I have just posted my most recent translation – the short treatise by a “Master Andreas”, comparing actions with the longsword and with the messer.
It is quite an interesting and short source, but it is written somewhat ambiguously in places, and I suspect that it is a copy rather than the original version of the treatise, since there are many “errors” that would be quite easy for a copyist to make but that one might reasonably expect the original author to avoid. In my translation, I have taken the liberty of rearranging the tables a little and also “correcting” the “errors” that I perceived, so that the translation I offer here is what I believe the original author was trying to convey even if the copyist introduced some errors into the script.
This is not an approach I normally take with my translations, but I think it is warranted in this case, and I think the end result is improved by this choice. In case anyone would like to follow my rationale for the various “corrections”, I discuss them in the footnotes.
I would like to thank Ross Bailey for his help in proofreading my translation and giving me the benefit of his experience with studying the messer, to ensure that I was not talking nonsense about the half of this treatise that I am less familiar with myself!
I hope you find this interesting. If you would like to help fund further resources like this, please help me buy more caffeine!
Please support my work.
A little donation can help to keep the website online, can buy me a book I need for research, or can simply provide me with enough coffee to get through the day!
Keith Farrell teaches HEMA professionally, often at international events (why not hire me to teach at your event?), and has an interest in coaching instructors to become better teachers. I teach regularly at Liverpool HEMA, and help behind the scenes with running HEMA in Glasgow at the Vanguard Centre.
I have authored Scottish Broadsword and British Singlestick and the award-winning AHA German Longsword Study Guide, and maintain a blog at www.keithfarrell.net where I post regularly.
New translation: Franz Hogenberg