Wiktenauer.com and Michael Chidester – for the few who might not know, he is the guy behind it – start the year with some good news. A new Liechtenauer compilation is in the making!

Now, for some of you who have looked online for HEMA books, the “new” part might be confusing. The previous Liechtenauer compilation made by Chidester was not widely advertised, despite the fact that it was available online for free and there was on option to get it from Lulu.

It is quite a book – a couple of hundred pages, including the Zettel and all the “canonical glosses” – from ms3227, also known as Codex Doebringer, Cod.44.8, or Codex Danzig, Cod.I.6.4º.3 or Codex Lew, MS Dresd.C.487 or Ringeck, with illustrations where those are available.

The format was special – every page had different containers from different sources, so you could easily compare the similarities and differences of what each source says about a specific technique/principle.

While everything was there, it was not the most accessible book; much like separately translated volumes of these treatises are – with different introductions, interpretative ideas and more detailed looks for each source. It was more of a reference book for someone who had already worked with the sources.

The new edition will address some of these issues. This time the glosa of Hans Medel von Salzburg will be included with the core five, and fragments from Talhoffer, Dresden 2, and Speyer will have their own container.

There will be new, up-to-date translation work from Christian Trosclair and Cory Winslow, “based on all of their learnings over the past four years”.

“I will be editing them for harmony, among other things, so it will be harder to mistake a disagreement among translators for a disagreement among texts”,

adds Chidester

There will be full transcription support, instead of illustrations sharing space with the original language. Illustrations will be on separate insert pages. There will be also footnote support – “all the crunchy bits in the Wiktenauer articles”.

Chidester also plans to include introductory remarks by some of the leading Liechtenauer researchers – five to ten scholars. The goal is for them to “better guide your studies and also dispel any notions of there being a single “right way”.

The book will also be available in many formats – soft and hardcover, colour and b&w – not just the spiral binding that was available before.

However, the first volume will be focused on the longsword blossfechten glosses. If there is sufficient demand, a Volume 2 with the short sword glosses of Peter von Danzig, pseudo-Peter von Danzig, and Sigmund Ringeck, and the horse fighting glosses of ps-Danzig, Ringeck, and Jud Lew will be made.

The goal is for Volume 1 to be available by the end of 2019. And now the best part – the Wiktenauer team are asking for any ideas you might have. Check their Facebook page.

Any feedback will get this book closer to being a true, early Liechtenauer bible.