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{{Short description|Formalised type of single combat}}
{{Other uses|Duel (disambiguation)}}
{{overly detailed|date=January 2023}}[[File:FrzDuellImBoisDeBoulogneDurand1874.jpg|thumb|''The Code Of Honor—A Duel in the Bois De Boulogne, Near Paris'', wood-engraving after [[Godefroy Durand]], ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'' (January 1875)]]

A '''duel''' is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched [[weapon]]s.

During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly [[single combat]]s fought with [[sword]]s (the [[rapier]] and later the [[small sword]]), but beginning in the late 18th century in [[England]], duels were more commonly fought using [[pistol]]s. [[Fencing]] and [[shooting]] continued to coexist throughout the 19th century.

The duel was based on a [[code of honor]]. Duels were fought not to kill the opponent but to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it. As such, the tradition of dueling was reserved for the male members of [[nobility]]; however, in the modern era, it extended to those of the [[upper class]]es. On occasion, duels with swords or pistols were fought between women.<ref>Hopton, p.182</ref><ref>Hopton, pp.173-174</ref>

Legislation against dueling dates back to the medieval period. The [[Fourth Council of the Lateran]] (1215) outlawed duels<ref>IV Lateran c. 18, Peter R. Coss, ''The Moral World of the Law'', Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 78</ref> and civil legislation in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] against dueling was passed in the wake of the [[Thirty Years' War]].<ref name="Liszt" />
From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced. Dueling largely fell out of favour in England by the mid-19th century and in [[Continental Europe]] by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the [[Eastern United States]] in the 19th century and by the time of the [[American Civil War]], dueling had begun to wane even in the
[[Southern United States|South]].<ref name="uuooooav">[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/duel-history-dueling-america/ The History of Dueling in America] PBS. Retrieved February 8, 2014</ref> Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change.<ref name="uuooooav" /> Research has linked the decline of dueling to increases in [[state capacity]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Jensen |first1=Jeffrey L. |last2=Ramey |first2=Adam J. |date=2020-06-09 |title=Going postal: State capacity and violent dispute resolution |url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596720300378 |journal=Journal of Comparative Economics |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=779–796 |language=en |doi=10.1016/j.jce.2020.05.007 |s2cid=226195079 |issn=0147-5967|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==History==

===Early history and Middle Ages===
{{Further|Single combat}}
[[File:Gerichtlicher Zweikampf.jpg|thumb|Depiction of a judicial combat in the Dresden codex of the {{lang|de|Sachsenspiegel}} (early to mid-14th century), illustrating the provision that the two combatants must "share the sun", i.e. align themselves perpendicular to the sun so that neither has an advantage.]]
[[File:Sasaki Toyokichi - Nihon hana zue - Walters 95208.jpg|thumb|[[Minamoto no Yoshihira]] and [[Taira no Shigemori]] (Japan in 1159)]]
[[File:Manifesto disfida di barletta.jpg|thumb|Commemorative poster for the fourth centennial of the {{lang|it|Disfida di Barletta}}, the [[Challenge of Barletta]], fought on 13 February 1503 between 13 Italian and 13 French [[knights]] all shown wearing full [[plate armour]].]]

In [[Western world|Western]] [[society]], the formal concept of a duel developed out of the [[Middle Ages|medieval]] [[Trial by combat|judicial duel]] and older pre-Christian practices such as the [[Viking Age]] {{lang|no|[[holmgang]]}}. In medieval society, judicial duels were fought by knights and squires to end various disputes.<ref name="Dav">David Levinson and Karen Christensen. ''Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present''. Oxford University Press; 1st edition (July 22, 1999). p. 206. {{ISBN|978-0195131956}}.</ref><ref>Clifford J. Rogers, Kelly DeVries and John Franc. ''Journal of Medieval Military History''. Volume VIII. Boydell Press (November 18, 2010). pp. 157–160. {{ISBN|978-1843835967}}</ref>{{nonspecific|reason=what article?|date=October 2025}} Countries such as France, Spain, Germany, England, and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat took two forms in medieval society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat.<ref name="Dav" /> The feat of arms was used to settle hostilities between two large parties and supervised by a judge. The battle was fought as a result of a slight or challenge to one party's [[Honour|honor]] which could not be resolved by a court. Weapons were standardized and typical of a knight's armoury, for example longswords or polearms; however, weapon quality and augmentations were at the discretion of the knight; for example, a spiked hand guard or an extra grip for half-swording. The parties involved would wear their own armour; for example, one knight wearing full plate might face another wearing chain mail. The duel lasted until one party could no longer fight back. In early cases, the defeated party was then executed. This type of duel soon evolved into the more [[Chivalry|chivalric]] {{lang|fr|[[pas d'armes]]}} or "passage of arms", a chivalric [[hastilude]] that evolved in the late 14th century and remained popular through the 15th century. A knight or group of knights ({{lang|fro|tenans}} or "holders") would stake out a travelled spot, such as a bridge or city gate, and let it be known that any other knight who wished to pass ({{lang|fro|venans}} or "comers") must first fight, or be disgraced.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hubbard |first=Ben |title=Gladiators: From Spartacus to Spitfires |publisher=Canary Press |date=August 15, 2011 |chapter=Pas D'armes |isbn=978-1907795978 }}</ref> If a traveling {{lang|fro|venans}} did not have weapons or horse to meet the challenge, one might be provided, and if the {{lang|fro|venans}} chose not to fight, he would leave his spurs behind as a sign of humiliation. If a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way.

The [[Catholic Church]] was critical of dueling throughout medieval history, frowning both on the traditions of [[judicial combat]] and on the duel on points of honor among the nobility. Judicial duels were deprecated by the [[Fourth Council of the Lateran|Lateran Council]] of 1215, but the judicial duel persisted in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] into the 15th century.<ref>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.</ref>

===Renaissance and early modern Europe===
During the early [[Renaissance]], dueling established the status of a respectable [[gentry|gentleman]] and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes.

[[File:Dueling engraving.jpg|thumb|Dueling remained highly popular in European society, despite various attempts at banning the practice.]]
The first published {{lang|it|[[code duello]]}}, or "code of dueling", appeared in [[Renaissance Italy]]. The first formalized national code was that of France, during the [[Renaissance]]. From the late 1580s to the 1620s, an estimated 10,000 French individuals (most of them nobility) were killed in duels.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Englund |first=Peter |title=Den oövervinnerlige: om den svenska stormaktstiden och en man i dess mitt |date=2000 |publisher=Atlantis |isbn=978-91-7486-999-6 |location=Stockholm |pages=593 |language=sv}}</ref>

By the 17th century, dueling had become regarded as a prerogative of the [[aristocracy]], throughout Europe, and attempts to discourage or suppress it generally failed. For example, King [[Louis XIII|Louis XIII of France]] outlawed dueling in 1626, a law which remained in force afterwards, and his successor [[Louis XIV]] intensified efforts to wipe out the duel. Despite these efforts, dueling continued unabated, and it is estimated that between 1685 and 1716, French officers fought 10,000 duels, leading to over 400 deaths.<ref>Lynn, p. 257.</ref>

In [[Ireland]], as late as 1777, a code of practice was drawn up for the regulation of duels, at the summer [[assize]]s in the town of [[Clonmel]], [[County Tipperary]]. A copy of the code, known as 'the twenty-six commandments', was to be kept in a gentleman's pistol case for reference should a dispute arise regarding procedure.<ref name="Hamilton 1829">{{cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Joseph |url=https://archive.org/details/onlyapprovedguid00hami |title=The only approved guide through all the stages of a quarrel |publisher=Millikin |year=1829 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |location=Dublin |access-date=29 June 2009}}</ref>

===Enlightenment-era opposition===
By the late 18th century, [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment era]] values began to influence society with new self-conscious ideas about [[politeness]], [[Civil society|civil behavior]], and new attitudes toward [[violence]]. The cultivated art of politeness demanded that there should be no outward displays of anger or violence, and the concept of honor became more personalized.

