The Historical Sources

The surviving medieval manuals describe armed and armoured combat as well as unarmed fighting techniques. Various weapons are employed, such as dagger, sword and buckler, "langes messer" (a single-edged swordlike weapon), pollaxe, longsword, or spear. Techniques are being diffentiated between fighting on horseback and on foot, in armour or without.

The focal points at Hammaborg are the so-called bloßfechten (fighting without armour) with sword and buckler, the longsword and with the "langes messer".

The Tradition of Liechtenauer

Johannes Liechtenauer was a fencing master who lived and taught in the 14th century. Unfortunately, further biographical details do not exist.  The first notion of his teachings can be found in the manuscript 3227a, dated 1389. The manuscript is in the possession of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and is often called the "Hanko Döbringer Hausbuch". Liechtenauer's influence was so tremendous that even in 1570 Joachim Meyer referred to him in his expansive fighting manual "Gründtliche Beschreibung der kunst des Fechtens".

Only very few fechtbücher with commentaries on Liechtenauer's teachings have survived the centuries. Among the better known ones are the manuscripts allegedly written by Sigmund Ringeck, Hans von Speyer and codex 44 A 8, formerly ascribed to Peter von Danzig, dating from between 1440 and 1492. Our interpretation is mostly based on transcriptions of the longsword sections of these manuscripts.

I.33

The oldest surviving fechtbuch in the world is the manuscript MS I.33, the so-called Tower Fechtbuch, which is preserved in the Royal Armouries in Leeds. It dates from about the beginning of the 14th century, the author presumably being a cleric named Lutger (lutegerus), and depicts with words and images fighting techniques with sword and buckler. Despite being written in Latin and kept in a British museum, it is a German manuscript that already precedes some of Liechtenauer's teachings.

Fencer and linguist Dieter Bachmann has put his German translation of the text online for the use of the public domain. Our literature section contains further information on the facsimile of an American publisher.

The interpretation of this manuscript is one of the core themes of our training. We have held appropriate seminars in Dijon, Copenhagen, and Zurich. Hammaborg utilizes for the freeplay with sword and buckler exclusively steel training-swords that are manufactured to our specifications.

The Langes Messer of Johannes Lecküchner

The Langes Messer (long knife) is a single handed sword with only one sharp edge. The back of the blade is blunt apart from a short section down from the tip. Being a modification of a peasant's or workman's tool it was available to the public and thereby no suitable symbol of status when of plain appearance.

The most important source on the Messer is from 1482: that year the priest Johannes Lecküchner finished his fully illustrated and more than 420 pages long treatise on Messer fencing, the manuscript Cgm 582. This work is one of the most extensive medieval fencing books and it's entirely on the Messer. However, it is clearly based in the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer: all his main techniques with the long sword are also present in the Messer of Lecküchner, but the chapters on disarming and wrestling are considerably expanded. Furthermore it contains techniques that are clearly described as martial arts demonstrations.

Single Combat in the Early and High Middle Ages

Except for the manuscript I.33 there are no comparable sources existant that deal with historical fighting techniques of the Early and High Middle Ages. Therefore any reconstruction of older fighting techniques can be nothing more than an approximation. A useful approach for our research is the comparison of contemporary iconography and literature about swordsmanship from later periods. Particularly Talhoffer as well as Di Grassi or Marozzo, authors from the 15th and 16th century, also cover combat with sword and large shield.

Complementary hands-on experimentation with replicas of Early and High medieval armament combined with a proper background in martial arts indeed allow of useful conclusions and results concerning single combat techniques before 1300. Archeological finds, in particular damaged weapons and skeletons, are rarely examined with any notable knowledge of historical martial arts. Our reconstructions allow a sophisticated view of correlative finds. Consequently, Hammaborg has been kindly invited by Peter Hambro Mikkelsen of the Forhistorik Museum at Moesgaard to examine Iron Age weapons and shields. A co-operation to research Germanic combat techniques may yield interesting results. Hammaborg concentrates on fighting with large, flat center-gripped round shields–the typical Viking shield.

Rossfechten – a Combination of Martial Arts and Horsemanship

The old manuscripts that deal with fighting on horseback are unfortunately quite silent on the matter of how to handle and train the horse. In contrast to martial arts however, the art of riding has never become entirely extinct. Institutions like the Spanisch Riding School count as important preservers of our riding culture. Nevertheless, each riding academy and almost every written document came into existence only years after riding on the battlefield and in the duel had ceased to be performed.

Numerous fencing masters show techniques of "rossfechten" in their manuscripts that are astoundingly similar. Upon the first inspection the non-riding fencer might get the impression that the techniques may be somewhat brute but generally childishly easy. But whoever has tried to execute a single attack on horseback flawlessly without getting hit in return will understand why the depicted techniques seem to be so commonplace. To steer a horse and to simultaneously hit a specific target straight to the point requires a maximum of technique, timing and sensitivity.