Duels

Duels biography

thumb thumb A duel generally signifies an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.

Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period (19th to early 20th centuries) especially among military officers. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly fought with swords (the rapier, later the smallsword, and finally the French foil), but beginning in the late 18th century and during the 19th century, duels were more commonly fought using pistols, but fencing and pistol duels continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century. Pistol dueling was employed many times in the Colonial United States until it fell out of favor in Eastern America in the 18th century. It was retained however in the American Old West for quite some time due to the common absence of law.

The duel was based on a code of honour. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of duelling was reserved for the male members of nobility, however in the modern era it extended to those of the upper classes generally. From the early 17th century duels were often illegal in Europe, though in most societies where duelling was socially accepted, participants in a fair duel were not prosecuted, or if they were, not convicted.

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In Western society, the formal concept of a duel developed out of the mediaeval judicial duel and older pre-Christian practices such as the Viking Age holmgang. Judicial duels were deprecated by the Lateran Council of 1215. However, in 1459 (MS Thott 290 2) Hans Talhoffer reported that in spite of Church disapproval, there were nevertheless seven capital crimes that were still commonly accepted as resolvable by means of a judicial duel. Most societies did not condemn duelling, and the victor of a duel was regarded not as a murderer but as a hero; in fact, his social status often increased. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes. Duelling in such societies was seen as an alternative to less regulated conflict.

The first published code duello, or "code of duelling", appeared in Renaissance Italy. The first formalised national code was France's, during the Renaissance. In 1777, Ireland developed a code duello, which was the most influential in American duelling culture.

According to Ariel Roth, during the reign of Henry IV, over 4,000 French aristocrats were killed in duels "in an eighteen-year period" whilst a twenty-year period of Louis XIII's reign saw some eight thousand pardons for "murders associated with duels". Roth also notes that thousands of men in the Southern United States "died protecting what they believed to be their honor."

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