By the 1770s, the practice of dueling was increasingly coming under attack from many sections of enlightened society, as a violent relic of Europe's medieval past unsuited for modern life. As England began to [[Industrial Revolution|industrialize]] and benefit from urban planning and more effective [[Metropolitan Police|police forces]], the culture of street violence in general began to slowly wane. The growing [[middle class]] maintained their reputation with recourse to either bringing charges of [[libel]], or to the fast-growing print media of the early 19th century, where they could defend their honor and resolve conflicts through correspondence in newspapers.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Death of Dueling |url=http://castle.eiu.edu/historia/archives/2004/Ellett.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107223937/http://castle.eiu.edu/historia/archives/2004/Ellett.pdf |archive-date=2014-01-07 |access-date=2014-01-07}}</ref>

Influential new intellectual trends at the turn of the 19th century bolstered the anti-dueling campaign; the [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian philosophy]] of [[Jeremy Bentham]] stressed that praiseworthy actions were exclusively restricted to those that maximize human welfare and happiness, and the [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] notion of the "Christian conscience" began to actively promote social activism. Individuals in the [[Clapham Sect]] and similar societies, who had successfully campaigned for the [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolition of slavery]], condemned dueling as ungodly violence and as an egocentric culture of honor.<ref>{{cite journal |first=David W. |last=Bebbington |title=The Evangelical Conscience |journal=Welsh Journal of Religious History |year=2007 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=27–44}}</ref>

===Modern history===
[[File:Mühlberg - Säbelmensur.jpg|thumb|German students of a {{lang|de|[[Burschenschaft]]}} fighting a sabre duel, around 1900, painting by [[Georg Mühlberg]] (1863–1925)]]

The former United States Secretary of the Treasury [[Alexander Hamilton]] was killed in a duel against the sitting Vice President [[Aaron Burr]] in 1804. Between 1798 and the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] lost two-thirds as many officers to dueling as it did in combat at sea, including naval hero [[Stephen Decatur]]. Many of those killed or wounded were [[Midshipman|midshipmen]] or junior officers. Despite prominent deaths, dueling persisted because of contemporary ideals of [[chivalry]], particularly in the [[Dueling in the United States South|South]], and because of the threat of ridicule if a challenge was rejected.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/duel-history-dueling-america/ |work=The American Experience |title=Dueling, American Style |publisher=PBS |access-date=2012-10-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111235400/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/sfeature/dueling.html |archive-date=2012-11-11 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Drake |first=Ross |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/duel.html |title=Duel! Defenders of honor or shoot-on-sight vigilantes? Even in 19th-century America, it was hard to tell |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |date=March 2004 |access-date=2012-10-22 |archive-date=2014-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107225246/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/duel.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

By about 1770, the duel underwent a number of important changes in [[England]]. Firstly, unlike their counterparts in many [[Continental Europe|continental nations]], English duelists enthusiastically adopted the pistol, and sword duels dwindled.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History Detectives . Weapon Dating . Gun Timeline |url=http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/techniques/pup_wd.html |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20060422021753/http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/techniques/pup_wd.html |archive-date=2006-04-22 |access-date=2025-10-06 |publisher=[[PBS]]}}</ref> Special sets of [[Duelling pistol|dueling pistols]] were crafted for the wealthiest of noblemen for this purpose. Also, the office of 'second' developed into 'seconds' or 'friends' being chosen by the aggrieved parties to conduct their honor dispute. These friends would attempt to resolve a dispute upon terms acceptable to both parties and, should this fail, they would arrange and oversee the mechanics of the encounter.<ref name="KEG">{{cite web |url=http://keepenglefieldgreen.org/page14.htm |website=Keep Englefield Green |title=The Heritage |access-date=2010-05-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726215744/http://keepenglefieldgreen.org/page14.htm |archive-date=2011-07-26}}</ref>{{sps|certain=y<!--Hotmail contact email-->|date=October 2025}}

In England, to kill in the course of a duel was formally judged as [[murder]], but generally the courts were very lax in applying the law, as they were sympathetic to the culture of honor.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Banks |first=S. |title='Very little law in the case': contests of honour and the subversion of the English criminal courts, 1780–1845 |year=2008 |journal=King's Law Journal |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=575–594 |doi=10.1080/09615768.2008.11427708}}</ref> Despite being a criminal act, military officers in many countries could be punished if they failed to fight a duel when the occasion called for it. In 1814, a British officer was court-martialed, [[cashiering|cashiered]], and dismissed from the army for failing to issue a challenge after he was publicly insulted.<ref>Hoptin (2011), pp.26–27</ref> This attitude lingered on – [[Queen Victoria]] even expressed a hope that [[James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan|Lord Cardigan]], prosecuted for wounding another in a duel, "would get off easily". The [[Anglican Church]] was generally hostile to dueling, but [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|non-conformist]] sects in particular began to actively campaign against it.

By 1840, dueling had declined dramatically; when the [[James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan|7th Earl of Cardigan]] was acquitted on a legal technicality for homicide in connection with a duel with one of his former officers,<ref>{{cite book |title=The Trial of James Thomas Earl of Cardigan before the Right Honourable the House of Peers, etc. |publisher=[[William Brodie Gurney]]<!--"Printed for" – he was shorthand writer to both Houses of Parliament from 1813. The other two men credited here were his father and grandfather, both long dead-->, Saunders and Benning, [[House of Lords]] |year=1841 |location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QdYKAAAAYAAJ}}</ref> outrage was expressed in the media, with ''[[The Times]]'' alleging that there was deliberate, high-level complicity to leave the loophole in the prosecution and reporting the view that "in England there is one law for the rich and another for the poor", and ''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|The Examiner]]'' describing the verdict as "a defeat of justice".<ref name="examiner18040221">{{cite news |last=Staff |date=21 February 1841 |title=Defeat of Justice |newspaper=The Examiner |publisher=Albany Fonblanque |location=London |issue=1725}}</ref><ref>''[[The Times]]'', 17 February and 18 February 1841, quoted in Woodham-Smith (1953)</ref>

The last-known fatal duel between Englishmen in England occurred in 1845, when [[James Alexander Seton]] had an altercation with Henry Hawkey over the affections of his wife, leading to a duel at Browndown, near [[Gosport]]. However, [[Englefield Green#The last duel in England|the last-known fatal duel]] to occur in [[England]] was between two French political refugees, Frederic Cournet and [[Emmanuel Barthélemy]] near [[Englefield Green]] in 1852; the former was killed.<ref name="KEG" /> In both cases, the winners of the duels, Hawkey<ref>{{cite news |title=Trial of Lieutenant Hawkey for the Wilful Murder of Lieutenant Seton in a Duel |work=Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle |date=July 18, 1846 |location=Portsmouth, England |issue=2441}}</ref> and Barthélemy,<ref name="executedtoday" /> were tried for murder. But Hawkey was acquitted and Barthélemy was convicted only of manslaughter; he served seven months in prison.<ref name="executedtoday">{{cite web |url=http://www.executedtoday.com/2014/01/22/1855-emmanuel-barthelemy-duelist/ |title=1855: Emmanuel Barthelemy, duelist |work=Executed Today |date=22 January 2014 |access-date=25 October 2014}}</ref>

[[File:AntiDuelingPamphletEliphaletNott1804.jpg|thumb|left|An anti-dueling sermon written by an acquaintance of [[Alexander Hamilton]].]]
Dueling also began to be criticized in America in the late 18th century; [[Benjamin Franklin]] denounced the practice as uselessly violent, and [[George Washington]] encouraged his officers to refuse challenges during the [[American Revolutionary War]] because he believed that the death by dueling of officers would have threatened the success of the war effort.

In the early nineteenth century, American writer and activist [[John Neal]] took up dueling as his earliest reform issue,<ref>{{cite book |last=Kayorie |first=James Stephen Merritt |editor-last=Baumgartner |editor-first=Jody C. |chapter=John Neal (1793–1876) |page=87 |title=American Political Humor: Masters of Satire and Their Impact on U.S. Policy and Culture |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, California |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-4408-5486-6}}</ref> attacking the institution in his first novel, ''Keep Cool'' (1817), and referring to it in an essay that same year as "the unqualified evidence of manhood".<ref>{{cite magazine |date=February 1817 |title=Essay on Duelling |last=Neal |first=John |author-link=John Neal |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008696293 |magazine=The Portico |location=Baltimore, Maryland |publisher=Neale Willis & Cole |volume=3 (January–June 1817) |pages=132–133 |issue=2}}</ref> Ironically, Neal was challenged to a duel by a fellow [[Baltimore]] lawyer for insults published in his 1823 novel ''Randolph''. He refused and mocked the challenge in his next novel, ''Errata'', published the same year.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sears |first=Donald A. |title=John Neal |publisher=Twayne |location=Boston, Massachusetts |year=1978 |isbn=0-8057-7230-8 |page=55}}</ref>

Reports of dueling gained in popularity in the first half of the 19th century especially in the [[Southern United States|South]] and the states of the [[Old Southwest]]. However, in this regional context, the term ''dueling'' had severely degenerated from its original 18th-century definition as a formal social custom among the wealthy classes, using fixed rules of conduct. Instead, 'dueling' was used by the contemporary press of the day to refer to any [[melee]] knife or gun fight between two contestants, where the clear object was simply to kill one's opponent.<ref name="CAS">{{cite book | last=Cassidy | first=William L. | title=The Complete Book Of Knife Fighting | date=1975 | publisher=Paladin Press | isbn=978-0-87364-029-9}} In some states the popularity of certain knives such as the ''Bowie'' and ''Arkansas Toothpick'' was such that schools were established to teach their use in knife fighting 'duels', further popularizing such knives and compelling authorities to pass legislation severely restricting such schools.{{clarify inline|reason=Is this a quotation? Either put it in quotation marks or move it ''before'' the citation |date=October 2025}}</ref>

Dueling began an irreversible decline in the aftermath of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. Even in the South, [[public opinion]] increasingly came to regard the practice as little more than bloodshed.

