A Fortune for a Fechtmeister
From Rags to Riches for Georg Kellerle
It was a rare thing in 16th-century life to be insulated from tragedy, able to live a simple life without drama, hardship, or catastrophe. Infant mortality was high, plague epidemics were common, and life expectancy was relatively low. However, some individuals seemed less affected by hardship than others. Georg Kellerle the shoemaker and fechtmeister was one of these lucky few, enjoying a very simple and uneventful life compared to other fencing masters - who had more complicated biographies, such as with the early death of Joachim Meyer or the chronic illness and work drama of Wygand Brack.
Kellerle was the most prominent fechtmeister in Strasbourg history, requesting over 90 fechtschulen and working to implement new fencing regulations in the city over a 37 year fencing career. He had a long life in Strasbourg, from his first appearance in the council records as a young out-of-towner “von Amberg” in November of 1572, to his death in 1612 when he was likely around 60 years old. In 1573 Georg obtained both citizenship in Strasbourg and was married at the Temple Neuf parish (the old Dominican Church) to his wife Anna Huber.
His wife was also an out-of-towner, her father Hans being schoolmaster in the small town of Giengen in Swabia. Following this initial marriage record, I was unable to find any baptismal records for children, even after scouring the parish indexes and scanning dozens of pages manually for a missed entry. The family and professional life of this busy fechtmeister seems to have been a simple one, living with his wife Anna, working as a shoemaker, and focusing on his fencing practice. He even had his brother, a fellow schumacher and freifechter by the name of Andres, visit Strasbourg and fence there from 1582 to 1585. When compared with other fencing masters of his era such as Hans Baumgartner (banished from his home city for hanging out with prostitutes), Simon Eckhardt (eloped with his master’s stepdaughter), and Wolff Brand (got in a very public spat with another fechtmeister), Georg’s life was calm as a tranquil morning sea.
However, all this would change in the late 1590s. After over twenty years with few appearances beyond regular fechtschule requests, more information about his family started popping up as I reviewed the Strasbourg council records. Georg’s family life started to get seriously shaken up and his relatively quiet life came to an end, as across a few short years there is mention of conflicts with Georg’s extended family and in-laws, the death of his wife, and a sizable inheritance, all of which we will explore below!
All associated transcriptions and translations are available in full in our Georg Kellerle research document.
First Mention of Kellerle’s In-Laws
Georg’s family drama kicks off in 1595 with the death of his father-in-law, Anna’s dad Hans Huber. The Strasbourg Council of XXI received a letter dated August 9th, 1595 from the council of Giengen, which had been recruited by a relative of Anna’s named Hieronymus Huber. In it, there is a request that Georg return a piece of inheritance which he had taken with him, perhaps against the wishes of the local family in Giengen.
Giengen writes, stating that Hans Huber has, among other things, left behind a grant of arms [wappenbrief, "a letter of a coat of arms"] when he died, which his son-in-law Georg Kellerle took with him. Since a foreigner was a child of Hans Huber according to the writer, Hieronymus Huber wishes for it, or else a seizure should be ordered on their behalf of everything of that sort which Kellerle still has.
They wrote so that the gentlemen may persuade Kellerle to send out again the grant of arms, otherwise they'll allow for [its] seizure.
Recognized, one shall send a message to Kellerle that he shall follow the request of the family amicably and send out the grant ["the letter"].
Strangely the object being fought over is a “Wappenbrief” or “Wappen,” a coat of arms that typically was held by nobility or individuals of certain status, such as prominent Strasbourg council members. Why Hans Huber owned a Wappen is currently unknown, with even Mr. Alexander Gebhardt from the Giengen archives being unable to track down anything definitive:
“Coats of arms can only be given out by the Kaiser, at least as far as citizens of Free Imperial Cities like Giengen are concerned, but neither here nor at the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Wien exist a copy of that Wappenbrief, at least according to my research.” (Personal correspondence reproduced with permission, Jan 20 2025)
There may be other places to check, such as some undigitized heraldry books mentioned by Mr. Gebhardt, but it remains an oddity for a shoemaker to get a coat of arms document from a schoolmaster. The “foreigner” who was a child of Hans Huber could either be Hieronymus himself, saying he has more of a right to the document than Georg does, or a different child of Hans Huber.
