Rüxner - Thurniers inn Teutscher Nation - 1532

The Knightly Code: Honour, Glory and Standards in Imperial Germany
A monumental work for reconstructing the German chivalric imagination, the Anfang, Ursprung und Herkommen des Turniers by Georg Rüxner is the most famous book on tournaments of the 16th century. Richly illustrated with hundreds of woodcuts, it documents 36 jousts held between 938 and 1487, celebrating the age of honor, heraldry, and the chivalric ritual.
Market value
The copies of the second edition (Simmern, 1532), if complete, fetch values between 15,000 and 25,000 euros, with peaks even higher for specimens with clear plates and antique bindings. The described specimen is of great bibliographic and collectible value due to the richness of the wood engravings and its rarity on the market.

Physical description and condition
In-folio (33 x 23 cm). Later binding in stiff parchment. Two full-page woodcuts with coats of arms, 40 woodcuts illustrating the text, one woodcut on a double page, and over 240 heraldic woodcuts. Some stains and wear, original printer's mark, mounted on modern paper. Restorations to the first two leaves without loss of engraving. [8], CCXIII (214) numbered leaves, 4nn.

Full title and author
The beginnings, origin, and provenance of the tournament in the German nation.
Simmern, Hieronymus Rodler, 3 August 1532.
Georg Rüxner

Context and Significance
First published in 1530, the work represents the broadest and most systematic sixteenth-century collection on the knightly traditions of the German nation. The 36 tournaments narrated take place between Germany and Switzerland from the 10th to the 15th century and include the complete list of participants, the sequence of events, the rules and the ceremonies attached. In addition to the account of the jousts, Rüxner documents the inspections of horses and helmets, the banquets, the awarding, and the symbolic apparatus of the tournaments. Fascinating illustrations, for iconographic reconstruction, constitute a valuable source for the history of costume, heraldry, and the tournaments of the late medieval knightly world.

Author's biography
Georg Rüxner (active between 1525 and 1535) was a heraldist and historian, probably in the service of the imperial court or the electoral princes. Very little certain information exists about his life, but his most famous work places him at the crossroads between antiquarianism, imperial propaganda, and Renaissance idealization of chivalry. Rüxner contributed to the mythical construction of the German past, aligning himself with the tradition of genealogical and noble chronicles of the early sixteenth century.

Printing history and circulation
The first edition of Anfang, Ursprung was printed by Rodler in Simmern in 1530; this second edition of 1532, also published by Rodler, presents minimal changes and retains the same iconographic apparatus. The work had wide influence on representations of knights in the German-speaking area, being cited in the centuries to come in genealogical collections and heraldic studies. Today it is extremely rare in all its editions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
VD16 R 3542
STC German Books 760
Lipperheide Tb 10
Adams II, 877
See also: Watanabe-O’Kelly, Triumphall Processions and Tournaments in Early Modern Germany