====Prominent 19th-century duels====
{{Main|List of duels}}
[[File:Hamilton-burr-duel.jpg|thumb|A 1902 illustration after painting {{lang|de|Ein Ehrenhandel}} by Joseph Munsch (Austrian, 1832–1896)<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/illustrierterkat00inte/page/99/mode/1up |title=Illustrierter Katalog der internationalen Kunstausstellung im königl. Glaspalaste in München |date=1888<!--as on title page--> |location=Munich, Bavaria |publisher=Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und Wissenschaft |page=99}}</ref> showing [[Alexander Hamilton]] fighting his fatal duel with Vice President [[Aaron Burr]], July 1804]]

====United States====
The most notorious American duel is the [[Burr–Hamilton duel]], in which notable [[Federalist Party|Federalist]] and former Secretary of the Treasury [[Alexander Hamilton]] was fatally wounded by his political rival, the sitting Vice President [[Aaron Burr]].

Another American politician, [[Andrew Jackson]], later to serve as a [[General Officer]] in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] and to become the [[List of Presidents of the United States|seventh president]], fought two duels, though some legends claim he fought many more. On May 30, 1806, he killed prominent duellist [[Charles Dickinson (historical figure)|Charles Dickinson]], suffering himself from a chest wound that caused him a lifetime of pain. Jackson also reportedly engaged in a bloodless duel with a lawyer and in 1803 came very near dueling with [[John Sevier]]. Jackson also engaged in a frontier brawl (not a duel) with [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]] in 1813.

In 1827, during the [[Sandbar Fight]], [[James Bowie]] was involved in an arranged pistol duel that quickly escalated into a knife-fighting [[melee]], not atypical of American practices at the time.<ref>{{cite book |last=Edmondson |first=J. R. |year=2000 |title=The Alamo Story: From History to Current Conflicts |location=Plano, Texas |publisher=Republic of Texas Press |isbn=1-55622-678-0}}</ref>

On September 22, 1842, future President [[Abraham Lincoln]], at the time an [[Illinois]] state [[legislator]], met to duel with state auditor [[James Shields (politician, born 1810)|James Shields]], but friends intervened and persuaded them against it.<ref>[http://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln-prepares-to-fight-a-saber-duel.htm "Abraham Lincoln Prepares to Fight a Saber Duel"], originally published by ''Civil War Times'' magazine</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Carnegie |first=Dale |author-link=Dale Carnegie |title=How to Win Friends & Influence People |publisher=Pocket Books |year=1982 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/howtowinfriendsi00carn/page/9 9] |isbn=978-0-671-72365-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/howtowinfriendsi00carn |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In 1864, American writer [[Mark Twain]], then a contributor to the ''[[Sunday Mercury (New York)|New York Sunday Mercury]]'', narrowly avoided fighting a duel with a rival newspaper editor, apparently through the intervention of his second, who exaggerated Twain's prowess with a pistol.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://www.classicauthors.net/Paine/twainbio/twainbio46.html |title=Mark Twain, A Biography |first=Albert Bigelow |last=Paine |chapter=Part I: A Comstock Duel |via=Classicauthors.net |access-date=2010-05-30 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611095708/http://classicauthors.net/Paine/twainbio/twainbio46.html |archive-date=2010-06-11}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://twain.classicauthors.net/autobiography/autobiography8.html |title=Chapters from my Autobiography |first=Mark |last=Twain |chapter=Chapter VIII |via=Classicauthors.net |access-date=2010-05-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100704042345/http://twain.classicauthors.net/autobiography/autobiography8.html |archive-date=2010-07-04}}</ref>

====France====
In 1808, two Frenchmen are said to have fought in balloons over Paris, each attempting to shoot and puncture the other's balloon. One duellist is said to have been shot down and killed with his second.<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite web |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/duel.html |title= Duel! |first=Ross |last=Drake |date=March 2004 |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=2010-05-30 |archive-date=2014-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107225246/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/duel.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

On 30 May 1832, French mathematician [[Évariste Galois]] was mortally wounded in a duel at the age of twenty, cutting short his promising mathematical career. He spent the night before the duel writing mathematics; the inclusion of a note claiming that he did not have time to finish a proof spawned the [[urban legend]] that he wrote his most important results on that night.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Galois/ |title=Évariste Galois |website=MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive}}</ref>

In 1843, two Frenchmen are said to have fought a duel by means of throwing billiard balls at each other.<ref name="smithsonian" />

====Ireland====
Irish political leader [[Daniel O'Connell]] killed John D'Esterre in a duel in February 1815. O'Connell offered D'Esterre's widow a pension equal to the amount her husband had been earning at the time, but the Corporation of Dublin, of which D'Esterre had been a member, rejected O'Connell's offer and voted the promised sum to D'Esterre's wife themselves.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QqlxAAAAMAAJ&q=city+fathers+rejected+the+offer+and+voted+the+promised+sum+themselves |title=The Duel: A History of Duelling |first=Robert |last=Baldick |publisher=Chapman & Hall |year=1965 |isbn=978-0-600-32837-7 |access-date=19 April 2011}}</ref> D'Esterre's wife consented to accept an allowance for her daughter, which O'Connell regularly paid for more than thirty years until his death. The memory of the duel haunted him for the remainder of his life.<ref>{{cite book |first=Dennis |last=Gywnn |title=Daniel O'Connell: The Irish Liberator |publisher=Hutchinson & Co. |pages=138–145}}</ref>{{year needed|date=October 2025}}

====Russia====
The works of Russian poet [[Alexander Pushkin]] contain a number of duels, notably Onegin's duel with Lensky in ''[[Eugene Onegin]]''. These turned out to be prophetic, as Pushkin himself was mortally wounded in a controversial duel with [[Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès|Georges d'Anthès]], a French officer rumored to be his wife's lover. D'Anthès, who was accused of cheating in this duel, married Pushkin's sister-in-law and went on to become a French minister and senator.

====Germany====
In the 1860s, [[Otto von Bismarck]] was reported to have challenged [[Rudolf Virchow]] to a duel. Virchow, being entitled to choose the weapons, chose two pork sausages, one infected with the roundworm ''[[Trichinella]]''; the two would each choose and eat a sausage. Bismarck reportedly declined.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Rudolf Virchow |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |volume=14 |issue=9 |pages=1480–1481 |date=2012-05-24 |pmc=2603088 |last1=Schultz |first1=M. |doi=10.3201/eid1409.086672}}</ref> The story could be apocryphal, however.<ref name="StrozierFlynn1996">{{cite book |last1=Strozier |first1=Charles B. |last2=Flynn |first2=Michael |title=Genocide, War, and Human Survival |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6QuMS4hOB0cC&pg=PA195 |access-date=27 February 2014 |date=1996-01-01 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-8227-0 |page=195}}</ref>

====Scotland====
In Scotland, [[James Stuart (1775–1849)|James Stuart of Dunearn]], was tried and acquitted after a duel that fatally wounded Sir [[Sir Alexander Boswell, 1st Baronet|Alexander Boswell]]. [[George Buchan of Kelloe|George Buchan]] published his own examination of arguments in favour of duelling alongside an account of the trial, taken in shorthand.<ref name="Buchan">{{cite book |last1=Buchan |first1=George |author1-link=George Buchan of Kelloe |title=Remarks on duelling; comprising observations on the arguments in defence of that practice |date=1823 |publisher=Waugh & Innes |location=Edinburgh |pages=[https://archive.org/details/remarksonduellin00buch/page/n219/mode/2up 1]-161 |url=https://archive.org/details/remarksonduellin00buch/page/n7/mode/2up}}</ref> Other duels were fought in Scotland mostly between soldiers or the gentry with several subsequently brought to the law courts.<ref name="Anderson">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/scottishnationor03ande |chapter=The Stuarts of Dunearn |title=The Scottish nation: or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland |volume=3 |first=William |last=Anderson |author-link=William Anderson (Scottish writer) |publisher=A. Fullarton & co. |year=1877|page=[https://archive.org/details/scottishnationor03ande/page/376/mode/1up?q=duel 537], et passim}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>

====Canada====
The last known fatal duel in [[Ontario]] was in Perth, in 1833, when [[Robert Lyon (duel)|Robert Lyon]] challenged [[John Wilson (Ontario politician)|John Wilson]] to a pistol duel after a quarrel over remarks Lyon had made about a local school teacher, whom Wilson eventually married after Lyon was killed in the duel. [[Victoria, British Columbia]] was known to have been the scene of at least two duels near the time of the gold rush. One involved a British arrival by the name of George Sloane, and an American, John Liverpool, both arriving via San Francisco in 1858. In a duel by pistols, Sloane was fatally injured and Liverpool shortly returned to the US. The fight originally started on board the ship over a young woman, Miss Bradford, and then carried on later in Victoria's tent city.<ref>''The Old Cemeteries Society'' (Pioneer Square) pp. 7–9.</ref>{{fcn|date=October 2025}} Another duel, involving a Mr. Muir, took place around 1861, but was moved to a US island near Victoria.

