“AS THOU RETRIEVEST THE Book from its cradle, you must recite these words: Clatu Verata Nectu”.

In the cult film Army of Darkness (1992, directed by Sam Raimi) the protagonist Ash is tasked with finding an unholy Book of Death, the Necronomicon, in the fourteenth century to be returned home to the twentieth century with its help. He finds the Necronomicon in an old cemetery but mispronounces the magic formula and thus awakens the undead Army of Darkness.

What does this have to do with medieval fight books? When suddenly “beads” (“Knöpfe”) roll instead of “heads” (“Köpfe”) it can be established that malapropism and misunderstandings are, on a linguistic level, the most common feature of German fencing terminology and literature of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. I would like to illustrate this with the help of one of the objects of the Deutsches Klingenmuseum: “The Book of Malapropisms”…

In the sixteenth century, four editions of an anonymous fight book were released by the printing office of the Frankfurt printer and publisher Christian Egenolff (1502–55). Solely in the last edition, of which a copy was shown in the exhibition “The Sword – Form and Thought” at the Klingenmuseum, the colophon states that it was published in 1558 by Christian Egenolffs Erben (Christian Egenolff 's Heirs). The other editions are undated. The first edition, however, can be dated to approximately 1530/31.

The diagram in figure 1 exemplifies the chronology of the four editions.

Of the four known editions of the Egenolff Fight Book, twenty-three copies could be identified (table 1), although one has been lost to the ravages of war. Eight copies of the edition entitled Der Allten Fechter gründtliche Kunst… (1st edition, [1530/31]; VD 16-ZV9515) still exist today, including one originally produced in colour. Out of the remaining editions, four preserved copies of Der Altenn Fechter anfengliche Kunst… (2nd edition, undated; VD 16-L876) and three copies of Fechtbuoch. Dje Ritterliche Mannliche Kunst vnd Handarbeyt Fechtens vnd Kempfens… (3rd edition, undated; VD16-L877) could be researched, as well as eight preserved copies of Fechtbuoch. Dje Ritterliche, Mannliche Kunst und Handarbeyt Fechtens, und Kempfens… (4th edition, dated 1558; VD16-L878).