Johannes Liechtenauer

Who is Johannes Liechtenauer?

Johannes Liechtenauer was a 14th-century German fencing master.

No direct record of his life or teachings currently exists, and all that we know of both comes from the writings of other masters and scholars. The only biographical note is found in Nürnberger Handschrift GNM 3227a, the oldest text in the tradition, which states that "Master Liechtenauer learnt and mastered [the] Art in a thorough and rightful way, but he did not invent and put together this Art, as it is stated before. Instead, he traveled and searched many countries with the will of learning and mastering this rightful and true Art." His surname indicates he was from a place called Lichtenau, but there are several places with this name in Germany. One suggestion is that he was from Lichtenau, Mittelfranken. It has been speculated that he was still alive at the time of the compilation of Hs. 3227a, based exclusively on the absence of a formula marking him as deceased.

Liechtenauer's influence on the German fencing tradition of the 15th and 16th centuries cannot be overstated. The masters on Paulus Kal's roll of the "Society of Liechtenauer" were responsible for many of the most significant fencing manuals of the 15th century. Liechtenauer's teachings were also the focus of many of the fencing guilds that arose in the 15th and 16th centuries, including the Marxbrüder and the Veiterfechter.