[larsdangly]

As a counter point, the first european fencing manual we have is the i.33 instruction for unarmored fencing with an arming sword and buckler. It was written right around 1300, and was probably intended as a training book filled with advanced techniques for people who basically understood how to attack with a sword. There are many techniques in this book, but if you were to abstract its over arching principles it is that you should fight in such a way that your opponent's weapon is always in your control when the two of you are in range of one another, and that this should be accomplished in a waltz-like '1-2-3' series of steps: first your sword contacts and controls your opponent's blade, then you replace your sword with your buckler as the primary point of control/suppression of your opponent's blade, then you strike with your now-free blade. In situations where you are in a guard, attacking or making that initial sword-to-sword contact, your buckler should always be very closely adjacent to your sword hand, effectively acting as a kind of complex guard for the sword.