings are attested in early witnesses of Liechtenauer’s Record. (Again, it could be intended to encompass both.)

[190] This is a bit of artistic license to draw the quatrain together; the text says to snap at them, but doesn't mention the window.

[191] Some witnesses reverse the two lines of this couplet.

[192] This quatrain is very close to 40–41, in the section on the four exposures.

[193] Or “spraying”, or possibly “speaking”

[194] Perhaps the strongest argument for the Record being intended to follow the structure of Classical rhetoric is that this final section is typically labeled the conclusion or resolution of the Record (i.e., the peroratio required by that structure) despite the fact that it summarizes little and instead introduces new concepts and techniques just like most previous sections.

[195] Sometimes translated as “three wounders”, based on ‘Wunde=wound’, but this form of the word doesn’t seem to be supported in Grimm or Lexer or any other source I’ve consulted. Wunder is pretty much always “miracle”, “wonder”, or similar. (Thanks to Rebecca L. R. Garber for pointing this out to me.) It’s possible, of course, that readers were expected to notice the parallelism between these two words and read “thing that wounds” into the term, but there’s no way to be sure of that. Since this is the only part of the Record and gloss that uses the term, the specific meaning may not actually be all that important. (Since I wrote this note, Christian Trosclair has succeeded in locating a single Swiss source that seems to use wunder to refer to ‘a person who wounds’, so “wounder” is no longer out of the question; I remain unconvinced that that’s the intended meaning, and I still don’t think it’s very important what the word specifically means.)

[196] Couplet 108 uses similar phrasing to 85, in the section on setting aside.

[197] Couplet 109 is very close to 80, in the section on pursuit.

[198] Illegible word. Could be read as either ‘zo’ or ‘w’. In the glosses on 37r it says ‘zw’.

[199] Unlike the fencing verses, the dueling teaching has little overt structure. There are no section titles assigned apart from one (of the two) segments of wrestling in the dismounted dueling, and it certainly doesn’t follow any Classical rhetorical structures. Apart from a couple shared lines (see the footnotes), this section has so little in common with the fencing verses that it’s hard to believe they had the same author (the writing style is also different in ways that are hard to describe). This could be further evidence of Liechtenauer’s role as a compiler and editor rather than an author in the modern sense.

[2_note-200] I went a little bit metaphoric at the beginning here because the glosses don't really have much relevance to the text of the Record anyway.

[3_note-201] This line uses similar wording to couplet 6 in the preface, so I translated it accordingly.

[4_note-202] ‘But pull them left’ carries over from couplet 3; these two are always presented as a quatrain in the glosses so this spillover seems fine, but annoyingly, the author of ms. 3227^a inserts several extra couplets in between them in his unglossed presentation of the Record, which divorces this clause from its context a bit.

[5_note_a-203] Stechen could simply mean “to stab”, but is also a term for one category of jousting games (the other category being rennen), which seems relevant here.

[5_note_b-204] Sittlich or sittiglich is a little tricky and doesn't quite make sense here; it primarily means things like “according to custom” or “in a moral way”, but from there it gains connotations of “temperately” or “moderately” (i.e. demonstrating the moral virtue of temperance), and from there becomes things like “politely” or “decently”. The translation “calmly” tries to capture the sense of tempering one's haste and using moderation.

[7_note_a-205] A Taschen is a belt pouch or purse worn on the side toward the back; I was sadly unable to work Jessica Finley's imagery of a cutpurse (i.e. pickpocket) into this translation. I'm not sad to not be using Stephen Cheney's imagery of a ‘fanny pack’ (also called a ‘belt bag’, I assume by people who weren't there in the 1980s and ’90s).

[7_note_b-206] Here we see a major difference between the fencing and dueling verses: where the fencing verses offer descriptions which the glosses then turn into formal names (reifying them in ways that may or may not have been Liechtenauer's intent), the dueling verses are prone to directly assign formal names to things. So here, the Record literally says something like “Seek and remember the Belt-pouch Cut”. In this translation, I have un-reified this terminology for aesthetic and mnemonic reasons, but be aware that this is going to be happening in the German through the rest of the text.

[8_note-207] ‘Ohne Fahr=without danger’ (rendered here as “care not” to match earlier uses) appears in both this line and the next one, so I omitted it here to avoid the redundancy. A final instruction to cause distress seems to have been added purely to complete Liechtenauer’s rhyme scheme and syllable count, but is omitted due to hitting my syllable cap.

[9_note-208] Literally “from stirrup to hair”; Grimm indicates that ‘from soles to hair’ was an expression equivalent to ‘from head to toe’, so I assume this is similar.

[13_note-209] This “knife” is interpreted as a dagger by the glossators.

