Johann Joachim Hynitzsch

Johann Joachim Hynitzsch was born on July 16, 1638 in Nordhausen, Thuringia, the first son (of four) of the book printer Johann Erasmus Hynitzsch. Likely trained as a printer, he enrolled at the university of Wittenberg on February 6, 1657. He appears in the Matrikel of the University of Jena for the summer Semester of 1658. He successfully defended his disputatio Dissertationum Boxhornianarum Sextam De Servii Tullii Principatu (“The Principate of Servius Tullius”) before Professor Johann Schmiedel in May of 1659.

Joachim’s younger brother Erasmus enrolled at Jena in May of 1661. On August 14, 1661, so did "Guil[helmus] Creuslerus, Jenensis," the eponymous and youngest son of Studentenfechter Wilhelm Kreussler.

Hynitzsch’s academic career ended abruptly in the winter of 1661, after being accused of engaging in Pennalismus. It is unclear if Hynitzsch had been actively engaging in the practice for a longer period, or if he lost his temper in an isolated incident. But he assaulted a younger student, beat him up and turned him out into the cold winter night without clothes. On January 22, 1662, Rector Johann Ernst Gerhard pronounced Hynitzsch's relegatio from the town and university of Jena for five years.

Hynitzsch left Jena and traveled to Leipzig. Likely through interaction with the Kreussler Fechtboden, specifically Leipzig-based Gottfried Kreussler, Hynitzsch was introduced to the ailing Heinrich von und zum Velde, who accepted him as a famulus or secretary. Until Velde's death on April 16, 1662, Hynitzsch was initiated into the teachings of Salvator Fabris, whose direct "Scholar" Velde had been around 1617 in Padua.

After Velde's death and a brief visit to Nordhausen, Hynitzsch disappeared from the record for five years, which he may have spent acquiring the skills of a master instructor of the Kriegs=Exercitia in Poland, East Prussia and Moscow during the last phase of the Polish-Russian War. He reappears in the Matrikel of Leipzig University in the fall of 1667, where he appears to have resumed studying the law.

In 1671, his student Christian Boehm, originally from Chemnitz and at the time enrolled at Wittenberg, mentions him as a candidate for the doctorate in law. Boehm's own dissertation focuses on the history of the exercitia, with a dedicated section to Fabris. Relying on Hynitzsch, Boehm supplements much of the information included by Hynitzsch in his 1677 Italian-German edition of Fabris.

Hynitzsch spent about 15 years translating Fabris from Italian into German, incurring great cost re-creating the illustrations of Fabris 1606 Copenhagen original, including portraits of both Fabris and Velde that were drawn and executed by Christian Romstet. The final product was produced in joint venture with his brother Erasmus and printed at Leipzig.

From around 1676, Hynitzsch served as "Stadt-Lieutnenant" for the Grimma District in Leipzig, one of four administrative sections, was well as Exercitien-Meister. He is listed both as Stadt-Lieutenant and Fechtmeister at the university until 1704.

Deep in debt and weakened by age, he left Leipzig for Halle in 1707, from where he traveled to the home of his brother Erasmus at Halberstadt. Here he died on November 7, 1707 at 9 o’clock in the morning. He was 70 years old. His nephew, Johann Christoph Hynitzsch, re-issued his Fabris translation in 1713.

Hynitzsch, in 1677, is the first to mention the Kreusslers in Jena among the protagonists of Fabris’ method in Germany—although he acknowledges that, over time, their terminology had deviated from the original terms of art. Because the 1713 reprint did not indicate that the text was already 39 years old at the time of its publication, later writers have erroneously applied Hynitzsch's mention of the Kreusslers "beiderseits" as relating to Heinrich Wilhelm and Johann Wilhelm Kreussler, not the originally intended Gottfried and Friedrich.

Biographical Information on Hynitzsch: The most complete resource on Hynitzsch is Amberger, J. Christoph: Lives of the Masters: Johann Joachim Hynitzsch. Baltimore and Towson: Secret Archives Press, 2025.