Jörg Wilhalm Hutter (CGM 3711) available in color

[Michael Chidester]

I posted this in the treatise index last night, but I figure I should make a general announcement as well. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has digitized the CGM 3711, the only complete original version of Jörg Wilhalm Hutter's treatise, in a set of gorgeous color scans.

Get them here: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00064546/image_1

A lot of odd things in this manuscript, which is good since I've reopened my research into Wilhalm/Hutter as part of the work I'm currently doing on Mair. An incomplete copy of this manuscript has long since been available in the secret ARMA member's site (apparently scanned very badly from microfilm), so while we've been able to study it in the past, a lot of detail was lacking. These huge color scans have changed my understanding of a few things.

First, the dating of Wilhalm has been problematic. The Wilhalm Sketchbook (Codex I.6.4.5) is clearly the first manuscript in the series, covering armored and mounted fencing and dated 1522. The Codex I.6.2.3 seems to be next, enhancing the content of the sketchbook with text and also dated 1522. The Codex I.6.2.2 comes later, covering completely different material--unarmored longsword, and a text-only longsword treatise--and dated 1523.*

Then there's this one, the Collection of German Manuscripts (CGM) 3711. It's always been listed as dating to 1522. Now I see that it's because in the old scans, the date on 42r is cut off completely, the date on 45r is cut off partially, and the date on 51r is ambiguous (could be a 2 or a 3). However, in the color scans it becomes clear that the longsword section is dated to 1523, and the armor and mounted sections are dated to 1522. It therefore appears that this was the fourth manuscript created, combining the contents of the I.6.2.2 and the I.6.2.3 into one master document. The art is slightly higher quality (or perhaps the manuscript is merely better preserved), so I imagine that this was a presentation copy of his work created on commission for someone who had seen his earlier works and wanted one for himself.

To finish the story of Wilhalm, the longsword section was copied by noted sculptor Gregor Erhart into his sketchbook in 1533. The complete text of the 3711 was reproduced by Lienhart Sollinger in the CGM 3712 (completed in 1556), though he probably did not have access to the 3711 and rather arrived at the same contents by compiling the I.6.2.2 and I.6.2.3 (both of which he owned). Sollinger sold the Erhart, the 6.2.2, the 6.2.3, and the 6.4.5 to Paulus Hector Mair over the course of the 1540s and 1550s; Mair reproduced a lot of their contents in his work as well.

* I'm currently chasing down a lead on this date, since the possibility has arisen that it actually dates to 1489 and was merely copied by Wilhalm.

[Michael Chidester]

One other interesting thing about this manuscript complex is that Wilhalm's work seems to be titled Jörg Wilhalm Hutters Kunst zu Augsburg (sometimes with des Fechtens tacked on the end). We know that Hutter was an Augsburger, not only from this title but also from the Augsburg tax records; Gregor Erhart and Paulus Hector Mair, the other writers who duplicate his work, are also the only other manual authors from Augsburg.

This leads me to wonder if the style in these manuscripts, which is loosely based on Liechtenauer but with a lot of interpolation, is a regional style specific to Augsburg--not unlike how Codex Wallerstein et al. describe an art somewhat similar to Liechtenauer's that was local to the Nuremberg area.