A Tour of Meyer's Strasbourg
Learning more about the places where fechtmeisters lived
The biggest overarching goal in my HEMA research is to get a better sense of the place, time, and people who were fencing in Renaissance-era Germany. Through learning more about their lives (check my first article here) and what their day-to-day was like, I hope to gain an understanding of the people who were fencing in the streets and plazas of Strasbourg in Meyer’s time. However, in all my writings, I haven’t spoken extensively about the places where these fechtmeisters lived, worked, and fenced.
In this article I present a brief “Tour of Meyer’s Strasbourg,” outlining some of the locations mentioned in the historical records from around 1560 to 1610, including where some fechtmeisters lived and practiced, the churches they attended, guild houses where they were likely members, and important government buildings they interacted with. If you find this subject interesting, check out this article by Roger Norling about his own Meyer Pilgrimage as additional reading. For each section I will be using a combination of historical maps and images, some major ones shown below, links to external resources, and modern Google maps and street view links for you to experience the locations for yourself as a time traveling tourist!
A couple of notes. First, some of these locations are more approximate than others, which I will try to mark in relevant sections. Second, very few of the original buildings from the late 1500s survive today due to the multitude of bombardments, fires, and total renovations over the last 400+ years. Even an extremely exact address, such as Georg Kellerle’s house, will not necessarily point to the original building, but rather to the general location where that property once stood.
Citations will be done primarily through hyperlinks directly to sites and primary sources in the text, such as for this Meyer-Brack fechtschul request as an example, so you can easily explore more about each location. For more in-depth references, including translations and transcriptions of many primary sources, check out my publicly available Strasbourg research document series here, and the amazing Maisons de Strasbourg site here.
Here is the full 1548 Morant map with each location I will outline marked upon it. Let’s dig in!
Houses and Property
First up: looking at the residences and property of various fechtmeisters that I’ve been able to identify. The main sources of data for most of this information are the brilliant Maisons de Strasbourg site run by Jean-Michel Wendling (I’d highly recommend bookmarking and digging into this treasure trove of data) and “Das alte Strassburg” by Seyboth.
Georg Kellerle
Georg Kellerle was a cobbler and fencing master of Strasbourg, living in the city for around 40 years and holds the record for “most fechtschul requests” at over 83. His home is mentioned in 2 sources: the Books of the Commons (the Allmendbücher, a register of rents due to the City for any enjoyment of public space) and “Das alte Strassburg” by Seyboth, with alignment between the two sources on its location. In both he is recorded as living on the Rue des Vieux (Kalbßgaß), with the Allmendbücher entry (text search “fechtmeister”) being less specific at “Anderseit Kalbßgaß Oben Von der Haasen Hoff ahn, Untz hinab nach dem Closter zu Sanct Steffan zue”, meaning the north side of the Kalbßgaß close to Saint Stephen's cloister, and Seyboth providing a more specific address of 15 Rue des Vieux which aligns with the approximation in the Books of the Commons. Additionally, in both sources he is noted not as a cobbler, but as a fencing master, and is the only individual with this title in both sources.
“Georg Kellerlin der Fechtmeister hatt vor seinem Hauß 12 ½ schu lang, Oben ein Vsstoß 2 schu. 11 Zoll herauß, Einen Steinen Tritt 3 schu lang, j schu breÿt, Item zwo Keller Stafflen 4 ½ schu breÿt, 15 Zoll herausser, Soll Allmendt sein und bleiben, Bessert für das Nießen iii ß iiii d
Georg Kellerlin the fencing master has in front of his house 12 ½ feet, above [this] a jetty projecting 2 feet and 11 inches; a stone footstep 3 feet long and 1 foot wide; also two cellar steps 4 ½ feet wide projecting 15 inches. [It] shall remain public property, to be made right for use [for] 3 shillings and 4 pence.”
“15 - Georg Kellerlin, Fechtmeister, 1587.” - Das alte Strassburg
This address aligns to the location circled below, in south eastern Strasbourg.
The street view in Google Maps gives a sense of the classic tight streets and penned-in feeling of the old city. Imagine popping out the door with your feder and poofiest of pants to head over to a fechtschul from this view! Unfortunately, the original building was destroyed in 1944, although it survived for an amazing length of time. As far as I know, this is the most accurate address for a historical fencing master of this era yet dug up.
Additionally, in 1603 Georg requests a fechtschul to be held "im Braunschweigischen hoff,’ most likely the courtyard of the Hôtel de Brunswick. This is very close to Georg’s home, only a couple blocks away, but unfortunately this building burned down in 1682 and was eventually replaced by the current Place du Marché Gayot. Nothing remains of the original structure but a plaque commemorating its existence.