[15_note-210] A Schaff is a large bucket, basket, or wash basin, and the name may arise from the method of carrying it by the handles (Thanks to Dierk Hagedorn for pointing this out to me.). Other translators have read it as ‘Schaf=sheep’, perhaps making a reference to holding sheep still for shearing. Paulus Hector Mayr reads it as Schopf and his Latinist renders it juba, meaning “horse mane” or “helmet crest”. This is another instance of the Record assigning something a proper name: “the bucket hold”.

[16_note-211] ‘Unter Augen=under the eyes’ is an expression suggesting it happens very close to them. I chose ‘under their nose’ as an equivalent English expression; Jessica Finley suggests ‘in their face’ as another equivalent expression, and Jack Gassmann suggests ‘when toe-to-toe’. Note that in exactly one instance further down (couplet 56), the glossators interpret it literally and tell you to attack their physical eyes.

[23_note-212] Jagen is literally “to hunt”, but also has a sense of “to run as if hunting or hunted” which might be intended here and all other instances of the word.

[29_note_a-213] Literally just “the knife disarm”, but the glossators interpret it as a sword disarm, suggesting the reading that you're applying a dagger technique to the sword. Lew uniquely has “the sword disarm” instead.

[29_note_b-214] Should be ‘shame’, not ‘strife’, but rhyming is hard.

[30_note-215] The direct translation of this line is just ‘the nameless [hold]’.

[31_note-216] “Have your revenge” is standing in for a phrase that would be more directly translated ‘verderben=spoil, ruin, destroy’.

[33_note-217] The direct translation of this line is just ‘the sun show’ (bowing is pulled from the next line). This is a piece in which you turn your opponent’s face upward to ‘show them the sun’, but it could also be understood as a reference to the gnomon or ‘pointer arm’ (Zeiger) of a sundial (Sonnenuhr).

[36_note-218] Couplet 36 uses similar phrasing to fencing 32, in the section on the wrath cut, and 80, in the section on overrunning.

[38_note-219] This time it’s ‘messen=measured’ rather than sittiglich, which is also one of the two virtues prescribed in couplet 8 of the preface.

[39_note-220] Literally ‘fuhren=to lead or guide’ rather than “found”, though this verb is missing from the Rome ms. (breaking the rhyme scheme).

[40_note_a-221] Vorgriffen is usually read as ‘vor=before’ + ‘griffen=grabbing’, but Jessica Finley has pointed out that, just as angriffen means both “grab” + “on” and “attack”, vorgriffen could also mean “attack before” and perhaps even be related to the ‘Vorschlag=leading strike’ that is the centerpiece of the author of 3227^a’s gloss of the common lesson. For this reason, and because the term isn’t otherwise clearly defined, I’ve translated it similarly to that text. Only the Pseudo-Peter von Danzig gloss clearly associates this verse with Before and After.

[40_note_b-222] “Work great deeds” is an addition to serve the rhyme.

[223] A guide letter “w” is visible under the “U” (apparently ignored by the rubricator), making the intended word “Wer”.

[224] Covering a deletion.

[225] This section title comes from Antonius Rast's ms., since it's less wordy than the Rome.

[42_note-226] Sigmund ain Ringeck groups couplet 42 together with the previous one as a quatrain, but Pseudo-Peter von Danzig glosses them separately.

[44_note-227] Sigmund ain Ringeck groups couplet 44 together with the previous one as a quatrain, but Pseudo-Peter von Danzig glosses them separately.

[45_note-228] This Vorstich also tends to be glossed in a way reminiscent of the description of the ‘Vorschlag=leading strike’ that is the centerpiece of the author of 3227^a’s gloss of the common lesson, so I’ve again translated it similarly.

[47_note-229] I can’t for the life of me understand why this is the only ‘section title’ in the entire dueling Record apart from the introductions to mounted and dismounted. It’s not even the only wrestling segment (nor even the only dismounted wrestling segment), and most of the verses after it aren’t about wrestling. It's interesting to note, though, that couplets 41–47 are included at the beginning of one branch of Martin Huntsfeld's armored fencing treatise, and that two witnesses—Salzburg and Rostock—begin with couplet 48 and skip 41–47 entirely.

[54_note-230] ‘Schaden=injury, harm’ and ‘Scheiden=scabbard, sheath’ can be spelled the same, and the verb zucken can equally mean drawing a weapon or drawing yourself back (in fear), so it's not always clear which one is intended in the Record. I use the interpretations in RDL to guide my choices here.

[56_note-231] This is generally ‘unter Augen=under the eyes’, but a minority reading has ‘und Augen=and the eyes’, which makes more sense in a list of potential targets.

