Whenever I come across a new archive or collection of historical sources I start my search by running through some basic keyword queries to see if I can find any low-hanging fruit entries. Fechtschul, fechtmeister, fecht, brack, wygand, meyer, etc. When I was given a link to the Heidelberg Historic Literature archive by Chris Vamslambrouck, which has a convenient full text search feature, I blasted through my typical search terms and kept my eyes peeled for anything interesting within our sweet spot date range of 1520 - 1620. Sure enough, a search for “fechtschul” had a result with Strasbourg shortly after, and lo and behold, it was something interesting! An entry in the digitized bulletin of the Society for the Conservation of the Historical Monuments of Alsace, originally published in 1897, quotes a written manuscript under the name Künast:
Des jahrs 1587 montag junii hat eines fremden fechters hausfrau auf erhalten obrigkeitliche erlaubnüss auf E. E. Zunft der Maurer, wo die Fechtschul angestellt gewesen, nachdem sie, wie es unter denen kloppfechtern der brauch ist, mit ihrem mann under trommel und pfeiffen hin und wider in der Stadt und zwar in mannskleydung, so ihr wohl angestanden, herum gezogen, das paratschwert sammt einem krantz auf der schulter getragen, auch selbst mit ihrem mann zu männiglich verwundern und vergnügen offentlich gefochten, so vorher wohl nie gehört worden ist. Künast, p. 380
In the year 1587, on Monday, June 5th, the wife of a foreign fencer received permission by the authorities, at the Honorable Mason's Guild, where the fechtschul was held, after she - as is customary among the Kloppfechter - walked (hither and thither) through town with her husband to drums and pipes and in fact dressed in man's clothing, as behooved her, carried the paratschwert with a wreath on the shoulder; also fenced in public with her husband to much astonishment and delight, as has never been heard before.
Translation by Platy, with thanks to Michael Chidester
A woman fencing in Strasbourg, during the same time as one of our big 4 fechtmeisters was practicing! While reviewing and reading through over a hundred fechtschul requests in my research process, not once had I ever encountered mention of a woman associated with a fechtchul, so I was intrigued! Who was this woman, who was her foreigner husband, and was there any more information about her to be discovered?
Note: After finding this record I searched Google using key terms from the source to see if anything had yet been written on it. I came up with nothing, but later during conversation it was found that this very passage had been discovered and shared by Olivier Dupuis 10 years ago on Facebook. The quote had been reproduced in a different publication from 1901.
The Foreign Fencer, Lienhardt Dollinger
Investigating the husband of our fencer in this passage was easy. It gives us a solid date, the 5th of June, 1587, which could quickly be compared across the different council records in the Strasbourg archives to see if any foreign fencers requested fechtschul during this time. Sure enough on the 3rd of June, 1587, there is this entry in the Strasbourg Council of XXI records:
Lienhardt Dolling[er] von Reuttling[en] ein Stadler weiland herzog Aug: Churff: ge=we(r)sner Laquay, ein Freijfechter beg[e]h[r]t ihm biss künfftig Montag ein fecht=schul zuerlaub[en]. Erkhant. Ihm wilfahrt für 1 d. z[u] Müsieg[en].
Lienhardt Dollinger of Reutlingen, a haykeeper, (who has) formerly been a minion of Duke Prince-Elector August, requests to allow him a fechtschule on the coming Monday. Recognized. Permit him to ask for 1 penny.
Transcription and Translation by Platy
So, on the 3rd of June (Saturday) Lienhardt D/S/Zollinger, a foreigner as noted by his association “von Reutlingen”, requested a fechtschul for the following Monday, which is the 5th of June. If you are looking up dates to check this correlation, note that Strasbourg (Alsace) was still using the Julian calendar system until the 1600s. This date lines up perfectly with the account of the wife fencing alongside her husband.
Conclusions and further research
These dates aligning so well is very strong evidence that the woman in question was in fact the wife of Lienhardt Dollinger. It does not explicitly name her in the fechtschul request, but the vast majority fechtschul requests in the XXI record only name the individual petitioning the council to hold the schul, and do not mention any other participants. The rare exception are notes such as those with Meyer training Brack or other students to become fechtmeisters, and multiple fechtmeisters asking the council to run separate fechtschule all back-to-back.
The Künast record is the primary-source gap which could be filled, and perhaps the Mason’s guild records would have extra details about this event in order to suss out the actual name of Lienhardt’s wife. In any case, this event is an interesting addition to the history of fencing in Strasbourg, and hopefully more details about this intriguing woman will be discovered in the coming years.
Thank You’s
Thank you to Platy for your endless help in translation and transcription, along with all the historical information you bring with it. Thank you to Veronica for pointing out the Julian calendar detail! Thank you to Mike and Michael for some translation help through the HEMA Discord. Thanks to Ted Elsner for bouncing around ideas and pushing me to double check my work. Thank you Chris for sending me great archives and sharing your work with me.