Joachim Meyer’s Family, Revealed
Illuminating the family records of our famous fechtmeister
Joachim Meyer’s Basel years have been a source of mystery and hypothesis for almost two decades. From competing baptismal records with different fathers to a lack of local records mentioning Joachim in his birth city, there has been little clarity about his origins. Until now, a 1537 birth date lacked hard evidence to support it, so solid documentation of Joachim Meyer’s life only began on the day of his marriage to Appolonia Rulman in June of 1560, after his move to Strasbourg.
Now, however, we have that hard evidence! By first exploring the genealogical studies of Basel families by Dr. Arnold Lotz, and then conducting our own follow-up research on the primary sources in the State Archive of the city of Basel, we can not only prove a 1537 birth date, but also reveal additional details about his parents and surprisingly large family.
All translations and transcriptions were completed by myself and/or my co-researcher Miriam. You can access our full research document here, with full transcriptions and links to our sources, as well as additional analysis.
The Genealogical Research of Dr. Arnold Lotz
The genealogical research conducted by Dr. Arnold Lotz in the early 19th century was key to building out Meyer’s family record. He was born in Basel on September 22nd, 1862, worked as an ophthalmologist in the city, and was enlisted in the military as a medical officer. In his later years he dove into genealogical research, compiling dozens of notebooks about Basel surnames and families. Many of these documents have been digitized and can be accessed here (click “Untergeordnete....”).
These highly detailed notebooks steered us towards which primary sources to follow up on within the Basel archives themselves, as he was working with the same records we have access to today. Dr. Lotz collected information on all of the different families of Meyers at Basel (zum Pfeil, zum Muspach, zum Hirzen), but our Meyer family appears in the notebook with the signature PA 335 C 331 on page 96 (following the internal numbering).
This single note is a treasure trove of information. It names Anna Freund, Jacob Meyer’s wife, who was previously known from a sale document dated September 11, 1558.1 Joachim’s row includes not only an accurate account of his baptismal date, associated parish (St Alban) and death year - all of which were identified by past researchers - but also includes marginalia of his life in Strasbourg.
The Smoking Gun
At the bottom of the Jacob Meyer family page is a compilation of summaries made by Dr. Lotz of individual appearances of the Meyer siblings and parents in other record books from Basel. Most strikingly, it lists a record regarding inheritance after Joachim’s death that includes both his mother’s and brother’s names within it, cementing their connection.
1571 Sept. 24 U: Anna Fründ, wife of Anton Mey the papermaker, inherits from her son the decedent Georg Meyer, the brother of the decedent Joachim Meyer, the cutler & free fencer at Strasbourg.
After it became clear that the letter U was a reference to the Urteilsbücher or “verdict books” of the Schultheiß court at Basel, Miriam traveled to the Basel archives to follow up on this lead and was able to locate the primary source summarized by Dr. Lotz. Below we present the translation of this note in full, dated September 24, 1571, which begins with some confusing legalese around who is acting as Anna’s representative vis-à-vis the court as Jakob Meyer had died by this time and her children were likely under the guardianship of godparents.2
So Anton Mey the papermaker has renounced his advocacy (Vogtei) opposite Anna Freund, his wife, as is lawful.
Afterwards she, Anna Freund, has been put under the advocacy of Hans Türing the papermaker in the following matter, as is lawful. [Latin:] In better form promised as is custom.
Following this he, Hans Türing the advocate, together with his advocatee-woman Anna Freund, has empowered the above-mentioned Anton Mey, her husband.
The inheritance of Jerg Meyer after the dying of Joachim Meyer the cutler and free fencer at Strasbourg, this Jerg Meyer having been Joachim Meyer’s brother, (it) was inherited. Viewed that this one mentioned, her son, has also died since the dying of the reported Joachim. Now she properly submits what has already been received, uses court and law for this, to ask to have a receipt sealed for the received or for a seal. All was done (while) suffered out of necessity. [Latin:] The matter having now been viewed in silence, in good form promised as is custom.
Boom. Joachim’s younger brother Georg (age ~16) has died in 1571 after Joachim’s demise earlier that year, and his mother Anna is working out the complicated maze of inheritance, legal representation, and other family matters. She seems to be trying to get the combined inheritance of Georg and Joachim legally settled and sealed.
Adding them up
We can combine this inheritance record with a previously known archival record, Staatsarchiv Basel, Universitätsarchiv K 7 fol. 107, which was included in Olivier Dupuis’ article A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561)3 to definitively tie Joachim’s mother Anna Freund to Jakob Meyer the Papermaker as it names them as husband and wife, dated Nov 9, 1558.
