About ADGFT

Amberger’s Dictionary of German Fencing Terminology from 1550 to Today

Welcome to ADGFT, the only online resource exclusively devoted to the German Fechtsprache (fencing terminology).

From medieval ordeals to modern Olympic competition, German fencing—or, perhaps better: fencing in Germany—encompasses a wide array of theoretical approaches and practices. Modern German fencing terminology still reflects the coming and going of various international influences, fads, and fashions. And while the fencing historian may be familiar with the predominantly French and Italian imprint of modern terminology, a parallel universe of German terms (and sub-systems) has coexisted alongside these foreign imports and adaptations throughout the past five centuries, contributing specific regional and idiomatic terms that provide long-lost nuance to the development and application of the Kunst des Fechtens in Central Europe.

To reflect this nuance, ADGFT provides the historic context of a term as it was used in various historical sources.

ADGFT is a work in never-ending progress, and this website is conceived as much as a resource for serious researchers as it is a draft for a future publication on paper.

About J. Christoph Amberger

Christoph Amberger grew up in West Berlin. He studied at the Freie Universität Berlin, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, and Aberdeen University (Scotland) before getting his M.A. at the St. John’s Graduate Institute in Annapolis, Maryland. After a 20-plus year career in financial publishing, he earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore School of Law and now works as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Baltimore City and now for the City’s Ethics Board

Amberger has been fencing competitively since 1984.From 1994-2001, he published Hammerterz Forum, one of the first publications entirely devoted to historical swordplay. He has written hundreds of articles on fencing, as well as The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts (1999) and Codex Amberger (2020). His collection of fencing-related literature and weapons is among the largest in North America.

You’d be amiss not reviewing his research at The Secret History of the Sword.