[57_note-232] Again, the direct translation of this line is just “The Forbidden Wrestling” (“learn” is from the next line).

[62_note-233] This line is the same as the first line of fencing couplet 17, in the common lesson.

[63_note-234] Couplet 63 is very close to fencing couplet 35, in the section on the cut of wrath, and 90, in the section on overrunning.

[65_note-235] This couplet is skipped in the Pseudo-Peter von Danzig gloss.

[68_note-236] More literally “their eyes”.

[69_note-237] This line is pure filler, since I used up all the text of this couplet in the first line.

[238] Apparently the writer misplaced the space here.

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Die Zettel
The Record


Full Title	A Record of the Chivalric Art of Fencing
Ascribed to	Johannes Liechtenauer
Illustrated by	Unknown
Date	Fourteenth century (?)
Genre	Fencing manual Wrestling manual
Language	Early New High German
Archetype(s)	Hypothetical
Principal Manuscript(s)	MS 3227^a (ca. 1390) MS Chart.A.558 (1448) Cod.44.A.8 (1452)
Manuscript(s)	MS Thott.290.2º (1459) Cod.Guelf.78.2 Aug.2º (ca. 1465-80) Cgm 1507 (ca.1470) [more] MS KK5126 (1480s) MS M.Ⅰ.29 (1491) Ortenburg Fechtbuch (1400s) Pirckh.Papp.353 (ca. 1500) MS Dresd.C.487 (ca. 1504-19) MS 26-232 (ca. 1505) Cgm 3711 (1523) Cod.Ⅰ.6.2º.2 (1523) MS E.1939.65.354 (1533) MS Germ.quart. 2020 (1535-40) Reichsstadt Nr. 82 (1553) Cgm 3712 (1556) MS Var.82 (1563-71) Cod.Guelf.38.21 Aug.2º (1588)
First Printed English Edition	Tobler, 2010
Concordance by	Michael Chidester
Translations	Traduction française Deutsch-Übersetzung Magyar fordítás [more] Slovenski prevod Traducción castellano

Work	Author(s)	Source
Translation	Michael Chidester	Wiktenauer
Translation	Christian Henry Tobler	The Peter von Danzig Fight Book
Translation	Rebecca L. R. Garber	Alte Armatur und Ringkunst
Translation	Mike Rasmusson	Schielhau.org
Gotha Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Talhoffer Fechtbuch (MS Chart.A.558)
Rome Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Starhemberg Fechtbuch (Cod.44.A.8)
Copenhagen Transcription	Dieter Bachmann	Index:Talhoffer Fechtbuch (MS Thott.290.2º)
Wolfenbüttel Ⅰ Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Wolfenbüttel Picture Book (Cod.Guelf.78.2 Aug.2º)
Bologna Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Paulus Kal Fechtbuch (MS 1825)
Munich Ⅰ Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Paulus Kal Fechtbuch (Cgm 1507)
Vienna Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Paulus Kal Fechtbuch (MS KK5126)
Dresden Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Johan Liechtnawers Fechtbuch geschriebenn (MS Dresd.C.487)
Krakow Transcription	Per Magnus Haaland, Grzegorz Żabiński	Index:Goliath Fechtbuch (MS Germ.Quart.2020)
Munich Ⅱ Transcription	Filip Lampart, Martin Fabian	Index:Jörg Wilhalm Hutters kunst zu Augspurg (Cgm 3711)
Augsburg Ⅰ Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Wilhalm/Sollinger Fechtbuch (Cod.I.6.2º.2)
Glasgow Transcription		Index:Gregor Erhart Fechtbuch (MS E.1939.65.354)
Augsburg Ⅱ Transcription	Werner Ueberschär	Index:Rast Fechtbuch (Reichsstadt "Schätze" Nr. 82)
Munich Ⅲ Transcription		Index:Maister Liechtenawers Kunstbuech (Cgm 3712)
Wolfenbüttel Ⅱ Transcription	Kevin Maurer	Index:Künnst zu fechten vonn dem Lienhartt Sollinger (Cod.Guelf.38.21 Aug.2º)
Nuremberg Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Pol Hausbuch (MS 3227a)
Salzburg Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Codex Speyer (MS M.I.29)
Vienna Transcription Ⅱ	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Oplodidaskalia sive Armorvm Tractandorvm Meditatio Alberti Dvreri (MS 26-232)
Glasgow Ⅱ Transcription	Dierk Hagedorn	Index:Glasgow Fechtbuch (MS E.1939.65.341)

Johannes Liechtenauer

Contents

Treatise

Long sword

Mounted figures

Mounted and dismounted dueling

Long Sword

Mounted figures

Mounted and dismounted dueling

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