Anna’s Death and Inheritance
A few short years later in June of 1600, Georg’s life changed dramatically. Around this time his wife Anna passed away, likely being around fifty years old if they married in their early twenties. This left Georg truly alone, as the record confirms that no children had been born from their union.
Mayor and council at Giengen write that Hans Frech, schoolmaster at Hermaringen, who is married to the sister of Gorg Kellerlin's wife, requests:
Since Gellerlin's wife died without heirs of her body and left a large amount of wealth worth 1900 Rhenish guilders, Frech bestowed the second part on him [= Kellerle] on behalf of his wife and Caspar Huber's sisters. But until now nothing could be done because of Kellerle, even though he tried to [unclear]. Requests from my gentlemen to help him, so that he [= Kellerle] can receive what is his.
The Herr Ammeister gives a report that he tried to settle [things] yesterday, but Kellerle had been drunk and didn't wish to agree to anything. He [= Kellerle] was also most astonished that one tries to make him rich in this manner, since he owns nothing and needs to request fechtschul for his house-rent.
Recognized. One should write this down and send the reports to the "small council".
This short note includes a rollercoaster of events. The mention of the Ammeister (roughly equivalent to mayor) trying to settle with a drunken Kellerle makes me wonder if he was deep in the cups, dealing with the demise of his wife by swimming to the bottom of a bottle. After such a long marriage it would make sense for Georg to not really be in a place to talk about money, of which the mentioned amount is massive. For example, fechtmeister and Marxbruder Georg Freider, who became a prominent figure among Strasbourg’s brickmakers, left his entire family 300 guilders for inheritance after a lifetime of work.
Georg had suddenly gone from scraping by, using fechtschul money to pay his rent (similarly to Wygand Brack back in 1567), to being extremely wealthy. This amount of money would be enough to buy a sizable home (the house and garden of Joachim Meyer’s parents cost around 60 guilders), live in comfort for the rest of his life, and likely afford many other luxuries unavailable to a hand-to-mouth-living fencing master. Unfortunately the records for the other councils in Strasbourg contain no additional entries for this case, with the Council of XV not mentioning Kellerle and the Council of XIII missing the 54 pages that originally encompassed the entire last half of 1600.
A Quick Betrothal
Only a month after Georg (now likely being around fifty years old) got his massive influx of cash, he showed up in his old parish to be remarried to Barbara Schwab on July 2nd, 1600.
This record is interesting in a couple of ways. First, it explicitly states Georg’s profession as fechtmeister -- a rarity in parish records across all of the cities I have explored. Second, Barbara is listed as Greg’s daughter, without any indication that she was previously married or that Gregius had died. Typically widows would have their former husband named in place of a father (Joachim Meyer vo[n] Basel Messerschmid. Apolonia Rulmann Jacob Wickgaw’s nachglasne wittwe [= left-behind widow] as an example) or would list their father if unmarried, even if deceased (Susanna, Wolff Branden der schreiners nachgel[assen] tochter [= left-behind daughter] as an example).
This could mean a couple of things: either Barbara was a spinster, unmarried at a similar age (~50) as Georg, or that she was much younger and married an older man who now had beaucoup bucks. Her father still being alive and no widow status indicated in their marriage note pushes me towards the latter possibility, especially with the relatively fast turnaround from inheritance to knot-tying (thus evoking some modern stereotypes about wealthy older men shacking up with younger people).
