Joachim Meÿerthe Freyfechter of Straßburg, (1537–1571) was an influential 16th century Fechtmeister (“fencing master/instructor”) who authored several works on swordplay. Biographical data on author is extremely limited. The exact details and dates of many of the events in Meÿer’s life still remain elusive, or are simply lost. Sources do however allow for the construction of the following timeline; highlighting known and other suspected or ‘required’ key moments in the fencing master’s life. Of particular interest are those details surrounding Meÿer’s and his students’ known requests for competitive fencing events called Fechtschule (“fencing schools”). Archived documents reveal at least seven Fechtschul requests made by Joachim Meÿer. This timeline covers the good master’s beginnings, from his youth training and learning in Basel (1530s-1550s), to his known time in Straßburg (1559-71), along with his suspected and ‘required’ travels (1550s & 1570s). This timeline would not be possible without the outstanding continued research endeavors of Olivier Dupuis and Liam H. Clark which have confirmed past assumptions and has opened further avenues of research and study, they have my eternal thanks. The collected contextual details of the life, times, trade, travels, and troubles of the author and fencing master Meÿer provide a sweeping view of the story and history of 16th century swordplay. Joacim Meÿer prepared, refined, and presented martial arts material in manuscripts created in the late 1550s and early 1560s, and then published and printed a book in February of 1570, a year before his death. The Fechtbuch (“fencing book”) on the ‘noble art of fencing’ is a progressive tecnical textbook, filled with significant firsts and lasts in the history of swordplay.
August 16, 1537, the Thursday following Laurentiustränen, a Papierer (“papermaker”) named Jakob Meÿer and the burger’s wife Anna Fründ (Freund) baptized their first child of many, an infant son they named Joachim. The baptism occurred at the couple’s local church in Basel, Saint Alban’s, with the Messerschmidt Heinrich Wildt and Anna ‘Schaffhuser’ Kulhamer acting as his godparents. Oswald ‘Myconius’ Geisshüsler, the Pfarrer or pastor of Saint Alban’s from 1531-55, in accordance with a Basel city council mandate documented Joachim’s baptism, and the following baptisms of Jakob Meÿer’s additional 12 children.
There is little direct information concerning Jakob Meÿer and Anna’s life together in Basel, other than their children’s baptisms, several documented notes on real estate sales and purchases in 1558. The names given as godparents, and those found within their property’s documentation are helpful social connections. The same can be said of our good Fechtmeister’s life, much of his story is held within the context of other events and remains largely undocumented. Joachim Meÿer would have begun his apprenticeship as a Messerschmidt or cutler and his martial arts training as an adolescent, embarking upon a path that would shape the remainder of his life.
