by J. Christoph Amberger
Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia of 1544 may be the first serious attempt of a scholar to transmit encyclopedic knowledge to an increasingly worldly audience. However, the Orbis Sensualium Pictus of Johann Amos Comenius, first published in 1653 by the printing house of Michael Endter in Nürnberg, is the first multi-lingual dictionary combining the vernacular with the language of science (Latin), then art (French), and later, Empire (English). The text of this first original edition was written in Latin, then the lingua franca of science and education. A Latin-German edition followed in 1658.
Illustrated with 150 woodcuts, this early “non-fiction youth book” was issued in over 200 printings, new editions and conceptual innovations, which, by the middle of the 19th century, had made it the most popular and most widely read primer or school book in Europe. The original bilingual edition was soon expanded to include English- and French-language explanations.
For the fencing historian, the Orbis is of no particular interest as a primary source, and of little interest even as secondary one. In fact, due to the book’s perennial republication and distribution, and due to the ongoing use of the original plates by a series of cost-conscious publishers, the Orbis gives a distorted image of the respective “current” state of the Art of Fencing, because the short and concise summary of the subjects pay no attention to newer meanings of a the terms of art. For example, it uses the anachronistic Greek term “Palaestra” (originally denoting a place for gymnastic practice of wrestling, pancration etc., to denote a “Fechtschule”. Fechtschule itself has two distinct historical meanings in the German language, one denoting the competitive public contests of the Fencers Guilds of Marxbrüder and Federfechter and, later, an establishment teaching the art of fencing either as a private service or as an athletic facility attached to early German academia. However, Comenius and his later collaborators provide only the latter meaning, equating it with the salle d’armes. d
The entry of Der Fechtmeister (“The Fencing Master”) thus was outdated if not anachronistic at the date of each respective re-publication. While a comparison of the illustrative wood-cuts provides a feeling for the change and evolution of fencing practice and fencing weaponry, the ongoing copying/updating of the template and motifs creates distortions in the historical retrospective that may lead over-eager scholars to incorrect assumptions regarding the longevity of certain weapons in Central European usage.
Updated costumes in a mid-18th-century woodcut (Image 1) create the impression that the “Fechtschule” of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance—with its traditional weapons Dussack and Bidenhänder (great sword or two-handed sword), and its integration of wrestling,—was practiced far longer than it really was. In reality, the depicted scene is a limited variant of an illustration, which had been used in Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia. In later editions, however, the “updating” especially of the locality and/or the weaponry (while maintaining the original parameters of the illustration) provides some insight into changing fashions and fencing traditions.
Image 3
Image 3 is taken from an edition dating to the early 1800’s. Under the subject head “Fechtmeister” we see the master in the process of instructing his students in the use of thrust- ing weapons—then called “Rappiere” in German. These forerunners of the modern foil are equipped with shallow bell-guards or even dish-shaped guards (“Teller-Rappier”) and thus reflect the usage of the weapon in Germany (“nach Kreußler’schen Grundsätzen”—according to Kreußler’s principles) rather than the far more popular and widespread methodology of the French School of Fencing, which preferred the foil (fleuret) with lunette guard.
Image 4, published after 1840, reflects the shift in the practice of fencing at the German universities. It supplements the thrust weapons in the hands of the fencers with a rack of basket-hilt broadswords—Hieber or Korbschläger—which by then had established themselves as the weapons of choice for the students’ Mensur. (Illustration 4a).
The German text clarifies:
“Bei diesen Übungen bedient man sich des Rappiers; wenn die Sache aber ernst wird, bei einem Duell oder Zweikampf, der leider! zur Verhöhnung der besten Gesetze immer noch vorkommt, wird der Raufdegen oder Schläger, oder der Hieber, oder ein Dolch gebraucht.”
The English translation is just a tad shorter and does not differentiate between the two German cutting swords:
“At this exercise the foil is used, but when in earnest and the affair proceeds to a duel, alas’ in derision of the best of laws, the sword, or broad sword, or dagger is used.”
The German term “Raufdegen” here corresponds to the straight-bladed French épée de combat or dueling sword, predecessors of the modern épée. It is alien even to the serious German student or collector of European edged weapons. In fact, except for very few exceptions, it remains limited to the “studentisch” (i.e., relating to German student fraternities) historical research, which began toward the end of the 19th century.)
Yet again, we’re reminded that this source needs to be approached with caution: There is no code duello in civilized Europe in which the “dagger” is considered a proper “weapon of honor”. (To the contrary: The dagger is the very symbol of dishonorable “Latin” or “wälsche” assassins.)
The Orbis pictus is important to the serious student of fencing history in that it provides us with an idea about the general state of knowledge about the Art of Fencing among educated non-practitioners, as is reflected in contemporary written accounts of duels or the Art’s depiction in fiction.
The most important aspect of this source, however, is that it provides us with a “key” regarding the various terms used for the weapons in different languages:
Rappier = foil = fleuret = gladius praepilatus
Raufdegen = sword = longue épée = gladius praelongus
Hieber, Schläger = broadsword = sabre = ensis latus
Dolch = dagger = poignard = pugio
(The Latin terminology appears to be a “retrofit” based on the descriptive requirements of the modern term.)
Amberger's Encyclopedic Dictionary of German Fencing Terms 1550 to Today 