They also appear in a second sale document, Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Gerichtsarchiv B 33 dated Nov 24 1558, named again as husband and wife, “…to Jacob Meyer the papermaker, citizen at Basel, who bought it legally for himself, his wife Anna Freund and in representation[??] of their common heirs…”
Finally, the previously known baptismal record for Joachim Meyer from 1537 that was once one of a few possible Joachims can now be confirmed, as it has the father as “Jakob Meyer, paperworker” listed clearly.
These combination of sources act as definitive evidence for Joachim’s parentage, and allow us to solidly point at this St. Alban baptismal record Basel as the correct baptismal record. Unfortunately it seems that Anna had a very tragic start to the decade, losing her husband some time before 1571 and then two of her sons in the same year. She thus outlived her first spouse and at least four of her children.
With this clarifying evidence we can now confidently state:
Joachim Meyer was baptized on August 16th of 1537 at the St Alban parish in Basel, as the child of father Jacob Meyer the papermaker.
He was married around age 22 and 9 months in 1560.
He died around age 33 and 6 months in 1571.
A Big Family
Joachim was the oldest of thirteen children, at least two of whom died in childhood. His siblings included:
Sophia Meyer, baptized December 3rd, 1538
Hans Jacob Meyer, baptized August 19th, 1540
Magdalena Meyer, baptized October 23rd, 1541
Ursula Meyer, baptized March 5th, 1543
Catharina Meyer, baptized September 21st, 1546
Esther Meyer (1), baptized July 7th, 1548
Hans Ulrich Meyer, baptized July 4th, 1549
Esther Meyer (2), baptized August 25th, 1550
Esther Meyer (3), baptized August 8th, 1552
Georg Meyer, baptized June 8th, 1555
Hieronymus Meyer, baptized November 18th, 1556
Gabriel Meyer, baptized April 19th, 1559
Joachim’s brother Hans Jacob was also a fencer who traveled to Strasbourg. More on him below.
Analysis of the godparents mentioned within these 13 baptismal records gives us additional insights about the Meyer family. Joachim’s godfather Heinrich Wildt was a papermaker and the son of a cutler, his godmother Anna Schaffhuser was the daughter of a papermaker and would go on to marry a papermaker (and brother of another Meyer godparent). Interestingly, his brother Hieronymus had a godfather Hieronymus Curio, who was a renowned publisher at Basel like his father Valentin Curio. Hieronymus Curio acted as printer and publisher for works such as the Lexicon Græcolatinvm. The various names reveal the Meyer family as being embedded in a professional and relational network of papermakers and cutlers - professions which both practiced in the St Alban neighborhood of Basel.
Hans Jacob Meyer, Messerschmied
Hans Jacob Meyer was Joachim’s younger brother, baptized almost exactly three years after him on August 19th, 1540. His godfather Balthasar Schaffhuser was the brother of Joachim’s godmother Anna Schaffhuser.
In order to confidently forge a connection between Joachim and the adult Hans Jacob Meyer, I explored the other possible Hans Jacob Meyers who were alive around the same time. They all had oddities within their records which counted them out as Meyer’s brother, such as being from highly specific Meyer families, having different fathers or colliding baptismal dates.
“Our” Hans Jacob is listed as a Messerschmied (cutler) within the baptismal records for his own children, which is reflected in the family page compiled by Dr. Lotz on page 82. One of his children shares a godparent with his youngest sister Esther, and all associated marriage and baptismal dates line up with the rest of the Joachim Meyer family.
Hans Jacob appears in the Strasbourg Council of XXI records in April 1564 to request a fechtschul, an event that was noted in the past as an odd confluence of names and titles but could never be fully connected to Joachim until now.
Hans Jacob Meier, citizen and cutler of Basel requests to grant and allow him to hold a fechtschul on upcoming Monday. Recognized. To be complied with him.
(Signed) Herren Bastian Jung and Lorch.
Why Hans Jacob was in town is a mystery, perhaps just to visit his brother after he had already moved away for a few years, but it seems that the two fenced together in some capacity. The note assigns no fencing-related titles to Hans Jacob, so it is possible he did not share the same recognition as a freifechter his brother enjoyed. I reviewed multiple Strasbourg parish records in 1564 for unindexed entries, in case Hans Jacob was visiting Strasbourg after the birth of the mysterious child of Joachim Meyer, but was unsuccessful in my search.
