"Tower Fechtbuch"), dated to ca. 1300, is the oldest surviving Fechtbuch, teaching sword and buckler combat. Post-classical history The central figure of late medieval martial arts, at least in Germany, is Johannes Liechtenauer. Though no manuscript written by him is known to have survived, his teachings were first recorded in the late fourteenth-century Nürnberger Handschrift GNM 3227a. From the 15th century into the 17th, numerous Fechtbücher (German "fencing-books") were produced, of which some several hundred are extant; a great many of these describe methods descended from Liechtenauer's. Liechtenauer's Zettel (recital) remains one of the most famous - if cryptic - pieces of European martial arts scholarship to this day, with several translations and interpretations of the poem being put into practice by fencers and scholars around the world. Normally, several modes of combat were taught alongside one another, typically unarmed grappling (Kampfringen or abrazare), dagger (Degen or daga, often of the rondel dagger), long knife (Messer) or Dusack, half- or quarterstaff, pole weapons, longsword (Langesschwert, spada longa, spadone), and combat in plate armour (Harnischfechten or armazare), both on foot and on horseback. Some Fechtbücher have sections on dueling shields (Stechschild), special weapons used only in trial by combat. Important 15th-century German fencing masters include Sigmund Ringeck, Peter von Danzig (see Cod. 44 A 8), Hans Talhoffer and Paulus Kal, all of whom taught the teachings of Liechtenauer. From the late 15th century, there were "brotherhoods" of fencers (Fechtbruderschaften), most notably the Brotherhood of St. Mark (attested 1474) and the Federfechter. An early Burgundian French treatise is Le jeu de la hache ("The Play of the Axe") of ca. 1400. The earliest master to write in the Italian language was Fiore dei Liberi, commissioned by the Marquis di Ferrara. Between 1407 and 1410, he documented comprehensive fighting techniques in a treatise entitled Flos Duellatorum covering grappling, dagger, arming sword, longsword, pole-weapons, armoured combat and mounted combat. The Italian school is continued by Filippo Vadi (1482–1487) and Pietro Monte (1492, Latin with Italian and Spanish terms). Three early (before George Silver) natively English swordplay texts exist, all very obscure and of uncertain date; they are generally thought to belong to the latter half of the 15th century. Early modern period Renaissance In the 16th century, compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed, notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s). The