Yesterday I completed a full readthrough of Meyer’s 1570 Longsword book. This was not a quick readthrough; it was a long detailed one. I spent time drilling and working through many of the devices. I really studied every passage. I took my time with this one.
I have many things that I have taken away from this reading. I’ll share a few.
It took me time to understand.
Frankly I had to be doing this martial art for many years before I understood the manuals. It is a strange horse-before-the-cart scenario. And by the way, I have seen some students go strait to the sources with understanding from day one. But for me, I had to do this for a long time before I could read the sources and really understand what they were saying. I just lacked the concepts and fundamentals that I needed for them to make sense to me. Eventually, that turned around for me. The most improvement started when I began studying Meyer. I was at a place where I had enough experience to understand Meyer’s elaborate sequences. I was able to connect the dots that would have eluded me when I was a younger practitioner. I could also see the lessons Meyer was trying to teach and I could apply them.
I don’t know when that time will come for others. It takes time doing this to understand the sources. But being a member of the MFFG and having people I could ask to share interpretations was really helpful and helped move me along.
In any case; during this reading, I was ready. Never before has a reading of the sources made so much sense to me and improved my understanding so profoundly.
Meyer’s 1570 work is a Rosetta Stone.
Meyer has a real and unique style that bridges the gap between the 1300’s longsword of medieval knights and the new world of privately armed Renaissance civilians. It is a unique perspective and twist on the art of the longsword. There are many things in Meyer’s teachings that may not be of interest to a military purist but; consider how valuable it is to know Meyer before studying Ringeck. Ringeck, or any master in the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer, did not explain the principles of authentic historical longsword in the kind of detail that Meyer did. The link in the terms and teachings is obvious. By knowing Meyer, Ringeck makes much more sense. Adapting from Meyer to Ringeck is much less confusing compared to studying Ringeck without the benefit of having Meyer explain to you each device in full detail. As Ringeck teaches the lessons of Liechtenauer’s verses, Meyer has already taught you numerous lessons in them and has elaborated on the meaning of the verses with pages of deeper commentary and explanation. That’s because Meyer wrote a comprehensive book for both the skilled and beginning student.
On that point, let me make one more important thing clear. Meyer wrote his book in the format of a distance learning text book. In his opening remarks Meyer states:
… the knightly and noble art of combat at this time has gone somewhat in decline with many people …
Meyer, 1570 (Translation by Jeffery L. Forgeng)
Therefore it is no wonder that this free knightly practice has not only come into decline, but also somewhat come into contempt …
Meyer, 1570 (Translation by Jeffery L. Forgeng)
Because Meyer knew that the art’s living tradition was dying he states this:
I have not only learned the praiseworthy knightly art of combat from skilled and famous masters, but have also now practiced it for many years, and have instructed young princes, counts, lords, and nobles in it, and was graciously and kindly requested by your kind princely grace on many occasions to write up this praiseworthy art of combat in a sound order, and publish it openly through the press, and to let it come to light for the use of many people of our nation; so I no longer wished to resist this gracious and kind request, and have therefore in the name and through the fatherly grace of the Almighty, brought together that which I have learned and experienced with care and work in this praiseworthy and sophisticated art over many years, and compiled it in the most comprehensible order as seems possible to me in this treatise, in the consoling hope that it should be very serviceable to many people of high and low degree, who value and care about the art of combat, considering that, as far as I know (not to speak to anyone else’s detriment), nothing of the sort has come out in German before.
Meyer, 1570 (Translation by Jeffery L. Forgeng)
There you have it. “… compiled it in the most comprehensible order as seems possible … hope that it should be very serviceable to many people …” Meyer tried to make the entire art immortal with his text book. A professional historical instructor from history wrote you a distance learning text book on this subject … and it’s the only one in the German longsword tradition that was this holistic. Here you go. Here it is. I can attest, after reading it; it’s the real deal. This text has blown my mind. As I have read Meyer’s commentary, opinions, and teachings, I feel like I have gotten to know him. He is a great and noble man. His teachings are clever and wise. Studying with him has been … in his own words “free, good, and pertinent to honor and manfulness”.
Perhaps Meyer’s style may not be for you as a whole; but I assure all practitioners that there are things for you here that you can only learn from here.
