seventeenth centuries. Talhoffer, likely a student of Liechtenauer, reveals an
array of great-sword and two-handed sword techniques, sword and buckler
moves, dagger fighting, seizures and disarms, grappling techniques, and the
Austrian wrestling of Otto the Jew. His work also describes methods of
fighting against pole-arms. Like the works of many other fechtmeisters, Tal-
hoffer’s manual includes fighting with swords both while unarmored and in
full plate armor. Talhoffer also covers material relating to dueling, and, like
other masters, he was concerned with the secrecy of his art.
There are more than a dozen other significant German masters whose
works on fighting still survive. Many of their methods suggest influence
from one another. Among the most notable are Paulus Kal, Master Peter
von Danzig, Johannes Leckuechner, Peter Falkner, H. von Speyer, and Gre-
gor Erhart.
In Italy, a particularly significant figure was the Italian Fiore dei
Liberi, leading master of the Bolognese school of fighting, whose work re-
mains a primary source for practice of the medieval Italian long-sword.
Originally taught by German masters, dei Liberi studied swordsmanship
for some fifty years. His illustrated text on fighting skills, the Flos Duella-
torum (Latin; Flower of Battle) was first published in 1410. This pragmatic
work was devoted primarily to the use of the long-sword and great-sword
and offered a contrast to exclusively German systems. He covered assorted
sword and staff weapons, dagger fighting, fighting in heavy armor, and
mounted combat, as well as unarmed techniques. Dei Liberi’s work influ-
enced Italian masters, particularly during the later Renaissance.
Another important medieval Italian master was Fillipo Vadi of Padua.
Little is known about Vadi except from his treatise on fighting, De Arte
Gladiatoria Dimicandi(About the Gladiatorial Art of Fighting), written
between 1480 and 1487. He was a master from the town of Pisa who
served noblemen. His treatise is in two parts: One consists of text and the
other mainly of illustrations. Vadi taught that fencing is a “science,” not an
art. His teaching offered a glimpse of the ethics of a master at the time and
espoused the view that a master only needed to teach noblemen, since they
have the role of protecting the weak. Like dei Liberi’s, Vadi’s text displays
knowledge of a wide range of armed and unarmed fighting skills. The pos-
tures and guards he uses often have the same names as the guards of Fiore
dei Liberi, but interestingly the positions and their names are not always
identical to dei Liberi’s. Obviously, many guard names circulated among
various schools and masters with modifications in name and/or position.
From the fourteenth through the fifteenth centuries, medieval warfare
underwent significant changes. The process of change intensified in the
1500s. The massed use of longbow and crossbow, the development of ar-
ticulated plate armor, and the invention of weapons associated with fight-
Masters of Defence 321