A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561)

Abstract

The manuscript of Joachim Meyer dated 1561 kept in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, was ignored by specialised bibliographical works on fencing and absent of the secondary literature about fight books. This re-discovery sheds a new light on the story of the composition of the treatise printed in 1570 by this same author. This Research Note briefly presents the manuscript and the perspectives it opens up pending a larger scientific investigation. It contains a description of the manuscript and its content, as well as new findings regarding biographical information on the author.

The manuscript images are available as downloadable dataset attached to the article for research purposes, with the kind permission of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (licensed material). We thank the French Federation for Historical European Martial Arts (FFAMHE) for the financial support.