Da ich zwar neu in diesem Forum bin, aber in einem anderen bereits einen Beitrag veröffentlich habe, würde ich euch den hier gerne zugänglich machen. Dieser ist auf Englisch verfasst und leider reicht meine Zeit nicht aus ihn händisch zu übersetzen. Ich könnte anbieten ihn per automatischem Übersetzer zu bearbeiten und in aller Schnelle (sic!) zu revidieren. Falls jemand Interesse am Übersetzen hat, nur zu! Leider haben die Kommentare hier eine maximale Länge von 10.000 Zeichen, deswegen wird das Folgende sehr fragmentiert.

Es handelt sich um einen von mir verfassten Leitfaden über Karabela Säbel, einer bestimmten Art von Blankwaffe die in der westlichen Literatur nahezu unbeschrieben geblieben ist. Ich selber habe großes Interesse an dieser Unterform gefunden und möchte gerne mehr zum Wissenstand darüber beitragen.

Es folgt der Originaltext.

----------------
THE ULTIMATE KARABELA GUIDE
----------------

This topic has been researched with passion by people like Andrzej Nadolski, Wojciech Zablocki, Zdzislaw Zygulski or Wlodzimierz Kwasniewicz. I will share information I have gathered from many of these sources and original antiques. This could be interesting to non-polish speakers since I dont know of any translations of their works and authentic antiques are hard to get ones hands on.

The following text is meant to be useful for beginners and people already familiar with sabers in general. If anybody wants more information or is seeing wrong information on a certain topic, please comment.

I am aware of the fact that it is necessary to use some form of classification when talking about "swords". I would propose using the one set up by Wojciech Zablocki since its the easiest, yet still an accurate one.



One disclaimer left:
Andrzej Nadolski, one of the godfathers of antique polish saber research wrote in his book "Polish Arms" that the saber we call "Karabela" was called "szabla czarna" (Black saber) back then.
What does he mean by that? He further (fully rightly) distinguishes between
battle and parade version of sabers with that typical "Karabela"-hilt. In his opinion "szabla czarna" meant the battle-version, the term Karabela however is said to be used for the parade versions (Karabela kontuszowa; "kontusz" is the traditional polish dress from the sarmation period in Poland reaching its peak in times of Jan III Sobieski in the late 17th century. Polish nobleman (Szlachta) wore decorative versions to this dress. Sometimes with easy replacable hilts for further battle use of the blade).

I dont aim at researching the origin of the word Karabela or the origin of the saber/hilt as primary question since this topic leads to a lot of opinions and further professional historical research needs to be done and I am not a historian but a passionate on antique polish arms. This is important to me.

Writing this text I saw different passages sounding like my appreciation goes solely to the Polish variant of this saber type. This is not the case and I assure that this little work is free of politics and more, there has been always admiration from the polish side towards the near-eastern culture.

---
Nomenclatura

I am aware of traditional terms for sword parts. Since I´m not an native english speaker, nor a polish one, I will translate some parts directly when it comes to Karabela-specific parts. I apologize for wrong terminology and will be happy and thankful for helpful constructive critique.

Since there is no actual pommel on the Karabela hilt, I will still use this term for the eagle-shaped end of the hilt. The polish term for that is "glowica" meaning something like "the heading".

Feather: Directly translated from the polish "pioro". This is the part on blades which have a sharpened false edge. The feather includes the whole part of the blade from the beginning of this false edge towards the tip. Since not all blades have sharpened false edges, not all blades have a feather. The feather is often marked by a "hammer". The term used for this part in english literature is the turkish word "Yelmen".

Hammer: Direct translation from "mlotek". This means a prominent part on the false edge on the blade often seperating the feather from the rest of the blade. Its purpose is thought to strenghten the blade architecture and force distribution. Some blades have one, some do not.

Beard(s): Translation from "wasy". This is the horizontal part going up-and downwards off the quillons. The beard going towards the blade is made to seal and rest on the surface of the sabers scabbard. The one going towards the grip is part of the grip attachment. (I searched for langets but am usure if its the same, sorry!)

Szewrony: "V-shaped" cuttings in the softer shell-parts of the grip made to protect the grip from slipping out of the hand.

---

PART 1

---
Wojciech Zablocki´s (Further: "Mr.Z") classification of karabela-hilt sabers
(Source: "Ciecia prawdziwa szabla" 1989, p. 76)

Mr.Z: Has been a famous polish olympic fencer in the 70s and professional architect. As a passionate on antique polish arms he researched sabers especially from a fencers point of view. He described the combat characteristics for antique sabers and extracted theorys of practical fencing use for these weapons. His main interest lied in battle versions. Parade versions of sabers are uncommon in his analysis. Therefore the following classification describes those sabers which were knowingly used in battle or offer themselves by design to be used in such.