Wolff Brand
Wolff Brand was a carpenter and much more…subdued fencing master who practiced alongside Meyer and Brack, only requesting 8 fechtschul with the city council over 18 years. He also appears in the Allmendbücher (text search “wolff brand”), which notes both where he lived and features of his home. Wolff Brand lived at 5 Rue des Pucelles (Jungfrawen Gassen die Eine Seitten), and page 101 of the Allmendbücher notes some features of his home and a fine he received for cluttering the alleyway near the house.
“Wolff Brandt der Schreiner hatt vor seinem hauß ein Kellersteg 4 schu, vnd 2 schu 2 Zoll herausser, Soll & Bessert für das Nießen j ß vi d
Vnder Nota, Wolff Brand der schreiner hatt zu beeden seitten vnder dem Schlupff ein hauffen dielen ligen, soll deß wegen gerech fertiget Werden, Bessert darfür iiii ß d
Wolff Brandt the carpenter has a cellar step in front of his house that is 4 feet long and 2 feet and 2 inches wide, [it] shall [remain public property] and [shall be] made right for use for [the price of] one shilling and six pence.
It is noted, Wolff Brand the carpenter has a pile of planks lying on both sides under the entrance, [he] shall be fined, to be made right for four shillings.”
A quick walk around in Google Maps street view highlights the tightness of the alleyways in this area which an unorganized carpenter could easily block. This is likely not an original building, and probably was demolished or otherwise totally renovated since then. This cramped address is for a fencing master who practiced during the same time as Joachim Meyer and fenced with Wygand Brack!
Wygand Brack
Wygand Brack, Meyer’s most prominent student and ‘fechtmeister of many titles,’ is a sticky wicket. There are no records of him within the Allmendbücher (he died before the survey was completed), nor within “Das alte Strassburg.” However, we are not totally data deficient. In 1581 and 1582 Brack engaged in a legal battle with Hans Klein, a bookbinder, over breaking down a wall connected to some property Wygand purchased from Hans.
According Jean-Michel Wendling, who transcribed this final record in the legal battle...
“Hans Klein sold a shop ([a] Gädlein) to Wigand Brack. But the Tour aux Deniers (Pfenningthurn) did not authorize Wigand Brack to make an opening towards the Place des Dominicains (Place du Temple-Neuf, [Prediger] Kirchhof). Wigand Brack turns against the sellers. The survey shows that…
‘Dieweil dann nit allein In actis genugsam Aus:geführt das Weigend Brack wol gewüsst d. ihm der gebel geg. dem Kirchof nit für eigen verkaufft worden
..they demonstrated thoroughly, not only through documents, that Wygand Brack was well aware that he had not been sold the gable opposite the churchyard as his own.’ (Platy translated)
Wigand Brack knew the gable in which he wishes to open a wall was not part of the sale. He should therefore ask for an authorization and pay a fee. The investigation shows (f° 247) that the wall was part of the cloister of Dominicans (Prediger closter) according to an old expertise (vff der hütten ein Spruchbrief).”
This is the least precise property map I have pulled together, with Brack simply owning property butted up to the Temple Neuf plaza.
There were a few Gädlein all around the courtyard, and within the VII series in the Strasbourg archives there are even preserved drawings of these old shops from 1558. This may very well have been the shop that Brack owned! (Well, like, a 1 in 50 chance or something, who knows…)
This was also not Wygand’s first association with this part of the city, and perhaps even with the same piece of property, as in a 1571 note submitted to the council he asked that…
to allow him & permit him to break into a wall on the predigerkirchhoff - so it is within my gentlemen's responsibility - to break a window and a schwibbogen, so he can have more day.
The “predigerkirkhoff" mentioned is the same plaza in front of the Temple Neuf church he tried and the legal dispute above many years later seems to reference a very similar renovation request. Perhaps this was Brack’s primary fencing area, with the purchase of the Gädlein right on the churchyard being a fencing school, or maybe he just lived here and wanted a little more light. He spent the early 1570s teaching nobles who were attending the university next door fencing, so him living and fencing in this area would make sense.
Below is a sketch of the church façade and a photograph of part of the courtyard, likely close to what Brack would have seen while fencing there.
The area looks extremely different now, as the church and many buildings were destroyed by shelling from the Prussian siege of Strasbourg in 1870, then rebuilt. However, even now totally made-over, this is still very likely a location where Meyer’s most prominent student fenced.
Appolonia Ruelman / Hans Kuele
One big bummer of this project is that no housing data exists for Joachim Meyer, the big dog fechtmeister we all know. However, the Allmendbücher (text search “hans kuele”) does contain information about where his widow lived with her 3rd husband: fellow messerschmidt Hans Kuele.
f° 150-v
Die Gaß nach der Beckenknecht Stuben zum Heiligen Liecht genandt
Hans Kuele der Messerschmidt hatt vor seinem Hauß Oben ein Vsstoß 15 schu lang vnd 3 ½ schu herauß, Ein lehenete Kellerthüer 6 schu 9 Zoll lang, vnd 3 ½ schu herauß, Bessert für das Niessen, vj ß iiij d
The street leading to the Beckenknecht Stuben, also known as "Zum Heiligen Liecht."
