 Kyeser, a native of Eichstätt, was trained as a physician and lived at the court in Padua before he joined the crusade against the Turks which ended in disaster at the Battle of Nicopolis of 1396.Kyeser was in exile in a mountain village of Bohemia during the reign of Sigismund in 1402 to 1403.In this time, he began to write his book on the military arts.