The manuscript including the text date to about 1270-1320 AD It is first mentioned by
Henricus a Gunterrodt in his
De veriis principiis artis dimicatoriae of 1579, where he reports it to have been acquired (looted) by a friend of his, one Johannes Herbart of
Würzburg when serving in the force of
Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in the campaigns of 1552/3. It remained in a Franconian monastery (presumably in
Upper Franconia) until the mid-16th century. From the 17th century, the manuscript was part of the ducal library of
Gotha (signature
Cod. Membr. I. no. 115) until it disappeared in
World War II and resurfaced at a
Sotheby's auction in 1950, where it was purchased by the
Royal Armouries. The author of the treatise may be a cleric called
Lutegerus (viz. a Latinised form of the German proper name
Liutger). The treatise expounds a martial system of defensive and offensive techniques between a master and a pupil, referred to as
sacerdos (priest) and
scolaris (student), each armed with a sword and a buckler, drawn in ink and watercolour and accompanied with Latin text, interspersed with German fencing terms. On the last two pages, the pupil is replaced by a woman called Walpurgis. The pages of the manuscript are
vellum, the 32 parchment folia (64 pages) of the manuscript show Latin text written in a clerical hand, using the various
sigla which were standard at the time (but which fell out of use at the end of the medieval period; an image from the manuscript (the second image on fol 26r) was copied into
Codex Guelf 125.16.Extrav. in the 1600s by a draughtsman who under his drawing stated that he could not decipher the Latin text). ==Contents==