Hans Kuele, the cutler, has above in front of his house a stone step 15 feet long and 3 ½ feet wide. Additionally, there is a sloping cellar door that is 6 feet and 9 inches long, and 3 ½ feet wide. It is to be made right for use for 6 shillings and 4 pence.
This location aligns with 21 rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Poissons, which is not the original building. Here Appolonia would likely live until her death in the late 1590s to early 1600s (Hans would remarry, expanded upon below), and raise her son Johannes.
Churches
The Strasbourg church records are one of the largest treasure troves of data I’ve found in all my research. All of our fencing masters show up in some way throughout their records, whether for their own marriages or baptisms of their children (or grandchildren). Church life was an integral part of the day-to-day goings on of all Strasbourg citizens, and this is no different for every fechtmeister living during Meyer’s time. The church names below are links to wikis or articles about each building, and each marriage or baptism is directly linked to the primary source. Some of these churches were destroyed and rebuilt, but all at their original locations, so feel free to look them up in maps with confidence!
St Guillaume
Joachim Meyer married Appolonia Ruelman in this church located in south east Strassy on 6/4/1560. This was Appolonia’s second marriage, after marrying Jacob Wikaw on 2/6/1599 in the same parish.
St Pierre-le-Vieux
This church, located in northwest Stasbourg, has one of the easiest to read sets of records out of all of the parishes.
Wygand Brack the Younger (Brack’s son) married Barbara Kraucher here on 4/26/1591, and later had their son Wygandus baptized here on 7/8/1593. Barbara would also be noted as a godparent for a Daniel Schneider in 1595, written as “Barbara Wigand Brack’s wife” in the note.
Additionally, Bechtold Kolb, a mint official and longtime city council employee, was married to his wife Rosina in this parish in 1577 and had 10 children baptized there. Bechtold at one point covered for Wygand Brack’s council messenger duties as he neared the end of his life, so it is not a stretch to hypothesize that they were both of the same congregation. Sadly, Wygand does not appear as a godparent in any of Bechtold's numerous baptismal records.
Temple Neuf
This church was a bustling center of Strasbourg religious life, both literally and figuratively, with many of our “big names” attending this parish. The original building was destroyed by Prussian bombardment, which also sadly destroyed over 400,000 documents held in the library there. My sad brain wonders if Wygand or Georg had fencing writings housed there, now lost to the ages…
Georg Kellerle likely remained childless throughout his life (too busy studying the blade with all those fechtschuls), but was married twice at Temple Neuf, first to Anna Hubers on 8/9/1573, and second to Barbara Schwab in 1600. Interestingly, he is noted as “fechtmeister” in this second marriage record -- a unique label in all parish records I’ve seen so far.
Wolff Brand has no marriage record I could find, but the baptismal record in 1571 for his second daughter, Magdelena, gives his wife’s name as Catharina. His first daughter, also named Catharina, married Jacob Dien in 1589, granting Jacob citizenship in the same manner as Joachim acquired his privileges by marrying Appolonia. Jacob’s citizenship record also notes Wolff as dead by this time, which agrees with a XV record in 1585 which notes his demise. Catharina and Jacob would go on to have 3 children between 1592 and 1600: Jacob, Zacharias, and Johannis Dien, while Magdelena would marry Heinrich Kraich in 1596, all within the same church walls. This is by far the biggest family of any fechtmeister yet documented.
Appolonia Ruelman married Hans Kuele, the messerschmidt, in this parish in 1572. Within the note you can see Meyer’s name noting her as his widow. Appolonia and Hans would also have their son Johannes baptized in this parish in 1574.
All of these huge life events happened here!
St Thomas
Wygand Brack Sr. married twice in this parish, first to Anna Schimmer in 1561, and second to Barbara Becker in 1565. Barbara was previously married to a Hans Becker in 1560 .
Hand Kuele remarried on 7/25/1608 to Magdelena Arnold in this central-southern parish, thus signaling that Appolonia had died by this time.
St Pierre-le-Jeune
Barbara Kraucher (Wygand Brack Jr’s widow) marries Jorg Zigler in this north-central parish in 1598. This signals that Brack’s son has died by this time, leaving only Wigandus Brack as the last male line of the Brack family to possibly exist into the 1600s. This church is very old, completed in the 1400s and surviving to this day.
Guild Houses
Guild houses would have been one of the hubs of our fechtmeister’s professional and social lives. The guild system at this time was extremely elaborate, with tons of articles to look up through this wiki. Guild houses would have acted as gathering places for members, hostels for traveling journeymen, and fencing grounds (the council was not happy with Joachim and Wygand when they wanted to hold a fechtschul in a canon’s courtyard because they couldn’t book a guild room in 1568).
