The overarching theme of my research into 16th century fechtmeisters has been humanization. By learning more about the day-to-day lives of these individuals, I hope to paint a more complete picture of who was fencing back in Meyer’s time. Getting a sense of the scope of their lives, and how it relates to our own experiences, can perhaps make us feel closer to these figures often only known through some scribbles on pages -- and help us understand the circumstances under which they developed and practiced their fencing.
However, positive records like citizenships, marriages, births, or requests for new jobs are not the only ones that appear across the archives. Hans Baumgartner, the fechtmeister and messerschmidt of Basel (read more about him here) was involved in a series of crimes, provoking jail times, fines, and even eventual exile from his home city. In this article we will explore the less-than-nice activities of one of Meyer’s contemporaries to help round out our vision of 16th century cities and fencing masters.
All translations and transcriptions were completed by me and/or my research partner Miriam, and you can check them all out here in our research document!
Urfehdenbücher
The first record of Hans’ misdeeds appears in volume XI of the Basel Urfehdenbücher. The Urfehdenbücher (urfehde books) are a treasure trove of information. The urfehde was a legal instrument in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, lending its name also to the records which this custom produced. In his article on urfehden, Casimir Bumiller cites the following definition: “The German legal historian Wilhelm Ebel defined the urfehde as ‘the oath of satisfaction of the prisoner released from prison or penitentiary or pre-trial detention, in which he acknowledged that his imprisonment was justified and vowed not to take revenge for it.”1 Individuals that appear in these records are essentially taking a plea deal, admitting fault and promising better behavior. Often they pay a fine, but are released from jail to go with their vow of non-revenge. Here is Hans’ first entry, appearing on page 10r:
Released on the 4th of November [1570]: Hans Baumgartner the fechtmeister. The seven gentlemen visited him another time, and following this my gracious gentlemen accepted his plea. In doing so, it was explained to him that if he shall not abide by keeping what he promised, one might possibly deal with him in an unconcerned manner.
He shall work industriously so he can raise his children, also he shall go to Dr. Simon Sultzer and thank him for his chosen warning and counsel, also admit to having erred. Furthermore he shall avoid evil company and keep a proper household in his home with his wife[?].
He shall neither have a little nor a lot to do with Herr Lux Just, but when he wishes to do something for/to him, he shall inform my gentleman, the mayor.
Hans was thrown in jail for an unknown crime, and after being visited by members of the city authorities, they accepted his plea. Dr. Simon Sultzer was a professor of theology at the local university, so either it was thought that Hans was in need of special guidance, or it might have been related to Hans teaching university students. However, the mention of “evil company” in this note will not be the last, and may refer to something more specific…
Freiburg Crimes
Hans appears in the Basel Urfehdenbuch again on page 27r, dated May 7th, 1572:
Released on the 7th day of May: Hans Baumgartner the fechtmeister. So far our gracious gentlemen have complied with him in one way or another so he can better support himself, but nothing can help him. He behaves himself in a morally deficient manner here and elsewhere, namely as it happened at Freiburg, also he associates with evil company. He shall avoid and renounce the same altogether and pay attention to his household at home. If he does not do this and uphold it, he might possibly be expelled from the city and country, and his wife and children will be sent after him, and (he might be) indicted for perjury
Morally deficient behavior in Freiburg? Evil company? A threat of expulsion and references to his family? I was curious and decided to follow the trail by contacting the Freiburg im Breisgau archives, and ended up having amazing assistance in tracking down this reference by the archivist Dominique Maurice Frings. Hans appears seven times in the city across both the Ratsprotokolle (council protocols) and Gerichtsprotokolle (court protocols) for both simple fechtschul requests and for punishments. In the B5 XIIIa Nr. 24 Ratsprotokolle on page 216f, the mystery of “evil company” was solved. Hans has been jailed alongside a woman named Catharina Hinderhoferin, and she has been interrogated about an incident which happened at her house – an inn named “Zum halben Rößlein” (the halved or split rose) which doubles as a…different kind of establishment:
Catharina Hinderhoferin of Alendorf, the woman who runs the "Split Rose", has been jailed because of this. That she is harboring whores and knaves. And specifically (because) the fechtmeister of Basel, Hans Baumgartner, was apprehended at night in her house during an immorality[?]. First off, [unclear] the fechtmeister decided on his own to go on a stroll outside. Came inside. Bought her girl bread and a measure of wine, to drink. It became so late that both of them stayed outside. This never happened before, because otherwise one fetches them prior to it. That many wretched things happen at her house. One shall better examine them and record what one finds.
Hans Bomberger[sic] the fechtmeister has also been in “put-away”[?], for he transgressed with a prostitute at the “Split Rose”. Requests clemency and not to make too much of it. @ Thereupon recognized. One shall fine him to the amount of 10 pounds for the violation, he shall pay it in cash or give a pledge through other guarantors. And afterwards he was released with henceforth ordinary Urfehde. [November 14th 1571]
Hans Baumgartner was soliciting prostitutes at a brothel, and perhaps was fooling around with one outside of the establishment doing many ‘wretched things.’ This would surely be seen as evil company by the Calvinist council in Basel, and makes sense why they were concerned about his family in the notes of reprimand. A reference to the location of Catharina’s brothel “Zum halben Rößlein” is included in the 1889 issue of the periodical Schau-ins-Land on page 66, stating that it was located “opposite the crossbow shooting range, not far from the current bridge" and near the crossroads to Basel. Cross-referencing this 1589 map of Freiburg by Sickinger that has the same crossbow range labeled as #59, we can approximate the site of Hans’ crimes to be approximately here, on the south side of the city:
(This same map interestingly includes a teensy-tiny depiction of a fechtschul taking place within the rifle range just to the west of the crossbow range, with one fencer winding up for a big ol’ oberhau.)
