The majority of the work teaches a method of combat as taught by Hans Talhoffer to Damoiseau (Squire) (Junker) Leutold of Könisegg.
This manuscript contains the following subject:
In this same codex is joined a collection of all sorts of arms, with explanations in Latin. This addition fills 92 pages, and this manuscript seems to have a more ancient origin.
Up to date it is Dr. Charles Henri Dreyer who has written the most detailed description of this codex. (Anmerkungen von den ehemaligen gerichtlichen Duellgesetzen und von einem seltenen und unbekannten Codice, worinnen des Talhoffers Kampfrecth befindlich.—Sammlung vermischter Abhandlungen zur Erl¸auterung der deutschen Rechte und Alterth¸umer, Rostock, 1754.)
According to this scholar, the Ambras manuscript contains 20 pages without figures. Presently we still have the “rude verses” which begin the work, but the explanation of what consists of the rules of combat and how one goes about the provocation, etc…, no longer exists. All that is left is a chapter on the prescriptions for the fencing master, and it does not precisely match the table of contents given by Dreyer.
In addition the writing of this chapter differs entirely from that which accompanies the figures, so as to lead one to think that an entire series of pages have disappeared from the text since the middle of the last century.
From the 20 pages of text a number of plates had also been lost.
We will reproduce the description of the text as it once was and as Dreyer knew it.
In and introduction (I & II) Dreyer expresses: “It is known that the ancient and medieval Germans, solved all judicial problems with combat and that the ancient legal documents of our nation cannot be ignored in the fact that these fights occurred under specific laws, which had to be rigorously obeyed by all interested parties.”
The author also mention the laws used in the past for duels, some usage of the duel in foreign nations, which are manifestly similar to those of the Germans.
He adds: “Those documents which treat of the procedures of the judicial duels where ordained by authentic reigning princes and written by private individuals on the basis of already established rules fro duels and combat. This work, embellished by figures, is very little known and deserves that we should not forget it.