Continued Inheritance Troubles
With so much money at stake, of course the saga of Georg’s inheritance doesn’t end here. In February of 1601 there is a follow up note where a portion of the big bucket of money that was meant to be distributed out to other friends and family didn’t arrive where it needed to go, causing friction between the parties.
Read out the letter from Giengen's council, in it they lift blame from their citizen Hans Frech opposite Gorg Kellerlin and complain that he [=Frech] has been insulted with useless words and vilified by others - specifically [it has been claimed] that he received from the council 18 guilders out of Gorg's inheritance and was supposed to send them to friends here [in Strasbourg]. [It has been claimed] that this didn't happen and that it caused him [Frech?] pain and that he couldn't replace it in a timely manner, thus he tried to create a credible pretense.
They [= the councilors] attest that nothing of this sort is customary among them [in Giengen], nor have the appointed guardians allowed this to happen, and that the sum out of the inheritance was never 18 guilders, also not a higher amount, for he procured 44 kreuzers and 3 pence and [additionally] 13 guilders in “Zins” [= as interest, rent or in promissory notes?], of these he sent 5 guilders to a separate heir in Nuremberg. They do not know whom he gave the 8 guilders, 44 kreuzers and 3 pence to, Frech does not confess. And although Frech received 50 guilders to add to his dowry, Kellerlin has not received a small amount in the distribution of his father-in-law's property, where he was treated well. As is reported by those appointed.
The Herr Ammeister reports that they will make a comparison of their accounts. It thus remains this way.
This record is…less than clear. Full of odd tenses and vague referrals to each party, it is difficult to get a clear picture of the problem. It seems that the larger pool of inheritance cash came with instructions to doll some of it out to different friends and family of the Hubers. Georg subsequently accused Frech of mismanagement, claiming that he did not receive a payment of 18 guilders he was due. This accusation caused offense in Giengen, moving them to again write a letter to the Strasbourg council. However this conflict played out, the details matter less than the fact that such a big bag of cash brought additional problems with it.
Hans Huber and the Giengen Connections
Getting related records from the Giengen archive about Anna’s father Hans, other family members like Hieronymus and Caspar Huber, or figures like Hans Frech is notably difficult because of a large fire in 1634, which destroyed much of the city and the 16th-century records within it. However, I was able to connect with the amazingly helpful archivist Alexander Gebhardt and the local historian Ulrich Stark to review these data points with them, as any information about Giengen citizens during this era are few and far between. The size of the inheritance in question may have been due to a combination of the Huber family’s long-time prominence in the city, and Hans Huber’s long career as a schoolmaster and local official.
Below is the bulk of information gathered by Mr. Stark regarding Hans Hubers’ life in the town, reproduced with his permission. Thank you!
“Hans Huber appears in the preserved city records of Giengen only as a „Waagmeister und Zoller" (Weighmaster and Customs Collector). Six council minutes from the period before the great fire of 1634 have survived, covering the years 1534 to 1571, with a small gap between 1541 and 1546.
The spelling of names varied over time. It turns out that the „Waagmeister und Zoller" Hans Huber was also known as „Schulmeister Hans Hueber" (Schoolmaster Hans Hueber) and earlier as „Schulmeister Hans Hieber".
The Hieber [Huber/Hueber] family was quite influential in the 16th century. Hans's father, Hieronymus Hieber, served as the guild master of the weavers and is mentioned in the council minutes from 1534 to 1550.
Hans' grandfather, also named Hans Hieber, was already noted as the mayor of Giengen in 1508 and passed away in 1547.
Hans Hieber, the German schoolmaster, was likely born around 1525 as the son of Hieronymus Hieber, the weaver guild master. In 1549, he petitioned the council of the Free Imperial City of Giengen to appoint him as the German schoolmaster. By then, Giengen already had a school dating back to before 1300, including a Latin school (a preparatory school for university) and a German school for general education. It seems the previous schoolmaster had retired in 1549.