===Decline in the 19th and 20th centuries===
Duels had mostly ceased to be fought to the death by the late 19th century.

By the start of [[World War I]], dueling had not only been made illegal almost everywhere in the [[Western world]], but was also widely seen as an anachronism. Military establishments in most countries frowned on dueling because officers were the main contestants. Officers were often trained at military academies at government expense; when officers killed or disabled one another it imposed an unnecessary financial and leadership strain on a military organization, making dueling unpopular with high-ranking officers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Holland |first=Barbara |year=2003 |title=Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling |location=New York |publisher=Bloomsbury}}</ref>

With the end of the duel, the [[dress sword]] lost its position as an indispensable part of a gentleman's wardrobe, a development described as an "archaeological terminus" by [[Ewart Oakeshott]], concluding the long period during which the [[sword]] had been a visible attribute of the free man, beginning as early as three millennia ago with the [[Bronze Age sword]].<ref>{{cite book |first=R. E. |last=Oakeshott |title=European weapons and armour: From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution |year=1980 |page=255}}</ref>{{edition needed|reason=The article [[Ewart Oakeshott]] dates this book to 2000. If that's incorrect, please correct the other article. Also please supply publisher and ISBN|date=October 2025}}

====Legislation====
Emperor [[Charles I of Austria|Charles I]] outlawed dueling in [[Austria-Hungary]] in 1917. Germany (the various states of the Holy Roman Empire) has a history of laws against dueling going back to the late medieval period, with a large amount of legislation ({{lang|de|Duellmandate}}) dating from the period after the Thirty Years' War. [[Prussia]] outlawed dueling in 1851, and the law was inherited by the {{lang|de|Reichsstrafgesetzbuch}} of the [[German Empire]] after 1871.<ref name="Liszt">{{cite book |first=Franz |last=Liszt |title=Lehrbuch des deutschen Strafrechts |edition=13th |location=Berlin |year=1903 |chapter-url=http://www.bgbedia.de/zweikampf/ |chapter=§&nbsp;93. 4. Der Zweikampf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130101122903/http://www.bgbedia.de/zweikampf/ |archive-date=2013-01-01 |pages=327–333}}</ref> [[Pope Leo XIII]] in the encyclical {{lang|la|Pastoralis officii}} (1891) asked the bishops of Germany and Austria–Hungary to impose penalties on duellists.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13po.htm |title=Catholic Library: Pastoralis Officii (1891) |website=New Advent}}</ref> In Nazi-era Germany, legislation on dueling was tightened in 1937.<ref>Hitler's decree{{clarify|date=March 2016}} was a reaction to a duel between two Nazi party members: [[Roland Strunk]] was killed in a duel with [[Horst Krutschinna]].</ref> After World War II, [[West Germany|West German]] authorities persecuted [[academic fencing]] as duels until 1951, when a [[Göttingen]] court established the legal distinction between academic fencing and dueling.<ref>18 December 1951, confirmed by the [[Federal Court of Justice of Germany|Federal Court of Justice]] on 29 January 1953 (BGHSt 4, 24).</ref>

In 1839, after the death of a congressman,{{specify|date=October 2025}} dueling was outlawed in [[Washington, D.C.]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=005/llsl005.db&recNum=355 |title=A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875 |website=memory.loc.gov |access-date=2016-07-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Duel with Rifles |url=http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/07/a-duel-with-rifles/ |date=July 17, 2013 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> A constitutional amendment was even proposed for the federal constitution to outlaw dueling.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |title=H.R. 8, Proposing an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Prohibit any Person who was Involved in a Duel from Holding Public Federal Office |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration |year=1838 |series=File Unit: Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House during the 25th Congress, 1837–1839 |access-date=2016-07-29 |archive-date=2016-10-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006130706/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some [[U.S. state]]s' constitutions, such as [[West Virginia]]'s, contain explicit prohibitions on dueling to this day.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wvlegislature.gov/wvcode/wv_con.cfm |title=West Virginia Constitution |website=West Virginia Legislature}}</ref> In [[Kentucky]], the state constitution of 1891, which remains in effect, mandates that all state and local officeholders, attorneys who are members of the state bar and delegates to the [[United States Electoral College|Electoral College]] must swear or affirm that they had never engaged in a duel with deadly weapons, acted as a second in a duel with deadly weapons or otherwise aided or assisted anyone thus offending.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/14/us/joe-biden-trump#biden-calls-trumps-attacks-on-voting-unconscionable |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line-->|title=Presidential Transition Highlights: Election 'Should Be Celebrated, Not Attacked,' Biden Says as Electoral College Affirms His Victory |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 15, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124616129 |title=Kentucky Duels Over Oath Of Office |work=NPR |date=12 March 2010 |access-date=3 January 2015}}</ref> Other U.S. states, like [[Mississippi]] until the late 1970s, formerly had prohibitions on dueling in their state constitutions, but later repealed them,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428202931/https://www.sos.ms.gov/Education-Publications/Documents/Downloads/Mississippi_Constitution.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2019-04-28 |title=Mississippi Constitution |year=2014 |access-date=28 April 2019}}</ref> whereas others, such as Iowa, constitutionally prohibited known duelers from holding political office until the early 1990s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ballotpedia.org/Iowa_Repeal_of_Dueling_Ban,_Amendment_2_(1992) |title=Iowa Repeal of Dueling Ban, Amendment 2 (1992) |website=Ballotpedia}}</ref>

From 1921 until 1992,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://relam.org/events/gentlemanly-jurisprudence-and-the-rule-of-law-why-dueling-was-legal-in-uruguay-from-1920-to-1992-a-talk-with-david-s-parker | title=Gentlemanly Jurisprudence and the Rule of Law: Why Dueling was Legal in Uruguay from 1920 to 1992 |first=David S. |last=Parker | date=10 March 2023 }}</ref> [[Uruguay]] was one of the few places where duels were fully legal. During that period, a duel was legal in cases where "an honor tribunal of three respectable citizens, one chosen by each side and the third chosen by the other two, had ruled that sufficient cause for a duel existed".<ref name="DSP">{{cite journal |first=David S. |last=Parker |date=Summer 2001 |title=Law, Honor, and Impunity in Spanish America: The Debate over Dueling, 1870–1920 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=311–341 |doi=10.2307/744132 |jstor=744132|s2cid=144994172 }}</ref>

====Pistol sport dueling====
{{Main|Pistol dueling}}
[[File:1908 Olympics wax duel field.png|thumb|Pistol dueling as an associate event at the 1908 London Olympic Games]]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pistol dueling became popular as a sport in France. The duelists were armed with conventional pistols, but the cartridges had [[wax bullet]]s and were without any powder charge; the bullet was propelled only by the explosion of the cartridge's [[Primer (firearm)|primer]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/02/26/101867826.pdf |title=Duel With Wax Bullets |work=The New York Times |date=February 26, 1909 |access-date=24 December 2014}}</ref>

Participants wore heavy, protective clothing and a metal helmet with a glass eye-screen. The pistols were fitted with a shield that protected the firing hand.{{cn|date=October 2025}}

=====Olympic dueling=====
{{Main|Olympic dueling}}

Pistol dueling was an associate (non-medal) event at the [[1908 Summer Olympics]] in London.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=October 1908 |title=Dueling with Wax Bullets |magazine=[[Popular Mechanics]] | volume=10 |page=765}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=[Unknown title] |journal=The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=roI4AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA40 |issue=808 |volume=LXIII |date=1908-07-22 |publisher=Ingram Brothers |page=41}}</ref>{{fcn|reason=missing article title|date=October 2025}}

====Late survivals====
Dueling culture survived in [[French Third Republic|France]], Italy, and Latin America well into the 20th century. [[French Fourth Republic|After World War II]], duels had become rare even in France, and those that still occurred were covered in the press as eccentricities. Duels in France in this period, while still taken seriously as a matter of honor, were not fought to the death. They consisted of fencing with the épée mostly in a fixed distance with the aim of drawing blood from the opponent's arm.

