Fechtbuch - Medieval Fightbook

I first came across a reference to "Fechtbuch" via a documentary on SBS here in Australia - which was no doubt the National Geographic program that had aired much earlier.

The tome in reference - Fechtbuch - was a fencing manual written in 1443 by Hans Talhoffer:

Talhoffer was following a tradition established by Johannes Liechtenauer, an itinerant master swordsman of the fourteenth century who recorded the secrets of his fighting techniques in the form of cryptic verses. The Talhoffer manuscript includes verses from Liechtenauer, sections devoted to the procedures for fighting judicial combats both with and without armor, and the use of the weapons employed in such combats, including the highly specialized Stechschilde (thrusting shields), maces, long swords, spears, and daggers. There are also sections on knife fighting and wrestling, the latter based on the methods of Ott the Jew, a renowned wrestling master to the archdukes of Austria.

There is a 1467 copy of Talhoffer's Fechtbuch in the Bavarian State Library:

This 1467 manuscript Fechtbuch (Combat manual) provides instructions for various methods of fighting, without armor and wearing different kinds of armor, and on foot and on horseback. A series of annotated illustrations is devoted to combat with swords, daggers, pikes, and other weapons. Even the rules for a trial by combat between a man and a woman are included. The author, Hans Talhoffer (circa 1420–circa 1490), was regarded in his time as an unbeatable swordsman and one of the finest teachers of the so-called German school of fencing. Because of his reputation, many noblemen sought his services as an advisor and teacher. Among them was the first duke of Württemberg, Eberhard the Bearded (1445–96), who commissioned this manuscript. The manuscript itself has a curious history: originally forming part of the library of the dukes of Bavaria, it was stolen during the Thirty Years' War and ended up in Gotha. Only in 1951 was it again sold to the Bavarian State Library, where it is now preserved.

See also:

• Talhoffer's Fight Book Blog - A journal of working in Denmark for the National Geographic Channel program, Medieval Fight Book
• Trial By Combat between A Man & A Woman - article written by Associate Professor Kenneth L. Hodges, University of Oklahoma for the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts
• Medieval Combat - Mark Rector's translation of Talhoffer's manuscript

Read Online:

• The Ambraser Codex by Master Hans Talhoffer @ Google Books
• Fechtbuch by Hans Talhoffer @ HROARR
• The Walpurgus Fechtbuch @ AEMMA
• Fight Earnestly by Hans Talhoffer @  ARMA

Further Reading:

• Codex Wallerstein: A Medieval Fighting Book from the Fifteenth Century on the Longsword, Falchion, Dagger, and Wrestling by Grzegorz Zabinski
• The Art of Combat: A German Martial Arts Treatise of 1570 by Joachim Meyer 
• The Art of Sword Combat: A 1568 German Treatise on Swordmanship by Joachim Meyer
• Venetian Rapier: Nicoletto Giganti's 1606 Rapier Fencing Curriculum by Tom Leoni
• The Art of Swordsmanship by Hans Lecküchner trans Jeffrey L. Forgeng
• The Complete Renaissance Swordsman: A Guide to the Use of All Manner of Weapons: Antonio Manciolino's Opera Nova (1531) by Tom Leoni