posted
I posted this on F&F and thought it might be useful here:
A great illustrated guide to German medieval fighting techniques is:
Medieval Combat by Hans Talhoffer, translated and edited by Mark Rector. It deals with Germal combat techniques taught by Talhoffer (c1420-1490) who was the master of arms to the Swabian knight Leutold an Konigsegg. Techiniques depicted use Long sword, combat in the lists with spear and sword, pole-axe, shield and wooden mace, shield and sword, shield, throat hooliking shield, dagger, wrestling, Messer (long knife/short sword), sword and buckler, one against two, fight between man and woman, sword fight on horseback, hand-to-hand on horseback, lance and sword on horseback, and fighting on horseback against crossbows.
Also, for medieval life,
Medieval Lives by Terry Jones is a good reference.
I found it online, along with a bunch of other stuff, at the Association for Rennaissance Martial Arts: http://www.thearma.org/manuals.htm
You have to be a member to get the full PDF of that particular work, but there's a _ton_ of other information there, including "insights from renaissance art", notes on Viking fighting culled from the Norse sagas, a longsword treatise from 1389... Good stuff!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