In 1949, former Vichy official [[Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour]] fought school teacher Roger Nordmann.<ref>{{cite news |quote=A French lawyer and a schoolteacher fought a duel today in a meadow near Paris. Roger Nordmann the schoolteacher was reportedly pricked by the lawyer Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour's sword and the duel ended with everyone's honor intact. The feud started three weeks ago when Tixier-Vignancour challenged Nordmann to a duel with pistols after he said Nordmann insulted him during a treason trial; Nordmann accepted the challenge but said he had never fired anything more potent than a water pistol. He then chose two of his prettiest girl students, as seconds. The lawyer objected on the grounds that a second must be ready to take his principal's place and he could not lift his hand against a woman. The weapons and the seconds were properly arranged after weeks of negotiations. The duelists went into hiding from newspapermen and police, since dueling is illegal. Only their seconds knew the time and place of combat. |title=French Lawyer And Teacher Fight Duel, Saving Their Honor |newspaper=Lubbock Avalanche-Journal |date=13 November 1949 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/5986306/ |page=55}}</ref> The last known duel in France took place in 1967, when [[French Section of the Workers' International|Socialist]] Deputy and Mayor of Marseille [[Gaston Defferre]] insulted [[Union for the New Republic|Gaullist]] Deputy [[René Ribière]] at the [[French Parliament]] and was subsequently challenged to a duel fought with swords. Ribière lost the duel, having been wounded twice.<ref name="Time">{{cite news |date=1967-04-28 |title=People: Apr. 28, 1967 |magazine=Time |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843669,00.html?iid=chix-sphere |url-status=dead |access-date=2010-05-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629023401/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843669,00.html?iid=chix-sphere |archive-date=June 29, 2011}}</ref> In Uruguay, a pistol duel was fought in 1971 between Danilo Sena and [[Enrique Erro]], in which neither of the combatants was injured.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lr21.com.uy/comunidad/481143-los-ultimos-duelos |title=Los últimos duelos |website=LaRed21 |date=28 November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19711018&id=PQgrAAAAIBAJ&pg=6515,4940475&hl=en |work=Reading Eagle |via= Google News |title = Two Duel, Both Unhurt|date=18 October 1971}}</ref>

Various modern jurisdictions still retain [[mutual combat]] laws, which allow disputes to be settled via consensual unarmed combat, which are essentially unarmed duels, though it may still be illegal for such fights to result in grievous bodily harm or death.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} Few if any modern jurisdictions allow armed duels.

==Rules==

===Offence and satisfaction===
The traditional situation that led to a duel often happened after a perceived offense, whether real or imagined, when one party would demand satisfaction from the offender.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/mysticXN.htm |title=The Mystic Spring (1904) by D. W. Higgins |publisher=Gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca |access-date=2010-05-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101216090439/http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/mysticXN.htm |archive-date=2010-12-16}}</ref> The demand was commonly symbolized by an inescapably insulting gesture, such as throwing a glove to the ground before the offender.<ref>Presumably based on [[Romanticism|romantic]] depictions of the age of [[chivalry]].{{clarify|date=April 2015}}
<!--this entire "gauntlet" tangent will only make sense if we can tie it to actual dueling protocol. This isn't the "jousting" article.-->
The custom of "flinging the gauntlet in the face of another Knight" is illustrated in early Italian romances such as ''[[Orlando Furioso]]''
(The Scots Magazine 89/90 (1822), [https://books.google.com/books?id=fFw3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA575 p. 575]), and the English phrase of  "throwing down the gauntlet" occurs in the context of [[Renaissance-era jousting|Tudor-era tournaments]] from the 1540s.
<!--
A reference to the supposedly medieval practice is found in the pseudo-medieval poetry of [[Thomas Chatterton]] (''The Tournament: An Interlude'', purportedly written in the 15th century by "Thomas Rowley"), ''there's mie gauntlette onn mie gaberdyne.''--></ref>

Usually, challenges were delivered in writing by one or more close friends who acted as "seconds". The challenge, written in formal language, laid out the real or imagined grievances and a demand for satisfaction. The challenged party then had the choice of accepting or refusing the challenge. Grounds for refusing the challenge could include that it was frivolous, or that the challenger was not generally recognized as a "gentleman" since dueling was limited to persons of equal social status. However, care had to be taken before declining a challenge, as it could result in accusations of cowardice or be perceived as an insult to the challenger's seconds if it was implied that they were acting on behalf of someone of low social standing. Participation in a duel could be honorably refused on account of a major difference in age between the parties and, to a lesser extent, in cases of social inferiority on the part of the challenger. Such inferiority had to be immediately obvious, however. As author [[Bertram Wyatt-Brown]] states, "with social distinctions often difficult to measure", most men could not escape on such grounds without the appearance of cowardice.<ref>Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. ''Southern Honor: Ethics & Behavior in the Old South''. Oxford University Press, 2007, p.355–356</ref>

Once a challenge was accepted, if not done already, both parties (known as "principals") would appoint trusted representatives to act as their seconds with no further direct communication between the principals being allowed until the dispute was settled. The seconds had a number of responsibilities, of which the first was to do all in their power to avert bloodshed provided their principal's honor was not compromised. This could involve back and forth correspondence about a mutually agreeable lesser course of action, such as a formal apology for the alleged offense.

In the event that the seconds failed to persuade their principals to avoid a fight, they then attempted to agree on terms for the duel that would limit the chance of a fatal outcome, consistent with the generally accepted guidelines for affairs of honor. The exact rules or etiquette for dueling varied by time and locale but were usually referred to as the [[code duello]]. In most cases, the challenged party had the choice of weapons, with swords being favored in many parts of continental Europe and pistols in the United States and Great Britain.

It was the job of the seconds to make all of the arrangements in advance, including how long the duel would last and what conditions would end the duel. Often sword duels were only fought until blood was drawn, thus severely limiting the likelihood of death or grave injury since a scratch could be considered as satisfying honor. In pistol duels, the number of shots to be permitted and the range were set out. Care was taken by the seconds to ensure the ground chosen gave no unfair advantage to either party. A doctor or surgeon was usually arranged to be on hand. Other things often arranged by the seconds could go into minute details that might seem odd in the modern world, such as the dress code (duels were often formal affairs), the number and names of any other witnesses to be present and whether or not refreshments would be served.<ref>Lynn, p. 255, 257.</ref>

===Field of honor===
{{Redirect|Field of honor||Field of Honor (disambiguation){{!}}Field of Honor}}

The chief criteria for choosing the field of honor were isolation, to avoid discovery and interruption by the authorities; and jurisdictional ambiguity, to avoid legal consequences. Islands in rivers dividing two jurisdictions were popular dueling sites; the cliffs below Weehawken on the Hudson River where the [[Hamilton–Burr duel]] occurred were a popular field of honor for New York duelists because of the uncertainty of whether New York or New Jersey had jurisdiction. Duels traditionally took place at dawn, when the poor light would make the participants less likely to be seen, and to force an interval for reconsideration or sobering up.

For some time before the mid-18th century, swordsmen dueling at dawn often carried lanterns to see each other. This happened so regularly that fencing manuals integrated lanterns into their lessons. An example of this is using the lantern to parry blows and blind the opponent.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/Angelo.php |title=How to Defend a Monopoly |publisher=Classicalfencing.com |date=2006-03-26 |access-date=2012-10-22 |archive-date=2012-01-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120127235900/http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/Angelo.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> The manuals sometimes show the combatants carrying the lantern in the left hand wrapped behind the back, which is still one of the traditional positions for the off-hand in modern fencing.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://pages.sbcglobal.net/blyle/Angelo/46.png |title = The Guard of the Sword & Lanthorn, opposd by the Sword & Cloak|archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20100525024932/http://pages.sbcglobal.net/blyle/Angelo/46.png |archivedate=May 25, 2010}}</ref>

===Conditions===
At the choice of the offended party, the duel could be fought to a number of conclusions:
* To first blood, in which case the duel would be ended as soon as one man was wounded, even if the wound was minor.
* Until one man was so severely wounded as to be physically unable to continue the duel.
* To the death (or {{lang|fr|à l'outrance}}), in which case there would be no satisfaction until one party was mortally wounded.
* In the case of pistol duels, each party would fire one shot. If neither man was hit and if the challenger stated that he was satisfied, the duel would be declared over. If the challenger was not satisfied, a pistol duel could continue until one man was wounded or killed, but to have more than three exchanges of fire was considered barbaric, and, on the rare occasion that no hits were achieved, somewhat ridiculous.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}}

Under the latter conditions, one or both parties could intentionally miss in order to fulfill the conditions of the duel, without loss of either life or honor. However, doing so, known as [[deloping]], could imply that one's opponent was not worth shooting. This practice occurred despite being expressly banned by the Irish {{lang|it|[[code duello]]}} of 1777. Rule XII stated: "No dumb shooting or firing in the air is admissible in any case&nbsp;... children's play must be dishonourable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/education/dueling/CodeDuello.pdf |title=Code duello |via=Secretary of State of Missouri |access-date=2014-05-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904223840/http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/education/dueling/CodeDuello.pdf |archive-date=2014-09-04}}</ref>

Practices varied, however, but unless the challenger was of a higher social standing, such as a baron or prince challenging a knight, the person being challenged was allowed to decide the time and weapons used in the duel. The offended party could stop the duel at any time if he deemed his honor satisfied. In some duels, the seconds would take the place of the primary duelist if the primary was not able to finish the duel. This was usually done in duels with swords, where one's expertise was sometimes limited. The second would also act as a witness.

