Wiktenauer logo.png

Paulus Hector Mair

From Wiktenauer
Revision as of 22:52, 19 February 2014 by Michael Chidester (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Paulus Hector Mair

Codex Icon 312b, folio 64r
Born 1517
Augsburg, Germany
Died 10 Dec 1579 (age 62)
Augsburg, Germany
Occupation
  • Civil servant
  • Historian
Nationality German
Movement
Influences
Genres
Language
Notable work(s) Opus Amplissimum de Arte Athletica
Manuscript(s)
First printed
english edition
Knight and Hunt, 2008
Concordance by Michael Chidester
Translations Traduction française
Signature Paulus Hector Mair Sig.png

Paulus Hector Mair (1517 – 1579) was a 16th century German civil servant and fencing enthusiast. He was born in Augsburg in 1517 to a wealthy and influential family in the German middle class (Bürger). In his youth, he likely received training in fencing and grappling from the masters of Augsburg fencing guild, and early on developed a deep fascination with fencing manuals. He began his civil service as a secretary to the Augsburg City Council; by 1541, Mair was the Augsburg City Treasurer, and in 1545 he also took on the duty of Master of Rations.

Mair lead a lavish lifestyle and maintained his political influence with expensive parties and other entertainments for the burghers and city officials of Augsburg. Despite his personal wealth and ample income, Mair spent decades living far beyond his means and taking money from the Augsburg city coffers to cover his expenses. This embezzlement was not discovered until 1579, when a disgruntled assistant reported him to the Augsburg City Council and provoked an audit of his books. Mair was arrested and tried for his crimes, and hanged as a thief at the age of 62.

While Mair is not known to have ever certified as a fencing master, he was an avid collector of fencing manuals and other literature on military history, and some portion of his embezzlement was used to fund this hobby. Perhaps most significant of all of his acquisitions was the partially-completed manual of Antonius Rast, a Master of the Longsword and one-time captain of the Marxbrüder fencing guild. The venerable master died in 1549 without completing it, and Mair ultimately was able to produce the Reichsstadt "Schätze" Nr. 82 based on his notes. In sum, he purchased over a dozen fencing manuscripts over the course of his life, many of them from fellow collector David Lienhart Sollinger (a Freifechter who lived in Augsburg for many years). After Mair's death, this collection was sold at auction as part of an attempt to recoup some of the funds Mair had appropriated.

Already in Mair's lifetime some of his people's Medieval martial arts were being forgotten; this was tragic to Mair, who viewed the arts of fencing as a civilizing and character-building influence on men. In order to preserve as much of the art as possible, Mair commissioned a massive fencing compendium titled Opus Amplissimum de Arte Athletica ("The Greatest Work on the Athletic Arts"), and in it he compiled all of the fencing lore that he could access. He retained famed Augsburg painter Jörg Breu the Younger to create the art for the text, and according to Hils Mair also hired two fencing masters to pose for the illustrations.[citation needed] This project was extraordinarily expensive and took at least four years to complete. Ultimately, three copies of the massive fencing manual—six volumes in all—were produced, the first entirely in Early New High German, another entirely in New Latin, and a third including both languages.

Whether viewed as a noble scholar who made the ultimate sacrifice for his art or an ignoble thief who robbed the city that trusted him, Mair remains one of the most influential figures in the history of Kunst des Fechtens. By completing the fencing manual of Antonius Rast, Mair gave us valuable insight into the Nuremberg fencing tradition, and his extensive commentary on the uncaptioned treatises in his collection serves to make useful training aids out of what would otherwise be mere curiosities. Finally, while his collection of manuscripts was dispersed after his death, most been preserved to this day instead of disappearing as did so many others, significantly expanding the corpus of historical European martial arts literature.

Mair's Collection

The following are the fencing manuals that Mair is known to have owned during his life:

Manuscripts

Books

Treatise

Additional Resources

  • Hunt, Brian. "Paulus Hector Mair: Peasant Staff and Flail." Masters of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts. Ed. Jeffrey Hull. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58160-668-3
  • Knight, David James, and Hunt, Brian. The Polearms of Paulus Hector Mair. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-58160-644-7

References

  1. A variant on the o-goshi in judo.
  2. Which is what?
  3. Note: Change of grip required, or the illustration does not match.
  4. Dagger transfer necessary at this point.
  5. Note: person on left side starts with the dagger in the left hand according to the illustration.
  6. Note: push down, not out
  7. Arbait - technical term: work, force, struggle
  8. Vienna and Munich MS Latin: right.
  9. read: locitur
  10. Latin: snatch up.
  11. Note: the illustration shows ice-pick grip.
  12. "You will lick it!" Not pleasant if the dagger is lying on it. Especially in cold weather.
  13. May not represent the changing though described.
  14. Note illustration shows ice-pick grip.
  15. Note: left is corrected from a right. Left is correct.
  16. This seems to imply both parallel action and simultaneity.
  17. Reib - strong twisting, bending, rotating motion.
  18. Image shows left.
  19. From the inner side.
  20. From the Latin text
  21. Correct from underich.
  22. Could also mean immediately
  23. Only in the Latin.
  24. Inn - unclear whether directional or locational.
  25. The one in the left hand?
  26. Only in the Latin.
  27. Possible abbreviation of gegen – geg.
  28. Odd squiggle in the middle—f from previous line?
  29. Scribal error for pungito?
  30. Strange squiggle above the c.
  31. Squiggle – looks like the Munich MS symbol for us?
  32. Error for interim?
  33. Written as “in Clinando”
  34. NB, likely scribal error for “laevam”
  35. Second u has three dots almost like ǜ.
  36. Error for dextrum?