Trust me, I am THAT kind of doctor…

Weapon: The sharp sword of abductive reasoning

Source: German-language fight books (1300-1600)

There are still many questions about Liechtenauer, his fighting system and the reason for his importance in the written tradition. I may not be able to answer all of them. But after eleven years as a professional historian working with fight books, I will offer a socio-historical explanation for the dominance of German-language fight books in the late Middle Ages. Sometimes, you have to take a step back to see the bigger picture…

Skill level of Participants: Any skill level
Needed Equipment: Coffee (one for the presenter and one for yourself). If you don’t like coffee, TRAIN liking coffee. It’s an acquired taste.

About the trainer – Eric Burkart

I have a Ph.D. in medieval history from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (2015) and have been working with fight books since 2013. I am currently writing my second book (habilitation) on medieval martial arts as the Principal Investigator of a research project funded by the German Research Foundation (“The Textualisation of Martial Arts – Fighting Practices as Objects of Knowledge within the Fight Book Corpus [14th-16th Century]”, Trier University).

I am also building a codicological database on fight books, which will be published as open access in summer 2025.

My follow-up project as Principal Investigator will involve the HEMA community: “Embodied Interpretathon – Crowdbasierte Interpretation von mittelalterlichen Bewegungsbeschreibungen” starting in June 2025 in collaboration with the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg and funded by the NFDI consortium 4memory.

Practical training: I have been training continuously in various martial arts since 1989 (Olympic fencing, karate, jiu-jitsu, wing chun, competitive shooting, Kali, Muay Thai). In 2007 I also started HEMA with a focus on Liechtenauer long sword and sword and buckler, but I am not affiliated with any club or institution.

I like tyre hitting and people who love fighting but hate violence (https://lfhv.org/).