===Pistol duel===
[[File:Yevgeny Onegin by Repin.jpg|thumb|The fictional pistol duel between [[Eugene Onegin]] and Vladimir Lensky. Watercolour by [[Ilya Repin]] (1899)]]

There were various methods of pistol dueling. The mode where the two duelists stood back-to-back, walked away from each other for a set number of paces before turning and firing was known as the "French" method.<ref name="Hoptin-2011-80">Hoptin (2011), p. 80</ref> Another method required the duelists to stand still at an agreed distance and fire simultaneously on a signal – this was the type of duel favored in Britain.<ref name="Hoptin-2011-80" /> A variant of this required the duelists to take turns to shoot, with the challenger shooting first or the right of first shot being decided by a coin toss.<ref name="Hoptin-2011-85-90" />

The distance at which the pistols were fired might depend on local custom, the wishes of the duelists or sometimes the severity of the insult. The American dueling code of 1838 suggested a distance between 10 and 20 [[Pace (unit)|paces]].<ref name="Hoptin-2011-81">Hoptin (2011), p. 81</ref> There were incidences of pistol duels taking place at just two or three paces, with a virtual certainty of one or both duelists being injured or killed.<ref name="Hoptin-2011-82">Hoptin (2011), p. 82</ref>

A method popular in Continental Europe was known as a ''barrier duel''<ref name="Hoptin-2011-85-90" /> or a duel {{lang|fr|à volonté}} ("at pleasure");<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kinard |first=Jeff |title=Pistols: an illustrated history of their impact |date=2003 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=1-85109-475-X |location=Santa Barbara, California |pages=31 |oclc=60395313}}</ref> it did not have a set shooting distance. The two duelists began some distance apart. Between them there were two lines on the ground separated by an agreed distance – this constituted the barrier and they were forbidden to cross it. After the signal to begin, they could advance towards the barrier to close the distance and were permitted to fire at any time. However, the one that shot first was required to stand still and allow his opponent to walk right up to his barrier line and fire back at leisure.<ref name="Hoptin-2011-85-90">Hoptin (2011), pp. 85–90</ref>

Many historical duels were prevented by the difficulty of arranging the "{{lang|la|methodus pugnandi}}". In the instance of [[Richard Brocklesby]], the number of paces could not be agreed upon;<ref name="MCR">{{cite journal |journal=Medico-Chirurgical Review |title=Eccentric medical men |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rBgCAAAAYAAJ&q=Richard+Brocklesby+duel+number+of+paces&pg=PA332 |date=1 April – 30 September 1839 |access-date=19 April 2011 |volume=XXXI}}</ref> and in the affair between [[Mark Akenside]] and Ballow, one had determined never to fight in the morning, and the other that he would never fight in the afternoon.<ref name="MCR" /> [[John Wilkes]], "who did not stand upon ceremony in these little affairs", when asked by [[William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot|Lord Talbot]] how many times they were to fire, replied, "just as often as your Lordship pleases; I have brought a bag of bullets and a flask of gunpowder."<ref name="MCR" />

==Western traditions==

===Europe===

====Great Britain and Ireland====
The duel arrived at the end of the 16th century with the influx of Italian honor and courtesy literature – most notably [[Baldassare Castiglione]]'s ''[[Book of the Courtier|Libro del Cortegiano]]'' (Book of the Courtier), published in 1528, and [[Girolamo Muzio]]'s ''Il Duello'', published in 1550. These stressed the need to protect one's reputation and social mask and prescribed the circumstances under which an insulted party should issue a challenge.
The word ''duel'' was introduced in the 1590s, modeled after [[Medieval Latin]] ''duellum'' (an archaic Latin form of ''bellum'' "war", but associated by popular etymology with ''duo'' "two", hence "one-on-one combat").<ref>This usage apparently goes back to [[John of Legnano]], author of a 14th-century work on dueling, ''De Bello'', cited by [[du Cange]]
''Pugna corporalis deliberata hinc inde duorum, ad purgationem, gloriam, vel odii aggregationem.''
[http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/DUELLUM3 3. Duellum], ''Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis'' (1678), ed. augm., Niort : L. Favre, 1883‑1887, t. 3, col. 203b.</ref>

Soon domestic literature was being produced such as Simon Robson's ''The Courte of Ciuill Courtesie'', published in 1577. Dueling was further propagated by the arrival of Italian fencing masters such as Rocco Bonetti and Vincento Saviolo. By the reign of [[James I of England|James I]] dueling was well entrenched within a militarized peerage&nbsp;– one of the most important duels being that between [[Lord Kinloss|Edward Bruce, 2nd Lord Kinloss]] and [[Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset|Edward Sackville]] (later the 4th Earl of Dorset) in 1613, during which Bruce was killed.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DgEOAAAAQAAJ&q=Lord+Bruce+Earl+of+Dorset+1613+duel&pg=PA65 |title=The Duel: A History of Duelling |first=Robert |last=Baldick |publisher=Chapman & Hall |year=1965 |access-date=19 April 2011 |isbn=978-0-600-32837-7}}</ref> James I encouraged [[Francis Bacon]] as Solicitor-General to prosecute would-be duelists in the [[Court of Star Chamber]], leading to about two hundred prosecutions between 1603 and 1625. He also issued an edict against dueling in 1614 and is believed to have supported production of an anti-dueling tract by the [[Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton|Earl of Northampton]].

Dueling, however, continued to spread out from the court, notably into the army. In the mid-17th century it was for a time checked by the activities of the Parliamentarians whose Articles of War specified the death penalty for would-be duelists. Nevertheless, dueling survived and increased markedly with the [[Restoration (England)|Restoration]]. Among the difficulties of anti-dueling campaigners was that although monarchs uniformly proclaimed their general hostility to dueling, they were nevertheless very reluctant to see their own favorites punished. In 1712 both the [[James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton|Duke of Hamilton]] and [[Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun|Charles 4th Baron Mohun]] were killed in a [[Hamilton–Mohun duel|celebrated duel]] induced by political rivalry and squabbles over an inheritance.

By the 1780s, the values of the duel had spread into the broader and emerging society of gentlemen. Research shows that much the largest group of later duelists were military officers, followed by the young sons of the metropolitan elite (see Banks, ''A Polite Exchange of Bullets''). Dueling was also popular for a time among doctors and, in particular, in the legal professions. Quantifying the number of duels in Britain is difficult, but there are about 1,000 attested between 1785 and 1845 with fatality rates at least 15% and probably somewhat higher.

In 1777, at the Summer [[assize]]s in the town of [[Clonmel]], [[County Tipperary]], a code of practice was drawn up for the regulation of duels. It was agreed by delegates from counties Tipperary, [[County Galway|Galway]], [[County Mayo|Mayo]], [[County Sligo|Sligo]] and [[County Roscommon|Roscommon]], and intended for general adoption throughout [[Ireland]].<ref name="Hamilton 1829" /> An amended version known as 'The Irish Code of Honor', and consisting of 25 rules, was adopted in some parts of the United States. The first article of the code stated:

{{blockquote|
Rule 1.—The first offence requires the apology, although the retort may have been more offensive than the insult.

—Example: A. tells B. he is impertinent, &C.; B. retorts, that he lies; yet A. must make the first apology, because he gave the first offence, and then, (after one fire,) B. may explain away the retort by subsequent apology.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilson Lyde |first=John |title=The Code of Honor, Or, Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling |publisher=reprinted by Kessinger Publishing |orig-year=1838 |year=2004 |chapter=Appendix |isbn=978-1-4191-5704-2 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VEIXLwMktEUC&q=Clonmell}}</ref>}}

The 19th-century Irish statesman [[Daniel O'Connell]] took part in a duel in 1815. Following the death of his opponent, John D'Esterre, O'Connell repented and from that time wore a white glove on his right hand when attending [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] as a public symbol of his regret.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gwynn |first=Denis |title=Daniel O'Connell |publisher=Cork University Press |year=1947 |page=126 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hR4qAAAAYAAJ&q=+%22+white+glove%22}}</ref> Despite numerous challenges, he refused ever to fight another duel.<ref>O'Faolain, Sean (1938). ''King of the Beggars: A life of Daniel O'Connell''. Mercier Press. p.198</ref>

The [[Emmanuel Barthélemy#The last duel in England|last duel in England]] was fought in 1852 between two French political exiles.<ref name="KEG" /> In 1862, in an article entitled ''Dead (and gone) Shots'', [[Charles Dickens]] recalled the rules and myths of Irish dueling in his periodical ''[[All the Year Round]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dickens |first=Charles |author2=Chapman and Hall |date=May 10, 1862 |title=All the year round |publisher=Dickens & Evans (Firm) |pages=212–216 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KdUNAAAAQAAJ&q=%22crow+ryan%22&pg=PA213}}</ref>

=====British prime ministers who took part in duels=====
Four [[List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom|Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom]] engaged in duels, although only two of them – Pitt and Wellington – held the office at the time of their duels.
* [[William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne]] fought a duel with [[William Fullarton|Colonel William Fullarton]] (1780)
* [[Pitt–Tierney duel]]. [[William Pitt the Younger]] fought a duel with [[George Tierney]] (1798)
* [[Canning–Castlereagh duel]]. [[George Canning]] fought a duel with [[Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh|Lord Castlereagh]] (1809)
*[[Wellington–Winchilsea duel]]. The [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]] fought a duel with [[George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea|Lord Winchilsea]] (1829)

====Holy Roman Empire and Germany====
In [[Early New High German]], the duel was known as ''Kampf'', or ''Kampffechten''. The German dueling tradition originates in the Late Middle Ages, within the [[German school of fencing]]. In the 15th century, duels were fought between members of the nobility wearing full [[Plate armour|plate armor]]. During the late 16th and the 17th century, this tradition was gradually replaced with the modern fencing with the rapier following the [[Dardi school]], while at the same time the practice of dueling spread to the [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] classes, especially among [[Academic fencing|students]].

