Johannes Liechtenauer

The primary area of our research and training is based upon the surviving records of a martial arts tradition associated with Johannes Liechtenauer. While very little is known about the man himself, his system was recorded in a series of poems, which were later written down and expanded upon by subsequent practitioners. The original three works cover fighting on foot and on horseback, both in armour and without, and with several different weapons. The earliest surviving example of these poems dates from the 14th century, but printed books based on his system were still being published three hundred years later!

While we lack a continuous lineage of teaching, we're fortunate these days to have access to many more of these resources than the old practitioners would have done. While they might have had to learn to recite a poem by rote, a modern researcher can compare documents that were written a hundred years or a thousand miles apart with the simple click of a mouse or the turn of a page. Want to learn how a knight would have fought in armour? There's a manual for that here - Wiktenauer. Want to learn about the wierd and violent ways used to settled domestic disputes? There's evidence of that too if you know where to look - a domestic scene

Our training sessions are focussed on physically studying these systems, we also promote an understanding of the sources and their historical context. We can know about the lives of figures mentioned in quiet old archives - we can find out who they trained for duels, how they got into trouble with the law and how they defended their opinions! For a fine example folow this link - Paulus Kal