Hans Hieber was first granted the position of weighmaster at the city’s scale and customs collector. Shortly thereafter, he was allowed to establish a school in his home. He taught there and even received a salary from the city treasury, which was increased in 1553.
He was married by 1557, as his wife was imprisoned that year for three days due to a dispute with another woman.
In 1561, Hans lost his position as weighmaster for unknown reasons. Around the same time, he unsuccessfully requested permission from the city to expand his school.
In 1566, he contracted syphilis, a widespread illness at the time, and had to give up teaching. During this period, he sought to improve his skills in writing and arithmetic at a higher school in nearby Lauingen, which had a gymnasium. Meanwhile, a substitute taught at his school, which seemed to operate as a type of private school. The official schoolmasters frequently attempted—unsuccessfully—to shut it down. In 1569, they finally succeeded. However, by 1570, Hans was permitted to teach in his school again and even took on the role of cantor temporarily.
This is where the council minutes in Giengen end. However, a document from the Strasbourg archives indicates that Hans Hieber passed away in 1595. [This is the first record we explored, including the Wappenbrief.]
There are no records in the Giengen archives about his children. However, Anna, who married fencing master Georg Kellerlin in 1573, was likely born around 1550/55.” (Personal correspondence reproduced with permission, Jan 24 2025)
Georg’s Death
The story of Kellerle’s life and inheritance ends in July of 1612 with a note in the Council of XXIII records. The Council of XIII had sent a letter to Kellerle’s hometown of Amberg, inquiring about potential heirs. Based on the timing of the initial letter, Georg seems to have died in either late 1611 or 1612, with a more specific date missing from the council records.
Görg Kellerlin's heirs
The Council of Amberg answers the letter from the Small Council from February 29 concerning Gorg Kelerle's case of succession. They give testimony that his brother Lennhardt left behind a daughter Margret, Niclaus Lehmann's wife at Fürth. Similarly her brother Michel’s daughter Sybilla, Paul Germ's wife, who offers herself to receive part of the inheritance too, even though she is a degree more distant. [They] therefore ask the gentlemen to approve the inheritance.
The main official at Fürth, Johannes Rastnig, also writes in a similar manner, he can send many documents of the wider family.
Recognized. One shall forward it to the small council. Herr Zetzner[?], Herr Bischof
Kellerle’s final archival record gives us data for even more family, this time additional direct relations of Georg’s to place next to his fencer brother Andres. There is mention of a different brother, Lienhardt Kellerle (who has also died at this point, indicated by his “left-behind daughter,” Georg’s niece), a nephew Michel Kellerle, a great-niece Sybilla, and two in-laws named Niclaus and Paul. And sadly, even with direct mentions of letters and documents being exchanged between the two councils, no further material around this record has yet been found. I contacted pertinent archives for guidance many months ago with no reply, so the trail has run cold.
Additionally, there is no remarriage record for Barbara Schwab/Kellerle in 1611-1614, nor any baptismal records following their marriage a decade earlier. If she was as young as I guessed previously you would expect her to move on with her life and tie the knot again just as Georg did, or even show up as mother for children who would stand to inherit, but nothing of this sort could be found in the parish files.
From decades of fencing, living with Anna, and minding his own business, Georg’s later years were chock-full of cash and crisis. Hopefully in his later years with Barbara he was able to regain some peace and quiet, luxuries that his contemporaries Joachim and Wygand were not afforded in their lives.
Thank Yous
Massive thank yous to Alexander Gebhardt at the Stadtarchiv Giengen an der Brenz and local historian Ulrich Stark for all of the amazing information and help you provided in my research of Hans Huber and his extended family. Without your assistance this article would have been a couple of Strasbourg notes and a lot of guesses, and I cannot thank you enough!
Additional thanks to Miriam for her help in translation, transcription, and proof reading of this article, and to the Strasbourg archives and their amazing digitized resource library that has yielded so much insight into the lives of 16th century fechtmeisters.