The term ''Kampf'' is replaced by the modern German ''Duell'' during the same period, attested in the Latin form ''duellum'' from c. 1600, and as ''Duell'' from the 1640s.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/etymologisches00klug |title=Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache |language=de |last=Kluge |first=Friedrich |year=1899 |edition=6th |via=Internet Archive |access-date=2021-10-07 |location=Strasbourg |publisher=Trübner}}</ref> A modern remnant of German dueling culture is found in the non-lethal Mensur tradition in academic fencing.

====Greece====
In the [[Ionian Islands]] in the 19th century, there was a practice of formalized fighting between men over points of honor. Knives were the weapons used in such fights. They would begin with an exchange of sexually related insults in a public place such as a tavern, and the men would fight with the intention of slashing the other's face, rather than killing. As soon as blood was drawn onlookers would intervene to separate the men. The winner would often spit on his opponent and dip his [[neckerchief]] in the blood of the loser, or wipe the blood off his knife with it.

The winner would generally make no attempt to avoid arrest and would receive a light penalty, such as a short jail sentence and/or a small fine.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Thomas W. |last=Gallant |url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.2/ah000359.html |title=Honor, Masculinity, and Ritual Knife Fighting in Nineteenth-Century Greece |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=105 |issue=2 |publisher=The History Cooperative |access-date=2021-10-07 |url-status= |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120629064602/http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.2/ah000359.html |archive-date=2012-06-29 |date=2000-09-20|pages=359–382 |doi=10.2307/1571456 |jstor=1571456 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

====Poland====
In Poland, duels have been known since the Middle Ages. The best known Polish code was written as late as 1919 by Władysław Boziewicz. At this time duels were already forbidden in Poland, but the "Polish Honorary Code" was quite widely in use. Punishments for participation in duels were rather mild&nbsp;– up to a year's imprisonment if the outcome of the duel was death or grievous bodily harm.<ref>{{cite web |first=Marek |last=Adamiec |url=http://monika.univ.gda.pl/~literat/honor/ |title=Polski kodeks honorowy |publisher=Monika.univ.gda.pl |access-date=2010-05-30 |archive-date=2010-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100329073845/http://monika.univ.gda.pl/~literat/honor/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

====Russia====
[[File:Duel of Pushkin and d'Anthes (19th century).jpg|thumb|Depiction of the pistol duel of [[Alexander Pushkin]] vs. [[Georges d'Anthès]], January 1837, an 1869 painting by [[Adrian Volkov]]]]

The tradition of dueling and the word ''duel'' itself were brought to Russia in the 17th century by adventurers in Russian service. Dueling quickly became so popular – and the number of casualties among the commanding ranks so high – that, in 1715, Emperor [[Peter I of Russia|Peter I]] was forced to forbid the practice on pain of having both duelists hanged. Despite this official ban, dueling became a significant military tradition in the Russian Empire with a detailed unwritten [[Code duello|dueling code]]&nbsp;– which was eventually written down by V. Durasov and released in print in 1908.<ref>V. Durasov "The Dueling Code" {{ISBN|5-7905-1634-3}}</ref> This code forbade duels between people of different [[Table of Ranks|ranks]]. For instance, an infantry captain could not challenge a major but could easily pick on a Titular Counsellor. On the other hand, a higher ranked person could not stoop to challenge lower ranks; so, it was up to his subordinates or servants to take revenge on their master's behalf.

Dueling was also common among prominent Russian writers, poets, and politicians. The Russian poet [[Alexander Pushkin]] fought 29 duels, challenging many prominent figures<ref>{{cite web |url=http://d-push.net/ |title=Pushkin duels. Full list |publisher=D-push.net |access-date=2012-10-22 |language=ru}}</ref> before being killed in a duel with [[Georges d'Anthès]] in 1837. His successor [[Mikhail Lermontov]] was killed four years later by fellow Army officer [[Nikolai Martynov]]. The dueling tradition died out in the [[Russian Empire]] slowly from the mid-19th century.

===Americas===

====Latin America====
Duels were common in much of [[South America]] during the 20th century,<ref name="DSP" /> although generally illegal. In [[Argentina]], during the 18th and 19th century, it was common for ''[[gaucho]]s'' – cowboys – to resolve their disputes in a fight using working knives called ''[[Facón|facones]]''. After the turn of the 19th century, when repeating handguns became more widely available, use of the facón as a close-combat weapon declined. Among the gauchos, many continued to wear the knife, though mostly as a tool. However, it was occasionally still used to settle arguments "of honor". In these situations two adversaries would attack with slashing attacks to the face, stopping when one could no longer see clearly through the blood.

In Peru there were several high-profile duels by politicians in the early part of the 20th century including one in 1957 involving [[Fernando Belaúnde Terry]], who went on to become president. In 2002 Peruvian independent congressman Eittel Ramos challenged Vice President [[David Waisman]] to a duel with pistols, saying the vice president had insulted him. Waisman declined.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2283040.stm |title='Insulted' politician wants a pistol duel |work=BBC News |date=2002-09-26 |access-date=2010-05-30}}</ref>

[[Uruguay]] decriminalized dueling in 1920,<ref name="DSP" /> and in that year [[José Batlle y Ordóñez]], a former President of Uruguay, killed Washington Beltran, editor of the newspaper ''[[El País (Uruguay)|El País]]'', in a formal duel fought with pistols. In 1990, the ''[[La República (Uruguay)|La República]]'' owner Federico Fasano Mertens editor was challenged to a duel by an assistant police chief.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BkcMEKm_XUYC&q=uruguay+duel&pg=PA16 |title=Where There's Life, There's Lawsuits ... |date=2003-04-25 |access-date=2010-05-30 |isbn=978-1-55022-501-3 |last1=Miller |first1=Jeffrey|publisher=ECW Press }}</ref> Although not forbidden by the government, the duel did not take place. Dueling was once again prohibited in 1992.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.deseret.com/1992/7/4/18992760/uruguay-rescinds-law-allowing-disputes-to-be-settled-by-duel/ | title=Uruguay Rescinds Law Allowing Disputes to be Settled by Duel | date=26 January 2024 }}</ref>

A senator, and future [[President of Chile]], [[Salvador Allende]], was challenged to a duel by his colleague [[Raúl Rettig]] (who would later be his ambassador to Brazil) in 1952. Both men agreed to fire one shot at each other, and both fired into the air.<ref>{{cite news |title=Raúl Rettig (obituary) |first=Nick |last=Caistor |newspaper=The Guardian |date=5 May 2000 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/may/05/guardianobituaries.chile}}</ref> At that time, dueling was already illegal in Chile.

There is a frequently quoted claim that dueling is legal in Paraguay if both parties are blood donors. No evidence exists that this is indeed true, and the notion has been outright denied by members of Paraguayan government.<ref>Marc Mancini, ''Selling Destinations: Geography for the Travel Professional'', p. 236</ref><ref>R David Finzer. ''The Southron's Guide to Living in Uruguay''.</ref>

====United States====
[[File:Hickock Tutt Duel 1867 Harpers Monthly Magazine.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Wild Bill Hickok's [[Hickok–Tutt shootout|duel with Davis Tutt]] became the quintessential quick draw duel in US history.]]
[[File:1728 Massachusetts Bay Dueling Act.jpg|thumb|''An Act for the punishing and preventing of Duelling'' (1728), Massachusetts Bay Colony]]

European styles of dueling established themselves in the colonies of European states in North America. Duels were to challenge someone over a woman or to defend one's honor. In the US, dueling tended to arise over political differences.

As early as 1728, some US states began to restrict or prohibit the practice.  The penalty established upon conviction of killing another person in a duel in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in its 1728 law to punish and prevent dueling stated "In Case any Person shall slay or kill any other in Duel or Fight, as aforesaid and upon Conviction thereof suffer the Pains of Death, as is by Law provided for wilful Murder, the Body of such Person, shall not be allowed Christian Burial, but be buried without a Coffin, with a Stake driven Through the Body, at or near the Place of Execution, as aforesaid."<ref>''Chap. V. An Act for Repealing an Act, Intitled, An Act for the punishing and Preventing of Duelling, and for making other Provision instead thereof.''  ACTS and LAWS Of His Majesty's PROVINCE of the MASSACHUSETTS-BAY in NEW ENGLAND. Boston in NEW ENGLAND: Printed by S. KNEELAND, by Order of His Excellency the GOVERNOR, Council and House of Representavies. MDCCLIX. (1759) pp. 253-254</ref>

Dueling was the subject of an unsuccessful federal amendment to the United States Constitution in 1838.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |title=H.R. 8, Proposing an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Prohibit any Person who was Involved in a Duel from Holding Public Federal Office |last=Morgan |first=William |series=File Unit: Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House during the 25th Congress, 1837 - 1839 |year=1838 |publisher=National Archives of the United States of America |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-date=October 6, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006130706/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25466015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> It was fairly common for politicians at that time in the United States to end disputes through duels, such as the [[Burr–Hamilton duel]] and the [[Charles Dickinson (historical figure)#Death|Jackson–Dickinson duel]]. While dueling had become outdated in the North since the early 19th century, this was not true of other regions of the nation.

