18/09/2026
A Portuguese Jogo de Pau group has decided to use an AI tool to scrape a bunch of HEMA repositories and bibliographies, including Wiktenauer, and dump the results into a database that they're now trying to push in HEMA spaces.
While their motivations are opaque, a similar database of metadata and resource links already exists, created by HEMAists for HEMAists, at the Schola Artis Gladii et Armorum site.
Wiktenauer is slow to grow because we research, verify, and curate everything that goes on the site--not just posting links, but editing and formatting documents, cleaning up and processing scans, comparing and collating different versions of texts, etc. Since we're moving in roughly chronological order, it will still take us many years to get to the 19th century HEMA sources--we're still working on adding the 17th century, and also frequently updating the pages that already exist.
The SAGA Treatise Database is far more comprehensive, and the best single catalog where you can find information about treatises that we haven't added to Wiktenauer yet. It's been running about as long as Wiktenauer has and is very comprehensive (even erring on the side of creating entries for texts which probably don't exist but which were mentioned by some historian at some point, like the 1610 Meyer).
We don't need community outsiders coming in and vibe-coding inferior replacements for tools that HEMAists have already poured enormous time and effort into creating. Especially not when the dubious replacements they offer merely regurgitate the information that was already available and bring nothing new to the conversation apart from exciting genAI hallucinations.
Check the comments for the SAGA website.
Joachim Meyer illustrations come from Leipzig University's copy of the first edition. See Wiktenauer for more information!
