Talk:Berthold Schwarz

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what is the correct name is is schwarz or schwartz?

Legend of patrilinage.
I knew someone who's maiden name was "Schleter" she claimed originally spelt by ancestors in Germany as "Schleiter", and that it meant "shooter". There was a family tradition that they were descended from someone who invented one of the first European firearms. Well, just family folktales most likely, but I'd be interested in at least the etymology of Schleiter, it doesn't seem to be a very common German surname, it does have a rather late onomatopœic quality to it and maybe it is tied into some early arquebus or musketeering type tradesman. 67.5.156.187 (talk) 07:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

German or Greek??
According to historiography in the first sources Berthold Schwarz is mentioned as a Greek. "Kohler also quotes from a manuscript (no.67(148)) in the ambrasser collection written about 1410 Es war ein meister von Kriechenland Niger Bertholdus ist er genannt i.g. "a Greek master called Berthold Niger."...It is intresting that in the oldest German accounts, Berthold is a Greek. In the feuerwerkbuch, printed in 1529, it is said "the art of shooting" from a buchse" was invented by "Magister Niger Bertholdus" who was a Greek alchemist and "Nigromanticus" i.g. and adept of black arts...The oldest mention, if it were authentic, would be in the records for Naumburg ander Saale, which say that ignis Graecus, which is gunpowder was made in 1348 by Berthold Schwartz "aus Kriechenland"."

A history of Greek fire and gunpowder by J.R. Partington pg 92 --Kentarchos (talk) 16:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)