descended from the medieval German fencing terminology of the Liechtenauer canon) and traditions (such as the unbroken line of German Fencing masters which reaches back to the medieval period) are still active. Spread The geographical origin of the tradition of Liechtenauer is difficult to establish. There are several places called "Lichtenau" in Germany, and Ms. 3227a states explicitly that Johannes Liechtenauer traveled widely to learn from as many masters as possible. Of course, it is to be assumed that there were traditions of combat training throughout the medieval world, in spite of the absence of evidence of their details. What is now known as the "German school" comprises those traditions which were put on paper in the late medieval period, and this tradition of compiling written manuals or epitomes of fighting systems appears to mostly have been confined to Southern Germany. From about the same time, early records of the Italian school of fencing document the German school, beginning with the writings of Fiore dei Liberi, who mentions a master of Swabia called Johannes "who was a student of Nicholai of Toblem." After the medieval period, emerging traditions of fencing, i.e. the early modern rapier systems, as opposed to the generic systems of "combat" or "fighting" of the late medieval period, developed in close contact with each other, which led to the separate but closely related rapier styles of Italy, Spain, and later France, all of which were also well received in Germany. For example: Paulus Hector Mair describes a Spanish style of rapier fencing in his book on fencing. The 15th century Liechtenauerian tradition seems to have been geographically centered on Swabia and Franconia, and influenced development in the adjacent territories, including Alsace, the Rhineland, the Lowlands, Bohemia, and the Swiss Confederacy. In the 16th century, there was an established tradition of Federfechten competitions. The dominant guild were the Brotherhood of St. Mark which held their annual meeting in Frankfurt. After 1570, there was a second influential guild, the Federfechter, which apparently originated in the southeastern part of the empire (Prague, Vienna). Masters or treatises of the period that can be located geographically include: the oldest surviving manual, Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 of c. 1300, originates in Franconia the oldest record of the Liechtenauerian tradition, Nürnberger Handschrift GNM 3227a, appears to exhibit East Central German dialectal elements. By 1495, this manuscript had been acquired by Nicolaus Pol of Innsbruck