This article examines a lineage of retrospective images that portray Maximilian I as armored Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy, riding a horse that is clad in impressive plate armor from its head to its hooves. These artworks, which span the sixteenth century, participate in the early modern cultures of remembrance that surround Maximilian’s knightly persona and posthumous mythos. The central image of the study is a drawing, created during the 1540s, that is bound into the so-called Thun-Hohenstein Album. This drawing synthesizes two earlier paintings, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, that represent triumphal entries into the cities of Namur and Luxembourg in 1480. A later image, created in Augsburg around 1575, exactly parallels the drawing in the Thun album, which it may copy. Careful consideration of these images, their meanings and their different contexts of creation and reception, as well as the equine armor that they depict, demonstrates the persistent significance of armor in the early modern cultures of remembrance of the Holy Roman Empire. Link to full-text, open-access article: https://memo.imareal.sbg.ac.at/wsarticle/memo/2019-kirchhoff-memories-in-steel-and-paper/

This is the first of two articles about two albums of armor drawings once kept in the Fideikomiss-Bibliothek of the Counts Thun-Hohenstein, which are now preserved in the collection of the Uměleckoprůmyslové muzeum v Praze (Decorative Arts Museum of Prague).

In numerous 15th and 16th century Fightbooks several sets of teachings appear alongside the glosses of Liechtenauer’s Epitome on armoured fighting and fighting on horseback (Harnischfechten and Rossfechten) often enough to be considered auctoritas on these subjects. However, their authorship from various witnesses are attributed to different authorial figures – Andreas Liegnitzer, Martin Hundsfeld, Jud Lew. From 1452 until 1570, a number of diverse teachings are ascribed to them or faithfully reproduced without attribution: the most widely copied include the entitled Shortened sword for armoured hand and Shortened sword from the four guards, sword and buckler, dagger, wrestling and fighting on horseback. By acomparative analysis of existing witnesses, and by establishing the filiation tree of the related sources, we attempt to determine their original authorship. The analysis also yields additional conclusions regarding the influence of these authorial figures on other texts, proposes the filiation tree of the examined witnesses and presents the attempted study as a model for further research.

Knightly Dueling is a complete overview of the fighting arts of German chivalric dueling, on horse and on foot, during the late Medieval and early Renaissance. Through the words and pictures of original source texts of the great German fight-masters of the 14th through 16th centuries – extraordinary works that poetically preserved medieval methods of the true knightly dueling of mortal combat over grave matters with battlefield arms & armour.Until now, no single book has encompassed and clarified the scattered existing historical information on German dueling with swords, lances, daggers, pollaxes etc. Knightly Dueling shows the ruthless reality of man-to-man combat of the German Kunst des Fechtens (art of fighting), providing a thorough understanding of Johannes Liechtenauer's Roszfechten (horse fighting) and Kampffechten (duel fighting). It gives Middle High German transcriptions, as well as the first and only modern English translations, of works from various fight books by Liechtenauer's renowned masterly interpreters, including Hanko Döbringer, Peter von Danzig, Hans Talhoffer and Andre Lignitzer. The book also presents an illustrated blow-by-blow account of a deadly duel from a German Fechtbuch (fight book); primary source information regarding specific training of noblemen for duels and the training of noble youth in the combat arts; and a unique glossary of historical German chivalric terms for arms and armour.Lavishly illustrated with lots of period artwork, Knightly Dueling restores the concept of German chivalry to its rightful martial role and is a must for any serious scholar of the dynamic field of European martial arts.

Study of technical, normative, and narrative medieval literature and of archaeological pieces allows the motor skills of armoured members of the aristocracy to be outlined but not quantified. The authors present novel data on the impact of wearing armour on both the freedom of movement and the energy cost of locomotion, and confront the results to systematic analysis of medieval written sources. An accurate harness replica realized in an informed archaeological experimental way, close to medieval material and manufacturing conditions, was used for the experiments. Measurements of the energy cost of locomotion in and out of armour were taken during walking and running on a treadmill. Gait analysis and range of motion of joints were performed with 3-D kinematics. The results indicated an increase in the energy cost of locomotion in slight excess to the added weight and for most movements studied reductions in the range of motion over the joint, potentially to the advantage of the wearer during combat. This proof of concept appears promising for further study in this field of scholarly endeavor.

The paper aims at reinterpreting the so called ‘Teutonic estoc’ (inventory number: MNK XIV-49) from the Czartoryski Princes Collection, Cracow, Poland. Due to the weapon’s unusual construction it has been necessary to draw up precise documentation - written, drawn and photographic. It has been supplemented with research in historical sources and scholarly literature on the subject.The results obtained indicate that the researched weapon is not a typical estoc. It seems that it is a specialized anti-armour sword (Kampfschwert in German) designed for fighting against a heavy armoured opponent in judicial combat.If this conclusion were correct, the ‘Teutonic estoc’ from Cracow would be the only known artefact of this kind to have survived from the Middle Ages. In order to falsify this hypothesis the artefact’s authenticity has been examined. An analysis of Royal Inventory records spanning from the year 1475 to 1792 and younger remarks about the researched weapon in press, private lette...

The article discusses the "self-defense" techniques presented in fight-books and treaties. The objective is to determine if these techniques take the reality of fight in account, to evaluate the difference between theory and practice in remaining safe during an aggression. In order to do so, this work uses crossed analysis, with remission letters (judicial sources) studied in the light of the knowledge contained in the fight-books. This study is based on the sorting out of weapons, wounds, and times of death found in remission letters (the data of real fight). In parallel, the theorization of fight in treaties will be taken in account.