Hans Jacob would also have frequent run-ins with the law during his life, appearing in the Basel Urfehdenbuchs multiple times during the 1560s, which you can read more about here.
Other Siblings
Tracking additional Meyer siblings through time has proven difficult. Hans Ulrich may appear together with his family in Dr. Lotz’s notes on page 99, but there is not enough data to conclusively identify him as Joachim’s brother, even with a marriage date that seems consistent with his birthday. I reviewed all of his children’s baptismal records, with only a couple of seemingly shared family names appearing among the listed godparents and no exact connections.
Also, many of the recorded baptisms in Basel parishes fail to list the mother’s name, creating difficulty in uncovering the later life of Joachim Meyer’s sisters - especially when combined with less-than-robust marriage records.
Joachim’s sister Esther, however, appears in the verdict books on September 22, 15714 as she is paired with Hans Thüring as advocate after the death of her father Jacob:
There Esther Meyer, formerly the pious abandoned daughter of Jacob Meyer the papermaker, citizen at Basel, has been lawfully put under the advocacy of Hans Thüring the papermaker. Promised, as is custom.
Hans Thüring, a papermaker, seems to have been closely aligned with the Meyer family. His first wife Margret was Esther’s godmother, who died some time before 1557. Beyond acting as legal representative to both Esther and Anna in 1571, he and his second wife Magdalena also appear as sellers of a property to Jacob and Anna in 1558.5
Further Research and Outlook
With this recovered evidence, Joachim has gone from a lonely figure of uncertain origin, to part of a much bigger family of a dozen siblings and multiple nieces. The house sold by Hans Thüring to the elder Meyers is an area of continued research and will be the topic of a future article, as will be Meyer’s contemporary, the Basel fechtmeister Hans Baumgartner.
Additionally, following the family records to see how far into the future this line of the Meyer family continued might be an interesting challenge. The lack of easy to locate parish records for his sisters makes tracking them difficult (with even the very thorough Dr. Lotz not including any additional details) but it could be an area for future investigation and discovery.
Although we now know for certain that Joachim Meyer was born and baptized in 1537, there is still a wealth of open questions about his early life. However, with a solid foundation to stand on, finding answers to these questions feels more attainable than ever. Uncovering new biographical data will help to provide additional context around the genesis of Meyer’s fencing system, adding to our understanding of his influences.
Thank Yous and Acknowledgements
Infinite thanks and gratitude to my co-researcher Miriam for her help in this project. After initially collecting a few baptismal records of Hans Jacob and Sophia, both of whom had the “papermaker” title included in their notes, it was her discovery of the digitized Lotz notebook that busted the dam open. Her navigation of the digital Basel archives, expertise in transcription (including the odd Latinate grammar, suddenly different from the Strasbourg notes we were used to), analysis of the Meyer godparents, assistance in writing this article, and her amazing trip to Basel to investigate the primary sources herself were key in creating a definitive connection between Jacob and Joachim Meyer. Thank you, sincerely.
Without the rigorous work done by Dr. Arnold Lotz in the early 20th century making these (re-)discoveries would’ve been much more difficult. The Genealogical-Heraldic Society of the Region of Basel (GHGRB) began work in 2012 to make these sources more accessible for new generations of researchers. We would also like to thank the State Archive Basel-City for their friendly and swift cooperation.
Additional thanks and gratitude go out to all the Meyer researchers who laid the groundwork for our own attempt at adding to Joachim’s known biography. Olivier Dupuis, Roger Norling, Chris VanSlambrouck, Kevin Maurer, Michael Chidester, Kendra Brown, Jeffrey Forgeng, Rebecca Garber, and the countless others who have delved into Meyer’s life, works, and fencing. Without the work of so many other HEMA nerds we would not have had a foot to stand on in beginning this project, and so our thanks cannot be understated. And finally thank you to Renard for revisionary help and proofreading of my drafts of this piece!
Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Universitätsarchiv K 7 fol. 107. The document is discussed in: Dupuis, O. (2021). A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561). Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.36950/apd-2021-004, https://dls.staatsarchiv.bs.ch/records/880394
Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Gerichtsarchiv A 80, 1571 September 24. A transcription of the German text is available in our research document.
Dupuis, O. (2021). A new manuscript of Joachim Meyer (1561). Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.36950/apd-2021-004
Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Gerichtsarchiv A 80, 1571 September 22.
Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Gerichtsarchiv B 33, 1558 November 24.