Mr. Z. categorizes polish sabers into different groups numbered with roman numbers. Class "I" are sabers we recognize as "16th-18th century polish hussar sabers". Those sabers we understand as "Karabela" are given the number "II".
He suggests dividing class II into three sub-groups: IIa, IIb and IIc. Differences are mainly in blade design, but also partially hilt design too.

All class II sabers have the specific hilt design in common which looks like an abstract eagle head looking from the flat sides of the blade.

This classification is, of course, an open one, meaning there is no black and white. Some sabers share and mix characteristics.

---

Mr. Z´s classification

IIa:
"Sabers with blades shapes consisting of a changing curvature (meaning "not forming a part of a perfect circle) and a broadened tip with a hammer with an anatomical grip broadening towards the pommel used from the 17th to the first half of the 18th century.

IIb:
Sabers with blades shaped as part of a perfect circle, without broadened, with an anatomical grip not broadening towards the pommel, used in the second hald of the 18th century.

IIc:
Short sabers ("tasak", old word which comes from czech meaning chopper, see also: Dussack/dussege. Tassak->Dussack->Dussege; sometimes called sinclair saber by english speakers but that isnt the same at all) with short and broad blades, with anatomical grips, broadening towards the pommel and quillons often bend towards the tip. Used in the 17th-18th century.

---

Functionality


"Class II sabers have the following functional-constructional atributes:
IIa and IIb are designed for tangential cuts from the wrist (Fencing on foot) and chopping cuts from the shoulder (Fighting from horseback). Under the defensive point of view this sabers are made for reflecting/deflecting parades."

Explanation for non-fencers: There are static parades (blocks/parries) and dynamic ones. The dynamic ones can be deflecting (adjusting the own blade to let the opponents blade slide down it) and reflecting parades (answering the opponents attack with a quick and short hit against the incoming attack to "deflect" the enemy and quickly do a riposte (answer-attack)). Class II is supposed to be used in the last manner since it enables the fencer to act very fast in theory. Mr.Z. claims this fencing style is easy to learn by beginners and very useful for experienced fencers.

Holding the Class II saber: One can hold the saber like a hammer with the thumb around the grip (Horseback-fighting) or place the thumb on the back of the grip for additional control (Fencing on foot). The main advantage of the specific "beak of the eagle" is in locking ones pinky finger tighly on it to ensure a secure grip. This is what he means when describing this grip as "anatomical".

---

Grip construction (Based on my experience and knowledge from literature and authentic antiques)

There are two ways class II hilts can be built. The main idea is to have the eagle-head shaped grip parts made of wood, bone or other materials securely attached to the blade by stabilizing it with metal parts shaped in the same form.

1. "Simple sandwich design"/"Full-tang-design": The blade has been made in a way that the tang already has been shaped in eagle-head form. Either primarily or secondary: Forging it in one go or attaching a plate to a simple tang afterwards. The softer grip plates are now attached by rivets through (mostly 3) holes in that tang from both sides. This is the strongest construction. It shares similarities with the hilt design of the german "Langes Messer".

2.1. "Uni-Blade-Design": The blade is made with a simple, thin and round tang met on sabers of all kinds. This same tang can be also peened to a pommel-style hilt in a typical "sword-manner". Since we want it to be mounted on a class II hilt, we need to weld it secondarily to a eagle-head shaped piece of metal which forms a "tub". "Tub" means it forms edges going in a 90° angle away from the flat piece for the softer "shell-parts" (again, wood, bone or other materials) to be placed securely in there.

2.2. The tub construction can be replaced with a simple flat metal plate. The break between the soft shell-parts and the metal can be now covered with a metal tape around the grip. This construction is the weakest one and many of antique saber hilts made this way are in bad condition after those 300-200 years.

---

I think it was Zablocki who reported the "standart stance" for fencing with karabela-type sabers was the "seconde", for those who arent familiar with that: This means you hold the weapon with a very slightly bent ellbow with the hilt on the height of your eyes and the tip pointing in an angle of about 45° downwards and a little forward towards the opponent. I used to use this stance in a different saber-school and can say that it really tires your arm in the beginning but you get used to it. The main benefit of that stance is according to F.C.Christmann (German fencing master of Napoleonic dragoons and author of a fencing manual published in 1838) in beeing able to apply a lot of force into a cut by using the leverage of your wrist only ("moulinet-like-cuts").