This guildhouse (Zunfthaus) was located at 138 Langestrasse, or 138 Grand Rou. This location, where Meyer would have hung out, has been extensively researched by Chris Vanslambrouck, and he has an article about the guildhouse on his Patreon ‘Living Meyer’ to learn more. The original building was demolished in the 1930s to build a big ‘ol road.
Located at 5 Rue de la Chaîne, Georg Kellerle would have frequented this place. However, I am unsure if the trend of him being noted as “fechtmeister” after the mid 1580s in the place where his profession as “schumacher” would be typically noted is a sign that he was no longer a guild member. The building was destroyed during allied bombing on 11/8/1944.
Located at 1 Rue du Dôme, Wygand Brack would have spent time here. Wygand senior got a new profession as Rhatsbott in 1575, stating he could no longer make a living with as a tailor, and was no longer noted as one in records following this. It is unclear whether he forfeited his guild membership, or maintained it. The original building was totally remodeled sometime around 1750, and this new building was destroyed in the Prussian bombardment of 1870.
This guildhouse was located at 16 rue des Charpentiers, later relocating to 15 rue de la Nuée Bleue in 1659. Wolff Brand (and Caspar Hubar, another carpenter with whom he had a dispute around his time of death) would have hung out here. The original building at 16 would be demolished and replaced by a private mansion, which still stands today. There are no sketches of the old building, but it would have been located around here, just north of where Wolff Brand lived.
City Buildings
Pfalz (Council Building)
The Pfalz was the center of the city government, housing the rooms for the XIII, XV, XXI councils, and more. Every city council note for a fechtschul request, every request from Brack to take time off for his illness, happened within this building. Brack’s job as a council messenger, which he was hired for in 1575, would have him working in this building frequently as well.
The modern location of this building is…less than inspiring. In its place now stands a small square, merry go round, and parking structure, the construction of which necessitated the destruction of the historical foundation for this key building in Strasbourg’s history. The Neaubau, an extension building to the Pfalz, was built in the early 1580s and still survives today (although it was sacked and burned during the French revolution).
One of the few things to survive from the Pfalz is the painting pictured below, which hung within the courtroom along with 2-4 other works in the same series of painting from the 1560s to the destruction of the building in 1781. It would not be a stretch to say that all of our fechtmeisters likely looked upon this painting, thus being a rare shared experience between all of them.
Mint
Bechtold Kolb worked here. Also destroyed. That’s about all I got.
Pfennningthurn
The Pfenningthurn (Pfenning tower) was the treasury of Strasbourg, and dealt with loans, financial dealings, and more. It is not often mentioned in fechtmeister-related notes, but does appear in the Brack-Klein legal dispute, and likely impacted all the lives of the citizens of Strasbourg, documented or not.
Scharwächterhus
The night's watch had a ‘Scharwächterhus’ located at what is now 54 Rue des Grandes Arcades, essentially directly next door to the city mint and across the street from the Pfalz (council building). This is the location Wygand Brack would have likely operated out of for his duties as a night watch captain.
Thoughts, Next Steps, and Thank Yous
Learning more about the people who were fencing back in Meyer’s day and virtually walk the same streets they did adds an extra layer of personality to HEMA. There was so much living going on during that time, and getting a better sense of this day-to-day life through the actual locations fechtmeisters occupied hopefully helps to take them out of the history books as mythical figures, and more into reality as people who fenced just like we do.
There are still some gaps in the historic location record to be sussed out. For example, where Meyer and Brack themselves lived, as a couple biggies, as well as more specific information on where fencing was happening around the city. Luckily we have a huge community of history nerds who are working on interesting questions such as these right now! If you’re interested in digging into fencing history, check out my big open-source research document bundle. It has all of the information used in this (and all my other articles) with links to the different resources I utilize in my research.
Infinite thanks to Platy, whose assistance in transcription, translation, and historical insights has been invaluable during my research process. Without you my work would be a fraction of the quality that it is now, and I would have learned so much less about the social and political context around the events of the late 1500s. Additional thanks to Chris Vanslambrouck of Living Meyer for help in location data digging, including sending links to the Maisons site and “Das alte Strassburg” all those months ago, and providing me with the correct terminology for the guild houses to search with. Thanks and admiration to Jean-Michel Wendling of the Maisons-de-Strasbourg site. Your site is a glut of information, one of the best historical resources on Strasbourg that I have come across in the world, and your help in searching for locations of fencers and transcribing some passages has been very impactful in my work. Big shouts out to Olivier Dupuis, Kevin Maurer, Michael Chidester, and the HEMA Discord crew for the help and inspiration during my research periods. Team work!
Nice work Liam
My wife an I where just in Strasbourg!