Historical German weapon arts are some of the most popular HEMA systems currently studied. Most German systems have roots in the teachings of Johannes Liechtenauer and used poetry or coded meanings to keep the proprietary secrets of their art. With no living masters to translate the hidden meanings, studying these works requires a lot of inference and trial & error to discover how techniques should be performed.
The primary sources we study are Joachim Meyer’s The Art of Combat, the Walpurgis Fectbuch: MS I.33, and the compilation Fectbuch: Codex Wallerstein, with focuses on longsword, sword & buckler, and dagger systems.