[NichoIas R]

I'm looking for material related to saber and buckler fighting, or at least falchion and buckler fighting. I'm specifically looking for material of European origin because I know if I look hard enough I'll find plenty of Turkish, Persian, and Indian stuff. This kind of fighting couldn't have been that obscure could it?

[Shahril Dzulkifli]

Hmmm.........
I am wondering whether there are any manuscripts on sabre/ falchion and buckler fighting or not.
Maybe that's too difficult to find, I guess.

[Andrew Gill]

Probably the closest that you're going to find is in Talhoffer's 1459 manuscript:
http://www.wiktenauer.com/wiki/Talhoffer_Fech...2%C2%BA%29
Folios 117v-123v show messer and buckler fighting. I'm fairly certain that there are a few more illustrations of messer and buckler in Durer's incomplete fechtbuch, and there might be some in Paulus Hector Mair's manuscripts too (as they have just about every other possible weapon combo in them).

You may also find some obscure reference in the bolognese or some other italian later renaissance fencing manuals, given that curved falchion-like swords were fairly popular in Italy (they were called stortas I think), and the fact that sword-and buckler was the root weapon of the bolognese system, so would probably have been adapted to use with stortas at some point.

I also have a vague and dubious recollection of fairly late, rare, use of bucklers in Scotland (a place where archaic weapons tended to hold on longer than elsewhere), which if true could lead to an unlikely but theoretically possible combination of basket-hilted saber (claid crom I think) and buckler. Good luck finding documentary evidence for this last combination though!

Actually, provided your saber or falchion isn't ridiculously curved there is probably no reason why you shouldn't be able to do pretty much any European sword and buckler art with it more or less successfully. In 18th and 19th century England, the term "broadsword" seems to have been used for both straight-bladed double edged weapons and sabers, and the techniques taught from the former (generally earlier) straight weapon were transferred with minimal adaptation to the latter (and generally later) curved weapon, so unless extreme, blade curvature need not affect the usage of the weapon all that much. But given that the buckler is very seldom referred to as a viable weapon after about 1600, you probably won't find actual documentary evidence for anything like that because it probably didn't happen.

[Jeffrey Faulk]

As mentioned, Talhoffer is probably the closest you will get for actual use of sword and buckler in a sabre-like fashion. That said, I suspect a broadsword and targe manual as in Highland swordsmanship may not be greatly dissimilar, neither would other broadsword manuals.

The sabre is a distinctly late period weapon though and I don't see it being used with a buckler, but the possibility exists that there may be some obscure Eastern European fight-book for it that includes shield techniques. Which rings a bell--

Not European, but investigate Ramtafazar (or whatever it's called). Iranian martial arts. There's at least some scimitar and shield work in there, and that may be applicable.

[Michael Beeching]

Could Johannes Leckuchner's text be of value to you? From my reading (and the associated commentary), this is basically Leichtenaur's verse adapted to the messer. You could further tie that with Ringeck's sword and buckler system to give you a workable fencing system for falchions and messers:

http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Johannes_Leck%C3%BCchner

[NichoIas R]

Thank's for the responses everyone. So far Messer and Buckler seems to be the closest match. I think I should have used a different term instead of "sabre", perhaps "one handed curved sword" would have been better. I became curious about this after checking out Persian Shamshir and Separ (Persian Buckler) fighting, I assumed there might be a European version of this kind of fighting.

I've only recently became interested in HEMA and most of what I know comes from Youtube. I would like to learn regular Sword and Buckler but there is no club where I live in Southwestern Ohio.

[Timo Nieminen]

There are surviving Chinese dao (i.e., sabre) and shield manuals: http://www.chineselongsword.com/shieldtranslation.shtml

[Kirk K.]

http://myArmoury.com/review_mrl_stmfalc.html

St. Michael fighting a dragon with falchion and buckler.