Von Eyb, Ein gut englichs ringen (1500)

MS B 26 is the Kriegsbuch (“war-book”) of Ludwig von Eyb the Younger (1455–1521), a Franconian nobleman who served as Hofmeister (court steward) to successive Counts Palatine and set down a number of cultural-historical works, including a Turnierbuch. He compiled the manuscript in or around 1500, dedicating it to Philip “the Upright” (1448–1508), Elector Palatine of the Rhine; it is now held at the Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg. It is a large paper compilation of the arts of war — fencing, wrestling, mounted combat and ordnance — of which the fight-teaching (Fechtlehre) occupies folios 16r to 61v, partly image-only and partly with captions and short text passages. Its wrestling sits in the common South German stock of the Liechtenauer tradition, whose dominant grappling source is Ott Jud, the master named by Paulus Kal as wrestling tutor to the rulers of Austria, whose treatise recurs throughout the early German compilations.

An earlier play at f. 33v is headed Ein gar gut frantzoisch ringen and teaches a counter to an opponent who has seized you round the middle to lift you: ride the lift, coil your left leg and foot around his right leg, then lever the trapped leg upward while driving his upper body down and back, so that he falls onto his back. In function this is the kliked — the coiling inside leg-hook (enroulé de jambe) that is the signature throw of gouren, Breton wrestling — and specifically the rear kliked, in which the body is held and the opponent turned over by a backward unbalancing onto both shoulder blades (the Gouren lamm-kein).

Significance for Westcountry wrestling

The record’s value here is comparative, and it turns on the compiler’s national label. By naming the play “French,” von Eyb’s source marks a recognisably foreign regional style rather than home Ringen — and the technique it preserves is exactly the leg-coiling kliked of Brittany. Brittany remained a duchy until its union with the French crown in 1532, but lay squarely within the French orbit and would naturally be glossed “French” by a German hand; so “French wrestling” here most plausibly denotes the leg-entangling wrestling of the Breton lands, that is, gouren.

The same reasoning carries to its counterpart. A German “English wrestling” would name the most conspicuous English folk style of the age, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that was the Westcountry hold-and-hug game — the “Cornish hug” being proverbial enough to enter common English idiom and to be set down a century later by Carew, and English folk wrestling being known abroad as a tripping game. On that logic, “English wrestling” in a German master’s mouth points to the Cornish and Devon style. The pairing is coherent and Channel-facing: French/Breton standing for the leg-coil (kliked), English/Westcountry for the upright hug-and-trip.

The Westcountry technique

This is the mirror image of the kliked. The “French” play attacked with the leg; this one attacks with the collar, the jacket and the back, and uses the leg only to reinforce. In Westcountry terms it is a composite, and every component is a named Cornish/Devon action:

• Entry: the collar-and-elbow hold. Right hand into the collar over the far shoulder, left hand to the elbow — the “collar” and “sleeve-and-collar” hitch of the Cornish and Devon game, and the defining grip of the wider English/Irish collar-and-elbow tradition.
• Core: a cross-buttock / back-heave. Turning in so your right shoulder and back lie across his belly, gripping his doublet or belt behind, and lifting him over — that is the cross-buttock (the hip-and-buttock throw Parkyns names) and the heave family, right down to the finish on your own “arse” (arss) that the text spells out.
• Reinforcement: a back-crook. The right leg set behind his right leg, levering it up and out, is the crook (the back-crook / back-heel), a leg-hook used to load and turn rather than to entangle.
• Finish: the over-arm throw and follow-down, lifting his right arm strongly and coming over — flying-mare-like in the arm action — and dropping onto him.

So: a collar-and-elbow–entered cross-buttock, braced with a back-crook and finished with an arm-lift and follow-down. “Hug and heave,” in the period’s own phrase — the shoulders, arms and back doing the work, exactly as the nineteenth-century writers said the Cornish game did, and exactly opposite to the Breton legs of the kliked. Von Eyb’s two plays, side by side on one folio, draw the same line between the styles that the Westcountry sources draw between themselves and Brittany.

Primary source

English translation

A very good French wrestling. When you come at someone in such a way that he grips you round the middle and means to lift you up, let yourself be lifted, and reach your left arm behind around his neck and grasp him with that same hand by the chest, and heave him hard. And drive your left leg between his legs, and with your left leg and foot coil it around his right leg, and press and pull him hard downward and backward from above, and with your leg and foot lever his right leg firmly upward — so that he must fall, of his own doing, onto his back.

