Historically, the title "master" was a technical term tied to the guild system which had sprung up in Medieval Europe and was in full swing by the 1300's. One would start as an apprentice under the tutelage and discipline of a master for a regular term, often seven years. Then one could become a journeyman, the name of which was derived from the authority to charge a daily wage. While apprentices were tied to their master, the journeyman was kind of like a freelance craftsman, able to go where he pleased, where he could find work, but not permitted to set up a permanent shop or to take on apprentices. A journeyman became a master, often after another six or seven years, by producing a masterwork that would be judged by current masters to see if it was considered masterful--demonstrating the skill level that should be expected from a master. The journeyman also had to pay whatever fees were associated with this test or with the conferment of the title.
How did this all transfer to fencing and the masters of defense? Well, fighting, especially the teaching of fighting, was treated just like a trade or craft. That is where the "art" comes from in "martial arts" or "kunts des fechten." Initially it seems and before fight-guilds came about, self-professed teachers went about selling their services to knights, lords, princes, etc., pretty much in the way that journeymen would. Instead of producing works of their craft, these journeymen of violence taught their customers how to fight. This was the time of Liechtenauer and Fiore. Seems pretty straightforward so far. Except, without the governing institutions of guilds, there was no way to confirm or govern who was masterfully skilled and who was a pretender or clown-fighter, all bark but no bite. So the good fighters formed communities such as the "society of Liechtenauer" which Paulus Kal wrote about, or by calling each other out as Fiore wrote about.
As the culture of fighting changed through the innovations in military science, as more and more "common" people made up the main infantry corps instead of the traditional fighting class of knights et al., the general population and customers involved in the education of fighting changed as well. We see this in the fechtbuken; less fechbuken depicting knights or made for the education of knights, and more depicting commoners and non-nobles. This goes hand in hand with the Renaissance theme of the emerging middle class. More and more commoners were serving in the armies as professional soldiers, and they were carrying swords, pikes and other weapons of personal combat in addition to the auxiliary companies of archers and crossbowmen which had been around for a while. More and more commoners were realizing that not only must they rely on themselves alone for personal protection amidst the political, social, and religious uproar of the 15ht and 16th centuries, but that they also possessed the means to learn the skills necessary to do so. Therefore, common people made up a larger and larger portion of the customers of the fight-teachers.
And these commoners formed up into groups based on the governing bodies and structures they were used to, the guilds. Fight-guilds sprang up all over Europe. Marxbruder was the primary guild in "Germany." The city of Tallinn in current day Estonia had a guild called "the Blackheads." Instead of having master-applicants submit a representative sample of their work for review, their craft was tested by facing off against fighter after fighter, including multiple masters, in a very public display which was known as a prize fight. As I understand it, money that the applicant earned at the prize fight from the public spectators went to defer the cost of his testing and title. Members of rival guilds would even attend prize fights so as to test the mettle of the competition and thus ensure a higher quality of fighting across the board.
Nowadays, we are not sure about the state of the craft of fighting. Our primary concern is to advance the craft towards the state it once was. Certifying individuals is a secondary, or perhaps tertiary purpose. Sure, back then one could become a master in fourteen years or so. But that was when they were learning the craft at the hands of masters and being tested by other recognized masters. Back then they knew what it meant to be "masterful" in fighting and the test was about whether or not someone measured up to already established standards. Today, we are still discovering the art and sometimes only postulating or grasping at what it would mean to possess masterful ability. Today, our position is closer to the time before guilds, when self-proclaimed masters roam about, and only the most skilled know the difference between true art or not.
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