---

The Ultimate Karabela Guide Part 2
---

Now that we had a brief but solid overview of the characteristics of Karabela-type sabers under the umbrella of Mr.Z´s classification, its time to link it with visual context.
The human mind works best with putting things into its neural drawers. The expert on a certain topic is differentiated from the beginner by building bridges between different straight paths and allowing the variable "OR" coming into one's considerations. Therefore I will not get tired by repeating a mantra which was also mentioned in Part 1 of this Guide: There is no black and white.

Example:

"Polish karabela-type sabers had a pommel bent by a maximum of 90° degrees AND NE (Near-eastern) ones had a more open pommel."

The next step is bringing in our new friend "OR". Conclusion:
"Karabela-type sabers with a pommel bent by max. 90° are of polish origin OR can be of NE origin depending on different other aspects which can be found on a specific weapon."

The other aspects can be specific ethnic decoration, makers' marks, blade architecture, and many others.

---
A (very brief) look on the Class II history

As I continued to write I have seen a big informational gap when it comes to the time period in which Class II has been used, what it looked like in specific times, what the main purpose was (decoration/parade sword or for battle) and what materials were used.
I will address this problem here briefly to give a glimpse at my way to put things into some order.

Poland:

Today's Poland has a little in common when compared to its historical geography and ethnic mix. When talking about Poland in the sense for our study about Class II sabers, I mostly mean the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC) which existed from 1569 until 1795. This time period marks also the peak of use for this kind of weapon in history and all places it was actually used. PLC was home not only to the Polish and Lithuanian people, but also Armenians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Huns, Germans, Czech, Jews (I´m of course aware of the fact that Jewish culture is defined by its religion but nevertheless it's a very distinguishable culture) and many more. This comes into play since the troops of the PLC were composed of those different ethnic groups also. One PLC nobleman could have had a Class IIa saber with certain decoration on it which resembled his, f.e., extreme Catholic belief and without a feather, because he may not have used backhand cuts. Another PLC nobleman with his IIa saber could have been more on a political trip and therefore ordering a swordmaker to put his king's image in gold on the blade and wanting a very long feather since backhand cuts were his favourite way of fencing. Just keep that in mind that every antique weapon belonged to a real person as you, with different tastes and things that were important to them. It was a very personal item and made to assist in surviving an often very rough environment.

The earliest Class II-like sabers are said to be from the late 16th century and are supposed to come from the near east. One theory is claiming those swords evolved from an early Byzantine short curved sword with a stylized birds-head grip. This can be true or may be false, it doesn't matter for our purposes.
What does matter is what is hanging in different museum or private collections and can be therefore taken into consideration. Simply hard facts.

We see that the time period in which Karabelas started to get more and more decorative and for parade purposes is the mid-18th century. Those weapons had more complicated hilt designs (often accompanying a weaker construction and therefore vulnerable and risky to use in actual battle). We can assume that simple looking versions with attributes of a durable weapon are from the time period before, mostly between roughly 1650-1750. I will get into later and parade versions a different part.

Stanislaw Meyer helps us a lot.

[Figure 1]

There is an english version of that but I sadly don't have it. Wschód means "East" and Zachód means "West". Polska means of course Polish. The West was naturally everything westwards of Poland on continental Europe and "East" is meant to be the area from Hungary to modern day Turkey. Keep in mind that the "East" and the "West" were influenced by other cultures too, so you will find f.e. Persian influences on Ottoman culture bringing it further to Hungary and later Poland. Just for short: The Class I saber (I don't like calling it the "Winged Hussars Saber" (really don't like it for historical reasons, but you should know which type I mean) is such a marriage of East and West. The Polish knights used swords like everyone else in Europe at that time (f.e. Longswords) but after a time they adopted sabers which came from the East with different ethnicities like the Huns and Tatars to name just two. What the Poles did was to produce sabers with hilt-designs coming from the West, like a thumb-ring. This is just an example. It went further by the West replacing f.e. rapiers by sabers to their regular troops later than Poland and Hungary as we see in the 18th century.

But what is this kind of knowledge good for? Its good for knowing differences of weapon-purpose and therefore materials which limit this use. You simply will not find an original example of a battle Class II saber decorated with gems and its grip made of ivory. Battle weapons were made of strong materials in a very durable construction (f.e. see the hilt-design chapter in Part 1).

