Looking for Fechtbuchen Resources

Psychlonic

I know about the ARMA website (of which most manuals are for members only. I am not a member) and I've found another good collection here:
http://www.umass.edu/renaissance/lord/

But I was wondering if anyone knew of more. I'm especially interested in complete scans that have not been modified. Transcripts and translations on separate pages are equally wanted, just as long as the originals are not tampered with.

This mostly interests me on the historical level but since it's technically combat-related I figured I'd toss a line out here. If anyone else might be interested, I'll update with sources as I find them. If anyone knows of more, please feel free to do the same. Thank you.

Meloncholy

It's not really a subject I know much (/anything) about, but I found this whilst looking for something else.

It piqued my interest and I went on to find two wiki based encyclopaedia portals, it's a list of articles but most have either a link to pdfs or plates in the references:

wiktenauer
scrimipedia (in Italian)

The sort of thing you were looking for?

Psychlonic

That's fucking perfect, thanks man. High quality and untouched. I had only been able to find a few that weren't scattered around or thrown into PDF with notes jammed in that required me to export and ditch the excess.

Meloncholy

Glad I could help!

Do you know of anywhere I find detailed illustrations of defensive architecture from this period? That's what I was searching for when I came across that version of De arte athletica. I'm reading Tristram Shandy at the moment; it keeps mentioning ravelins, curtins, bastions, half-moons, epaulments, demi-bastions, gabions, palisadoes etc and I'm struggling to picture it all in my head.

Psychlonic

It's not specifically geared towards the architecture itself but MS Thott 290 2º - perhaps Hans Talhoffer's most complete Fechtbuch sometimes referred to as "Fight Earnestly" - has a large section that includes basic defensive structures and war machines meant to overcome similar ones. It also has fairly decent illustrations of architecture scattered around as well.

Individual scans are on the website you linked to here, and there's a PDF on the ARMA website with transcription/translation notes here. That's really all I'm aware of though. I'll let you know if I come across any others.

Edit - Actually, it seems that section in the Talhoffer manual is based off of another manual called "Bellifortis" by Konrad Kyeser which should have even more illustrations if I can find a scan. This also seems to have some illustrations of various things in it.

It's also worth noting that a lot of times they use words differently or spelled differently than we do, even when the article has supposedly been translated. "Palisadoes" is probably talking about simple palisades.

Arkansan

It seems that you would be aware of most of the sources I know of on the earlier fechtbuchen, I don't know if your interested in them but I know of some resources on later period English sources that I can post links to if your like.

Psychlonic

Sure thing. I'm interested in those too albeit on a different level than the earlier ones so long as they deal with western martial arts or even recent views of past warfare and combat engineering. I've got most of the works by guys like Alfred Hutton and Jakob Sutor. There's a manual out there written very recently that I think even you might be interested in finding by a fellow who compiled all of the grappling techniques found in the fechtbuchen and made a more comprehensive guide to wrestling as they did against armed and unarmed opponents. You sounded interested in this in the stick/knife fighting thread anyways.

I can't find the damn thing in PDF format though, it's simply called "Medieval Hand-to-Hand Combat" by Keith Myers. It has gotten quite a bit of praise from legitimate practitioners from the reputed revival schools out there. I sort of gave up on it but it's likely out there somewhere and I might see if I can stumble into it again. It was supposed to be released for free at some it seems now that links to get it are dead. Worst case scenario, an email to the author might turn up something positive.

Arkansan

http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/Library/ this is the library for the Linacre school of defence, they have a pretty wide selection of texts ranging from historical English fencing to Pugilism. I would be sure to check their translation of Renaud's Defence in the street if you have any interest in historical Savate it's a good text with a lot of useful info. I would also look up Walker's Defensive Exercises on Google books, it is 175 pages of 19th century combative goodness, it has great sections on English folk wrestling, Pugilism, Broadsword, Fencing, Shilelagh, and even covers military drill, it is absolutely one of my favorite western martial arts texts, and it's in the public domain which is always a plus.
As to the book Medieval Hand-to-Hand combat, I have it on my hard drive, it is indeed the best modern resource I know of on Kampfringen and medieval combat grappling in general, since it was distributed freely I would have no problem sending you a copy, if someone could explain how it would be best to go about that.

Psychlonic

Awesome man, that's great news. The best way if you don't mind mass distribution would probably be to upload through an uploader service. Currently, MediaFire is one of the better free ones as links stay active long and there's very little hassle. You can either drag and drop the file onto the page or click the upload button to browse for it.

http://www.mediafire.com/

Also, thank you for the additional resources. Should keep the reading material rolling for awhile.

Meloncholy

Thanks for those links. I'm having a trawl through the Keyser section of the Tallhoffer manual now - there are some amazing illustrations in it.

Arkansan

Sorry about the delay in my response Psychlonic, I don't have a home connection so I have to go to a public hot spot to post. Here is the link http://www.mediafire.com/?zks7klv9z393oyk. It is really an interesting text, I wish there were more like it , I think the western martial arts community as a whole would benefit from having more of the historical sources organized and explained in a more modern manner.

Psychlonic

Cheers man, I really appreciate it. Others hopefully will too when they read it and see what it's all about.

As for wanting more like it, I've really been hoping for an eventual release of Mounted Combat: A Guide for Training Horse and Rider by Richard Alvarez. That would be one of those things I've got no problem instantly dropping money on. Although it's entirely impractical in today's world, I think mounted combat is a very clouded subject for all martial arts really because not only is there really no way to use the skill except in spectator sport jousting, but most people simply don't have a horse, saddle, much less the land required to practice on with a quintain. All the more reason to keep it alive somehow IMO, before it falls completely into myth and speculation.

This was a great read on the matter: http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php As an aside, there's some "reality show" about to pop up on the National Geographic Channel about jousting called Knights of Mayhem, but it's probably going to reek of canned drama and not really delving into the history of it, names, historical battles in where it was used, etc.

Arkansan

No sweat man, glad I could help. I've never really thought much about mounted combat, but it is interesting none the less, it would have been such a huge part of combat in medieval Europe, but there is no practical way for western martial arts researchers to delve into the matter. I would certainly spend the money on a mounted combat book as well just out of curiosity.
I would really like to see more English language material on early Savate whether reprints or modern works. I would also like to see a book doing an evolutionary analysis of pugilism.