The Art of Sword Combat: A 1568 German Treatise on Swordmanship

This is a good primary source for studying the ancient martial arts. Unlike the 1570 this book does not have a section dedicated to dagger, or pole arms. And his presentation and organization of the material is different than in his later work. But he tells the reader what is most important about fencing in the beginning of the book, after that he expands upon it with examples of how to do things. Also unlike the 1570 there are color pictures and they seem more painterly than the woodcuts. There is much less action happening the the pictures but they are still a useful example of movement with the weapon, also its good as a reference between the two sources as many of the same postures and movements are pictured in both works. I recommend purchasing and studying both sources and to read the entire source for clarity. There is also a glossary in this book.

I bought this book for a nephew who loves Medieval anything but after looking through it, really wanted it for myself. Beautiful drawings in color. An absolute must for any sword enthusiast! (I didn’t keep it 😇)

Muy bueno para arrancar con HEMA, obviamente el se 1570 es una versión mas completa con más ilustraciones pero este es un muy buen libro

I'm sure the translation is accurate so my complaint is probably with the original German sword master who was obviously not an author by trade. There is some good information in this book, but the organization is horrible unless you are already familiar with all the terminology and various guards and strikes. Even that information is in the book, but it comes after the instructional text, so if you are still learning, like me, you end up flipping back and forth between the glossary at the end and the text. And the pictures are beautifully drawn but not nearly as instructional as you would find in a more modern text -- if there were more modern texts. This could be a good resource book if someone wanted to develop their own classes for teaching this style of swordcraft.

This can be viewed as a "rough draft" of Joachim Meyer's work that would be published later on in 1570. This includes watercolor images of the various movements, but his "The Art of Combat" is far more complete and detailed I think.This would make an excellent addition to any HEMA library, but one might want to invest in "The Art of Combat" first.

Excellent read! Although I would loved it more if I didn't have to flip trough the book to find the images that were talked about in the text. Including them after the section of the text connected to them would be great! Still a must buy for all HEMA enthusiasts.

I practice HEMA, specifically the sword plays from this very book with my sword club. This is the updated/revised version of Meyer. The pictures are in line with the text now, instead of gathered up at the end of the chapters.

A fantastic new look on Meyer's work, including even a glimpse on the man itself. A obligatory text for those who study the longsword school of fencing.