While only a few facts are known about Talhoffer's life, this has not stopped authors from conjecture. The presence of the Lion of St. Mark in Talhoffer's 1459 coat of arms (right) has given rise to speculation that he may have been an early member or even a founder of the Frankfurt-am-Main-based Marxbrüder fencing guild, though there is no record of their existence prior to 1474. Additionally, much has been made of the fact that Talhoffer's name doesn't appear in Paulus Kal's list of members of the Society of Liechtenauer. While some have speculated that this indicates rivalry or ill-will between the two contemporaries, Kal's list seems to be a memorial to masters who were already deceased, so it is more likely that Talhoffer was simply still alive in ca. 1470 (just three years after writing his final treatise).