Old WMA Manuals Online

[Jack Rusher]

An acquaintance of mine runs a blog that specializes in scans from old books. He has, from time to time, provided high-quality images of old European texts on fighting. In each case, there's a description of the source, a number images and a link to a library's collection that contains more (often the entire text). Many of these images are hosted on Flickr, just click through if they appear broken in your browser.


-- from Alte Armatur und Ringkunst by Hans Talhoffer, 1459.


-- from The Fechtbüch ('fighting/fencing manual') of Paulus Kal, sometime before 1479.


-- from Volume I of De Arte Athletica by Paul (Paulus) Hector Mair (mid-1500s)


-- from Gründtliche Beschreibung des Fechtens ('Background description of fencing') by Joachim Meyer, 1570.


-- from Academie de l'Espee ('Sword Academy') by Girard Thibault d’Anvers, 1630.

I'm sure some of you have more to contribute.

[DdlR]

http://www.paravoid.se/hema/manuscripts.html has links to and/or hosts a huge range of PDFs of old combat treatises, manuscripts and manuals. The Renaissance German and Italian martial arts are especially well represented.

[Permalost]

Jack- where's the one in your avatar from?

[Jack Rusher]

Jack- where's the one in your avatar from?

De Arte Athletica by Paul (Paulus) Hector Mair, third from the top in the first post.

[Hesperus]

De Arte Athletica has much clearer (to me) illustrations than most. Good stuff. Loltastic as well.

[lklawson]

Need I say it?

http://stores.lulu.com/lawson

15 antique manuals and counting (plus 2 modern works on antique methods).

And I just started scanning for my next project. "How to Wrestle - Instructions of Frank Gotch"



After that will by Dick's Wrestling (stop snickering - that's really the title and publisher).

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

[DdlR]

A round of applause for Kirk, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty in making these rare manuals available to the MA community.

[Jack Rusher]

A round of applause for Kirk, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty in making these rare manuals available to the MA community.

Here, here!

[MastaFighta]

Some more links from the BibliOdyssey blog:



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...swordplay.html



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...e-in-1600.html



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...s-science.html



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...-pickings.html



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...encing_24.html



Source: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/200...g-in-1500.html

[JohnnyCache]

you know

it's funny to me

you can look at the development of art - the development of depth in particular - right on this page and see that yes, it is possible to miss something "fundamental" for 100s of years.