The Fight Book of Hugold Behr: A Late Sixteenth-Century Fight Book in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Little is known about the undated and presumably anonymous fight book which was once owned by Hugold Behr the Elder (sixteenth century), Rostock UB Mss. Var. 83. The small booklet shows how to fight with rapier and dagger, a combat system which was relatively new in Germany. Its author – an anonymous German fencer who had presumably journeyed to Venice – was probably inspired by Italian fight books. The semantics of the treatise show some interesting features with regards to the technical terms used, not to mention examples of code-switching phenomena from German to some specific Latin phrases. Furthermore, the treatise is, methodically speaking, highly elaborate due to the fact that its author brings a three-dimensional martial art footwork to life in a two-dimensional fight book.

Keywords

• Fight Book
• Sixteenth century
• Rapier and dagger
• code switching
• diagram sketch on footwork