Hans would be released from jail two days later, appearing on page 217r, and manages to negotiate his fine in half.
[unclear] That they also released Hans Baumgartner, the fechtmeister of Basel. At first, they fined him 10 pounds Rhenish. Because he so acutely asked for clemency, they waived five. The other five to be paid in cash. With this they also released him with ordinary Urfehde. It stays this way.
He must not have taken the hint, either staying in Freiburg or returning to the city where he was thrown in the clink, as he shows up again in early January 1572 (page 270f):
Hans Baumgartner, the fechtmeister of Basel, requested - since he started teaching 41 pupils - that one should allow him to stay here for three more weeks, for he wishes to teach the same to completion.
@ It is refused and he should be told that he has been here for long enough. Now he shall return again upcountry to his wife and children at Basel. Because until now not much good has come out of his fencing.
A note referencing the number of students a fechtmeister currently has is rare in and of itself, but the flavor of this note is decidedly sour. Freiburg seems tired of his shit and orders him to return home to Basel. This is also the time when Baumgartner appears within the B5 IIIc 1 Nr. 17 Gerichtsprotokolle (court protocols) in a slightly cryptic note, getting ordered to pay monetary compensation to a Jacob Mengel:
Jacob Mengel the plaintiff and Georg Kleiber the official: it is lawfully recognized if the plaintiff would like to give his [unclear] in lieu of an oath that the fechtmeister Hans Baumgartner has told the plaintiff that the Stadtknecht has bid him to do it. Thus the mentioned fechtmeister shall have the call (Rüeff) on his own and swiftly give the court payments to the plaintiff, compensate.
Hans Baumgartner has vowed to pay two guilders to Jacob Mengel in three days, for this his arrest has been waived.
Soliciting prostitutes, arrested, fined, kicked out -- his time in Freiburg was definitely not a positive one, and all adds to his eventual judgment in Basel the following year.
Exile from Basel
After hanging out with this evil company, ignoring his family, brushing up against the law, Hans finally appears in the Basel Urfehdenbücher a final time, dated 2/28/1573 on page 43f.
Released on the 28th day of February: Hans Baumgartner the fechtmeister. So far he has not kept any of his previous Urfehde in any way, has looked past them, also since then he has continued to act improperly against a citizenship, he follows in old footsteps and there is no betterment, nor can be hoped for one.
Because of this he shall immediately remove himself from the city and country of Basel with his wife and children, and not come (back) without permission under any circumstances, otherwise there will be a serious answer to his arrival.
He hasn’t improved, is still farting about, not caring for his family, and the city has given up on him. He had been brought by his non-citizen father to Basel, where he apparently turned out to be so good at fencing that he was given both citizenship and the position of fechtmeister. After establishing a family and living in the city for decades, Hans Baumgartner, the messerschmidt and fechtmeister of…not Basel any more, is exiled. Where he goes is currently a mystery, although there is another note in the Freiburg council protocols in 1575 that refers to a “Hans Baumgartner of Kaiserstuhl, located in the Swiss country,” but this entry lacks any additional personal identifiers which could solidify where exactly he settled after exile.
Conclusions and Thank Yous
Seeing such extensive negative records of a contemporary (and likely colleague) of Meyer is extremely interesting. Wygand Brack butted heads with the Strasbourg council, being fired from his job as a night’s watch captain, but there were no mentions of him being potentially kicked out of the city (although he did have his citizenship revoked and reinstated in 1563 -- more on that in a future article). Georg Kellerle fenced in Strasbourg for almost 40 years without a peep of misdeeds in any of his almost 100 local records. And Joachim Meyer was especially pious, seemingly just making knives and writing fencing books in his short life. Hans Baumgartner was a complicated, morally-suspect, and perhaps volatile person who I suspect may appear in other city council records for other infractions due to these ample records of his fuck-ups. Over time perhaps even more details may emerge about where his family ended up settling, or if there were additional charges against him.
Thank you to Dominique Maurice Frings and the Stadtarchiv Freiburg for your amazing help in tracking down the initial Gerichtsprotokolle records and sharing 20 years of Ratsprotokolle records. Without this help none of this would be possible. Additional thank yous to Miriam for your help in transcribing and translating some of these especially scribbly Freiburg records, as well as assistance in editing this article. The insights you provided about urfehden and even the odd shifts in terminology and dialect between the cities is just another instance of how much I learn while working with you. Thank you!
Bumiller, Casimir. Urfehden, in: Südwestdeutsche Archivalienkunde. LEO-BW, July 10, 2017. https://www.leo-bw.de/themenmodul/sudwestdeutsche-archivalienkunde/archivaliengattungen/urkunden/urfehden. Citing: Ebel, Wilhelm. Die Rostocker Urfehden. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des deutschen Strafrechts. Rostock, 1938.