Class II sabers (all over Eastern Europe and the near-east) were used for battle, mainly from the beginning of the 17th century up to the mid 18th century. And that's it! Everything before will be some kind of (maybe even similar looking) predecessor and everything afterwards will very likely be a parade version or a memorial saber. There are exceptions but this is something for a different chapter.

What materials can we expect then on early Class II sabers? Simple and durable ones! Good steel was of course a high class technology back then. The grip shells were made of bone and wood. The guards were made of forged steel with sometimes mixed in silver (I don't know the reason for that silver though). The rivets were made of brass or steel and could be peened with iron or steel nails.

What techniques of decoration were used for battle Class II sabers? Mainly chiseling on the guard and the blase. Etching has not been used. There are examples with gilded decoration on the blade but this does not exceed very few square centimeters.

With that knowledge we can now take a first try on our first example!

---

Main Conclusion

In short, our working-hypothesis for this weapon is:

"Karabela-type saber (of class IIa by Z. Zablocki) from the end of the 17th century of Polish-Lithuanian origin".

You might ask why I excluded the beginning of the 18th century? I would argue that sabers from that time very often had some kind of imagery on them since it was a time period of opulence and changeable politics. It was common for nobleman to demonstrate their affiliation to a certain party or belief by letting the swordmaker place corresponding decoration on the weapon. This is just an opinion matching with other characteristics of that specific weapon shown above and an overall "feeling" for this kind of swords. There are of course sabers with political/religious decoration before and later without!

Figur 10 im Anhang.

It seems to me that people debating historical fencing techniques (including myself) forget about the practical process of a battle which has been, as you comprehensible pointed out, a total chaos sometimes (most of the times?). I think I understood correctly that you brought the aspect of fighting/defending against different kinds of weapons and this has, without doubt, a huge impact on the way one has to use his weapon, a saber in our example.

As for the fencing stance, the "seconde", as I translated it from Mr.Z´s work, I am not sure if this can be taken as the standart for this specific time period. As fencing instructors have often traveled across Europe to share their knowledge, there are some written sources left for us to take a look on. And here comes a huge difference when it comes to the "Polish fencing style". There is practically no written source for that from the 17th-18th century. We have short mentionings in italian or german sources. But overall, its a riddle how the Polish saber has been used. I have heard the theory that saber fencing was tought by battle-experienced soldiers to young men or amongst the troops when gathered. This is a good question for a historian and I can´t wait until somebody finds a manuscript. Another problem is that a lot of documents are lost forever because of the destruction which has taken place in Poland during its "non-existence", the occupations and both world wars. Sad!
I can give you the additional information which I have been tought by my fencing instructor who teached F.C.Christmanns German saber based on a manual from 1838: The seconde is held with your arm as straight as possible. Your wrist so high, that you can see the eyes of your opponent under your hand. The thumb may not be placed on the back of the grip, you shall hold the weapon in a hammer-grip style. This is to prevent from thumb contusions while thrusting, which Christmann tells us, occured very often if the saber wasnt hold in a different manner. Side note: Christmann was a German who taught the use of the saber to Napoleons Dragoons.
As you see, there are a lot of interpretations of stances through time and location and Mr.Z. The one Christmann proposes reminds me of the "Prime" stance from other sources.
There is a book about the polish saber written by an US-American (i will not name him) which I have not read. I dont know where he has his information from since the Echelons of historical fencing in Poland are clueless about their own countries´ historical fencing techniques. So be aware of misinformation from such sources. If I am incorrect and someone knows of accurate sources he mentions in his work, please write.
There is a family of fencers in Poland (The Sieniawskis) which has "created" (I think that is the most appropiate word for it) a school of using the polish saber, namely "Sztuka Krzyzowa" (translation: "Art of the cross"). While I highly appreciate the effort of re-creating something forgotten for a long time and promoting ones countries´ legacy, these people base all of their fencing-style, as far as I know, from a single sentence in a italian description of european weapon use from the, I think, 17th century (sic! just one sentence). This sentence is loosely translated "...and the Poles cut crosswise.". So "all they do" is to parry with a cut down and riposte with a cut down from the other side, but not in moulinet-manner, but with swings form the shoulder. They do it very fast so one could argue there is no need to take a stance which claims you a safe space in front of you (f.e. "langort" in german longsword).
They produced a movie ("Born for the saber") which I can recommend when it comes to a historical accurate picture of a young boy becoming a soldier in 17th century Poland-Lithuania. But keep in mind what I mentioned before when watching these, admittedly very good looking, duels.