Leichmeister?

[Derek Gulas]

I'm a little confused about the term Leichmeister in German. I ran a search on the term to see what I could find. One says that it means "Dance-master" and was a derogatory term (http://www.khukriwala.com/sword-fencing ... ology.html). The thing is "Die Leiche" in German means "corpse". So, which is it; the guy who makes corpses, is a master of corpses (ie his students or something), or is Leich a medieval term for dancing?

Thanks

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Yo Derek,

In our hungarian translation for Hanko we also used Corpsemaster. Or, "the one who creates the dead". Could mean something else, yet we talked about this with profs from vienna, and they had the same opinion as you.

But, this can't be called a fact, for I often did the mistake while translating that I used a word which was only alike, and I thought I understand what was written.

Could also mean Leihmeistere, where Leihen means to borrow, to pay somebody to do something. Leih-Meister would then mean a master who can be bought for money, OR, a fighter who fights in the arena (?), or maybe a juidical fighter like Talhoffer himself, me being far from colling him a Leichmeistere of course. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

Then again, in New German there is a word not quite often used, called Leich, wich means a Song. COULD mean Songmaster.

Leich as a stand-alone word means a burrial. Master of Burrials?

Both can be right....

Szabolcs

[Richard Strey]

...Interesting.
In my opinion, it's "Leicht(t)meister." Translating as either easy or light master in the sense that those guys were looked down upon on the grounds of not taking the art serious enough (also see "Klopffechter").
To support my view, see Peter von Danzig, p. 3r:
" So hat er die selbig kunst igleich besunder lassen schreiben mit verporgen / und verdackten worten / Dar umb daß sy nit yderman vernemen noch versteen sol / alß du sy her nach geschriben wirst vinden / Und hat daß getan durch [color="red"]der leichtfertigen schirmaister willen / dye irer kunst gering wegen [/color]" (transscript courtesy of Grzegorz Zabinski)

Here, we are told that Liechtenawer had his teachings written down in "hidden and covered words" because of
[color="red"] the frivolous fencing masters who attach little value to their art (lit.: weigh their art lightly)[/color]

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

...hmmmm... <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

Ringeck wrote his teachings in 1452 or so, where Hanko did the same in 1389, 63 years earlier, that could even mean that word's meanings changed. "Leichtmeister" I would dismiss for the spelling and word usage of Hanko does simply not use hidden 'T's.
Maybe, it would be the best to use a word well-known today which has the meaning of a master who's not real, who's only acting, playing, showing graceful yet no-use technics, and by this cending all their students to early greave.

Szabolcs

[Derek Gulas]

Thanks for the reply Szalbolcs. I was sort of hoping that Leichmeister could be a good thing. I mean isn't it just a romantic idea about a guy who's responsible for making (slaying) all the corpses lying on the field? Then again, maybe I have a strange idea about what's romantic <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> If the Fechtmeister say that a Leichmeister is something I don't want to emulate, then I guess I can't argue with that very well.

[Jeffrey Hull]

I assumed by context that it equates with English *dabbler*, *amateur*, perhaps even *dandy* or *fop*.