Royal Armouries Ms. I.33

Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 (also known as "the Tower manuscript" because it was kept in the Tower of London during 1950-1996; also referred to as British Museum No. 14 E iii, No. 20, D. vi) is the earliest known surviving European fechtbuch (combat manual), and one of the oldest surviving martial arts manuals dealing with armed combat worldwide. It was created around 1300 in Franconia and It remained in a Franconian monastery (presumably in Eastern Franconia) until the mid-16th century. It is first mentioned by Henricus a Gunterrodt in his De veriis principiis artis dimicatoriae of 1579, where he reports it to have been acquired (looted) by a friend of his, one Johannes Herbart of Würzburg when serving in the force of Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in the campaigns of 1552/3. From the 17th century, the manuscript was part of the ducal library of Gotha (signature Cod. Membr. I. no. 115) until it disappeared in World War II and resurfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1950, where it was purchased by the Royal Armouries. The author of the treatise may be a cleric called Lutegerus (viz. a latinised form of the German proper name Liutger).

The 32 parchment folia (64 pages) of the treatise expound a martial arts system of defensive and offensive techniques between a master and a pupil, referred to as sacerdos (priest) and scolaris (student), each armed with a sword and a buckler, drawn in ink and watercolour and accompanied with Latin text, interspersed with German fencing terms. On the last two pages, the pupil is replaced by a woman called Walpurgis. The date of the manuscript is variously given as late 13th century or as early 14th century, with a consensus range of about 1290-1320. The Latin text of the manuscript is written in a clerical hand, using the various sigla which were standard at the time (but which fell out of use at the end of the medieval period; an image from the manuscript (the second image on fol 26r) was copied into Codex Guelf 125.16.Extrav. in the 1600s by a draughtsman who under his drawing stated that he could not decipher the Latin text).