The Art of Swordsmanship by Hans Lecküchner (Armour and Weapons) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783270284 ISBN 13: 9781783270286

Publisher: Boydell Press, 2015

Synopsis

Completed in 1482, Johannes Lecküchner's Art of Combat with the "Langes Messer" (Messerfechtkunst) is among the most important documents on the combat arts of the Middle Ages. The Messer was a single-edged, one-handed utility sword peculiar to central Europe, but Lecküchner's techniques apply to cut-and-thrust swords in general: not only is this treatise the single most substantial work on the use of one-handed swords to survive from this period, but it is the most detailed explanation of the two-handed sword techniques of the German "Liechtenauer" school dating back to the 1300s. Lecküchner's lavish manuscript consists of over four hundred illustrations with explanatory text, in which the author, a parish priest, rings the changes on bladework, deceits, and grappling, with techniques ranging from life-or-death escapes from an armed assailant to slapstick moves designed to please the crowd in public fencing matches. This translation, complete with all illustrations from the manuscript, makes the treatise accessible for the first time since the author's untimely death less than a year after its completion left his major work to be lost for generations. An extensive introduction, notes, and glossary analyze and contextualize the work and clarify its technical content. Jeffrey L. Forgeng is curator of Arms and Armor and Medieval Art at the Worcester Art Museum, and teaches as Adjunct Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey L Forgeng is curator of the Worcester Art Museum’s Higgins Collection, the second largest collection of arms and armor in the Americas, and also teaches as Adjunct Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His academic work specializes in European treatises on the use of arms and armor.

Review

For anyone really interested in fighting styles and techniques, this is a must-read. SLINGSHOT Forgeng's translation is clear and accessible. His experience not only as a scholar of early swordsmanship, but as a practitioner, is readily apparent. . . . (Forgeng makes) a vital text more widely available for practitioners not only looking to better understand the use of single-handed swords of all types, but also to how those techniques complement other medieval martial practices. --De Re Militari

A fantastic attempt to make the fecht-bucher increasingly accessible to a wider audience.... What sets this book apart is the contextualisation of the source and the excellent translations. --Medieval Warfare

It is clear that Jeffrey Forgeng is not only a technical expert on the weapon illustrated in this manual, but also a scholar deeply versed in the manuscript tradition of which this volume is a part as well as in the accumulated historiography that treats it. --The Medieval Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Boydell Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1783270284
• ISBN 13: 9781783270286
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 481