Michael Chidester

The Thibault Project — HEMA Bookshelf This project has two goals! 1) To publish Girard Thibault’s spectacular illustrations in as close to their original size as possible — to do this, we need at least 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬. 2) To fund the purch...

Are you ready to buy the biggest book you've ever seen?

This project has 2 goals:
1. To publish Thibault’s illustrations in as close to their original size as possible — to do this, we need 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝙥𝙧𝙚-𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨.
2. To fund the digitization of complete, painted illustrations to release on Wiktenauer.

So much Thibault...

One original 1620s painted Thibault print has arrived, and nine more are on the way.

Thibault is large

Thanks! It was hard, but it was honestly very rewarding. I understand the underlying language and meaning so much better after doing it.

Preparing for a new project

The last post I made here was the rhyming translation, so here's a revised version! This is the version I added to the wiki, including 225 footnotes and a new transcription I did from the Rome ("Danzig") manuscript. If the footnotes are too distracting, you can go to page 29 for a clean copy. Enjoy!

I keep forgetting this platform exists. I was never really a Twitter-user, and apparently I'm not good at not-Twitter either.

I spent April-June working on an English translation of Liechtenauer's Zettel written in verse like the original. You can read the results on Wiktenauer, along with a mountain of footnotes explaining choices:
wiktenauer.com/wiki/Johanne...

(My introduction to the project is in the discussion tab.)

More revisions to the Lignitzer article: new translations by Christian Trosclair and Per Magnus Haaland, more dagger thanks to Bart Walczak and Bartosz Starko, a timeline of contemporary research, and this provisional stemma. Enjoy!
wiktenauer.com/wiki/Andre_L...

The place where one ends and the other begins has a new title in Mair's mss.
- Mair's 2 German mss. have differences (at least in the first 2 pieces) that are associated with different branches of the stemma, which possibly challenges the assumption that Vienna was copied directly from Dresden.

A few things I never noticed:
- There are only 3 mss. that assign authorship to Lignitzer (out of 17 mss. and 3 books)
- Only the Rome has all 4 texts. Krakow comes in second place with 3, and the others only have 1 or 2
- Salzburg and Vienna have complimentary halves of the short sword text (cont)

Today in updates no one asked for: Andre Lignitzer!

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Andre_L...

This page has received several new transcriptions and also the modular column upgrade for easier comparison between manuscripts.

Pictured: Short sword fencing from the Cluny, which has nothing to do with Lignitzer.

Medieval manuscript facsimile project: Philippo di Vadi We're making replicas of "De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi", an illuminated manuscript by a fencing master named Philippo di Vadi.

It's time! Announcing our next facsimile project: Philippo di Vadi! In addition to the "standard" facsimile, you can choose the "metallic ink" add-on to get a version that restores the gold and silver illumination of the manuscript (which has been partly lost to the ravages of time).

While I know people always judge books by their covers, I didn't consider that in-person, when they can't see a plaintext title, people would glance at the cover, see a word they don't recognize, and move on. So I'm working on an alternative for in-person sales to leverage the name Ringeck properly.

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Pseudo-...

Now on Wiktenauer: BnF ms. Arabe 2824 is an Egyptian fencing treatise written in 1470 in Arabic, containing teachings of the Mamluks, the elite--but indentured or enslaved--warrior class of many Islamic nations in the medieval and modern periods. It was written by Pseudo-Ibn Akḥī Ḥizām.

Prepping for the next facsimile campaign. I guess now we find out the extent to which paper prices have gone insane.

What's coming up next? Here's a *tiny* hint...

In a blatant cash grab, #Google is now raising prices on my Workspace subscription and forcibly bundling in their plagiarism engine #Gemini. Wish my web host provided a different email option.

#HEMA #HistoricalEuropeanMartialArts #dueling #Basel

And, I guess, obligatory plug: if you appreciate the work that I do and you have the means, please consider joining my Patreon! Even a few dollars a month helps.

A duel in Basel in 1428 (free public post) | Michael Chidester Get more from Michael Chidester on Patreon

One of the things I researched a bit but didn't end up including in the introductory chapters to my new book *Pieces of Ringeck* was a duel between Heinrich von Ramstein and Juan de Merlo in 1428.

This is a free public post on Patreon, so please share with all your friends!

As a nonsense phrase of shady provenance makes the rounds, Elsevier defends its use The origin of the phrase? The phrase was so strange it would have stood out even to a non-scientist. Yet “vegetative electron microscopy” had already made it past reviewers and editors at several j…

Not to distract from *gestures vaguely all around*, but at some point we, the people who trust science and research, probably need to deal with how utterly broken the system of peer review and publication has become. "The science" seems to become less trustable year by year.

A statistically-average banana on an A4 sheet of paper is included for scale.

A while ago, I created this visualization page to show the relative sizes of various fencing manuscripts.

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Wiktena...

I was tinkering with this page recently, and to make it more useful, I also created a few subsections that only cover related manuscripts for easier comparison.

Still not sure the extent to which I'll be using this thing, but FYI, if I can't tell who you are then I probably won't be following you back. I'm generally disinclined to talk to people if I don't know who they are.

More to the point, _does_ this fit into the Getty's structure at all? Because in the Paris, it's awarded a master's crown. Paris sometimes plays fast and loose with the crown-and-garter system, but if the 8th master gets to be separate from the 6th, why not this one?

So where does this fit into the Getty manuscript's structure of nine masters? Is it a play of the 7th master, but now defending a rising thrust instead of descending? Is it a play of the 8th master, but now crossed rather than uncrossed?

Paris text (character count limit means no translation, but it was translated from something like that Italian text):

Praevalet iste motus cruce dagam nempe tenentj.
Supra nanque potuit operarj & subter in armis.
Vadit ad extremam nexuram hic ludus aperte
Inferior. Mediana iacet sub forte supermo.

In arme aquesto e un fortissimo incrosar
Che desopra e desota se'po ligar
Aquesto va ala ligadura sotana
E quello de'sopra va ala meçana

In armor, this is a very strong crossing
Because it can bind from above and below:
This goes to the low bind,
And the one from above goes to the middle.