And on whichever side he bends you, meaning to throw you, always set your right free foot forward and let yourself brace upon it; then he cannot throw you. And always bear him firmly down from above and lever his leg firmly upward from below, so that he must indeed fall — and with that same left leg with which you have wrapped his right leg. You may also reach round the outside, on the right, over his other leg, the left one, and coil that one too with your left leg and foot, and lever it strongly upward as well, and bear down from above to break him backward, so that he falls onto his back.

Original

(B.26, 33v-ab) EIn gar gut frantzoisch ringen wen dw zu ainem gest das er dich ergreifft bey der Mit vnd dich auff heben will so las dich heben und greiff Im mit deim lincken arm hinden vmb sein hals und fas In mit der selben handt bey der prust und heb in fast vnd schlah Im dein linckes pain zwischen sein pain vnd vmb wint Im sein rechtes pain mit deim lincken pain vnd fuss vnd truck vnd zeug In oben vast nider hintersich vnd wig mit deim pain vnd fuss sein Rechtes pain vast auf So muss er selber auf den Rucken vallen vnd auf welhe seitten er dich peugt das er dich maynt zu werffen so setz dein rechten ledigen fuss alweg für vnd lass dich darauf stossen So kan er dich nit werffen vnd peug In albeg oben vast nider vnd wig Im sein pain vnden vast auff / so muss er Ia vallen auch mit dem selben lincken pain das dw Im vmb sein rechts pain geschlag[e]n hast magstw woll greiffen auswentiss rechten halben vber das ander sein lincks pain vnd das auch vmb winten mit deim lincken pain vnd fuss vnd Im das auch starck auf wegen vnd oben nider Zu Ruck nider prechen so velt er auf sein Ruck

English translation

A good English wrestling, with holds or from the arms. Seize with your right hand up over his left shoulder, behind, into the collar, and with your left hand seize his right arm from behind by the elbow. And do not let go of him until he falls, and hold him very fast. And when it suits you, throw yourself around, and let your right arm go up over his head and over his right side and shoulder, and seize him with your right arm and hand behind, at his back, by his doublet or his belt. And lift him, and let your arm go round him, and in the gripping and the lifting let it all come together as one. Then throw yourself around so that your right shoulder and back stand against his belly; and in that turning-around, and through all of it, set your right leg [on the outside] behind his right leg, and lever and pull his leg towards you, up and out, with your leg, and lift him strongly at the back, and turn yourself round onto your right side, and lift his right arm strongly, and throw him over with the heave; and winding with the foot, pulling at his back, so that you fall, with your back or your backside, onto his belly.

Original

(B.26, 33v-c) EIn gut englichs ringen mit fassen oder aus den armen fas ein mit deiner rechten handt oben vber sein lincke achssell hinten In das goller vnd mit deiner lincken handt vas Im sein rechten arm hinten bey seim ellenpog[e]n vnd las sein nit biss er velt vnd hab In gar vast vnd wen es dir eben sey so wurff dich vmb vnd las dein rechten arm vber sein kopff geen auf vnd vber sein rechte seiten vnd achssel vnd fas In mit rechtem arm vnd hant hinten In seim Ruck bey seim Wames oder der gurtll vnd heb In auf vnd In deim arm vmb gen vnd In dem fassen vnd heben das das als miteinander zu gee / So wirff dich vmb das dir dein rechte achssel vnd Ruck gen seim pauch stee vnd In dem vmb werffen vnd dem allen versetz In mit deim rechten pain euchwentiss hinter sein rechts pain vnd wig vnd zuck Im das pain gen dir vber sich aus mit deim pain vnd heb In in dem rucken starck auf vnd ker dich vmb auf dein rechte seiten vnd heb sein rechten arm starck vnd wurff In oben mit dem heben vnd winten mit dem fuss zucken an sein ruck so felst dw mit deim Rucken oder arss auf sein pauch

References

• Wiktenauer — Eyb Kriegsbuch (MS B.26): authorship, date, Erlangen holding
• Kappelmayr & Maier transcription of B 26 — the Fechtlehre at 16r–61v
• High-resolution scan of von Eyb’s Kriegsbuch, Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen (via Fencing Classics)
• Fédération Française de Lutte / Gouren — the kliked defined