Physician [[J. Marion Sims]] described the dueling culture in 1830s South Carolina:<ref>{{cite book |first=J. Marion |last=Sims |title=The Story of My Life |year=1885 |pages=88–99 |publisher=[[D. Appleton & Company]] | url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=kaYNAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP7 |access-date=October 20, 2018}}</ref>

{{blockquote|
In the South, teenage duels were not uncommon, particularly in [[South Carolina]] and [[New Orleans]]&nbsp;... three ironies emerged from the dueling custom. First, though confined to a segment of the upper classes, dueling served essentially the same purpose as the lowest eye-gouging battle among [[Tennessee]] hog drivers. Second, because of this congruence between upper and lower concepts of honor, dueling was not at all undemocratic. It enabled lesser men to enter, however imperfectly, the ranks of leaders, and allowed followers to manipulate leaders to their taste. Third, the promise of esteem and status that beckoned men to the field of honor did not always match the expectation, but often enough dueling served as a form of [[scapegoating]] for unresolved personal problems.<ref>Wyatt-Brown, Bertram (1982). ''Southern honor: ethics and behavior in the old South''. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 167, 350–351.</ref>}}

However, as the 19th century progressed, the American definition of 'dueling' had clearly degenerated from an inherited European social custom using seconds and set rules of conduct. Instead, the term was increasingly used to describe ''any'' violent fight or melee between two or more contestants using mixed weapons – clubs, bottles, [[Bowie knife|Bowie knives]], or firearms of any type or description.<ref name="CAS"/> Newspapers of the day freely used the term ''duel'' to include fights between combatants of any class or social order.

By 1859, 18 states had outlawed dueling outright, and with few exceptions, traditional dueling using seconds and formal rules of conduct had largely died out in the US by the 1870s.<ref>{{cite web |title=Politics And Pistols: Dueling in America|url=https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/politics-and-pistols-dueling-in-america/ |work=[[History Detectives]] | publisher=[[PBS]] | access-date=2012-07-22}}</ref> In [[Kentucky]], the state constitution, enacted in 1891, mandates that anyone sworn into any statewide, county or city office, as well as attorneys who are members of the state bar, must declare under oath that he or she has not participated in, acted as a second or otherwise assisted in a duel.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124616129 |title=Kentucky Duels Over Oath Of Office |work=NPR |date=12 March 2010 |access-date=3 January 2015}}</ref>

Crude so-called 'quick-draw' duels, though in reality very rare, were also fought to uphold personal honor in the western [[American frontier]], partly influenced by the [[Code duello#Western code duello|code duello]] brought by Southern emigrants.<ref>DeArment, Robert K. ''Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 3''. University of Oklahoma Press; First edition (March 15, 2010). p. 82. {{ISBN|978-0806140766}}</ref><ref name="Willy">{{cite web |url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wild-bill-hickok-fights-first-western-showdown |title=Wild Bill Hickok fights first western showdown |publisher=History.com |date=July 21, 2014 |access-date=October 4, 2014}}</ref> The [[Fast draw|quick draw]] duel is a common trope in a [[gunfighter]] story in most [[Western (genre)|Western stories]], although some of the few real life Wild West duels that did occur included the [[Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout]] and [[Luke Short – Jim Courtright duel]]. Gunfighters [[Jim Levy (gunfighter)|Jim Levy]] and [[Daly Gang#Tom Carberry|Tom Carberry]] became infamous for participating in at least two quick draw duels in their lifetimes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-jimlevy/ |title=Jim Levy – The Jewish Gunfighter |website=Legends of America}}</ref><ref>McGrath, Roger D. ''Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier''. University of California Press (March 23, 1987). pp. 99–100. {{ISBN|978-0520060265}}.</ref> Besides quick draw duels, more formal European duels were also fought in the Old West such as those participated by former [[cowboy]]s [[Hugh Anderson (cowboy)|Hugh Anderson]] and [[Burton C. Mossman]].<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yuoCAAAAMBAJ&q=hugh+anderson+cowboy&pg=PA73 |title=The General Massacre |last=Prowse |first=Brad |magazine=American Cowboy |date=1 August 1998 |publisher=Active Interest Media |via=Google Books}}</ref> Settlements such as [[Tombstone, Arizona|Tombstone]] and [[Dodge City, Kansas|Dodge City]] attempted to prevent these so-called duels by prohibiting civilians from carrying firearms by local ordinance, with little success.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert R. |last=Dykstra |title=The Cattle Towns |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t15L9AfXlPcC&pg=PA131 |year=1983 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-6561-5 |pages=116–135}}</ref> Instead, conflicts were increasingly resolved by the formation of organized law enforcement and the institution of judicial process.

====Canada====
In [[Upper Canada]], then a British colony, [[John Wilson (Ontario politician, born 1807)|John Wilson]] killed [[Robert Lyon (duellist)|Robert Lyon]] on June 13, 1833, in [[Perth, Ontario|Perth]]. That incident is believed by some to have been the last fatal duel fought in Canada; it was certainly the last in what is now Ontario. However, several reliable sources state that the last fatal duel in what is now Canada occurred in [[Lower Canada]] (now Quebec) on May 22, 1838. The duelists were British officer Major Henry Warde and lawyer Robert Sweeney; Warde was wounded in that incident and subsequently died.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2014/06/13/the-last-duel-in-upper-canada/ |title=The last duel in Upper Canada |date=June 13, 2014 |publisher=[[Radio Canada International]] | access-date=June 13, 2019 |quote=This was however not the last fatal duel in what is now Canada.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://montrealgazette.com/sponsored/mtl-375th/from-the-archives-lady-rose-blossomed-after-scandal |title=From the archives: Lady Rose blossomed after scandal |date=June 13, 2014 |newspaper=The Gazette |location=Montreal |access-date=June 13, 2019 |quote=They met early the following morning, May 22, at the race track in Verdun. Pistols were raised, but only Sweeney fired. Warde fell, mortally wounded. A farmer witnessing the affair passed a sobbing Sweeney and said, 'You have had a bad beginning to the day.' It was the last fatal duel in Canada.}}</ref>

===Australia===
Australia had a history of dueling, with the last recorded one being in [[Sydney]] between [[Thomas Mitchell (explorer)|Thomas Mitchell]] and [[Stuart Donaldson]] (later [[Premier of New South Wales]]) in 1851. Only Donaldson's hat was damaged.<ref name= abcduel>{{cite news | last=Scopelianos | first=Sarah | title=Duelling wasn't about revenge or killing your enemy. Here's what it was really about | website=ABC News| publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] | date=22 May 2021 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-22/history-of-duelling-and-gentlemen-dying-for-honour/100136264 | access-date=24 May 2021}}</ref>

==Eastern traditions==

===India===
Duels or ''niyuddha'' were held in ancient India (including modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh) for various reasons. Many [[kshatriya]] considered it shameful to die in bed, and in their old age often arranged for a ''yuddha-dhan'', literally meaning "combat charity". According to this practice when a warrior felt he did not have much time to live, he would go along with a few attendants and ask another king for a duel or a small scale battle. In this way he chooses his own time and manner of death and is assured that he will die fighting. Duels to the death were legal in some periods, and punishable by execution in others.<ref name="Auboyer">{{cite book |title=Daily Life in Ancient India |first=Jeanine |last=Auboyer |year=1965 |pages=58 |publisher=Phoenix Press |location=France}}</ref>

Ancient epics and texts like the ''[[Dharmashastra]]'' tell that duels took place under strict rules of conduct, and to violate them was both shameful and sinful. According to these rules, it was forbidden to injure or kill an opponent who has lost their weapon, who surrenders, or who has been knocked unconscious. The ''[[Manusmṛti]]'' tells that if a warrior's topknot comes loose during a duel, the opponent must give him time to bind his hair before continuing. Both duelists are required to wield the same weapon, and specific rules may have existed for each weapon. For example, the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' records that hitting below the waist is forbidden in mace duels.<ref>{{cite book |title=Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present |publisher=Cambridge University |first=Kaushik|last=Roy}}</ref> In one ancient form of dueling, two warriors wielded a knife in the right hand while their left hands were tied together.<ref name="Auboyer" />

The Portuguese traveler [[Duarte Barbosa]] tells that dueling was a common practice among the nobles of the [[Vijayanagara Empire]], and it was the only legal manner in which "murder" could be committed. After fixing a day for the duel and getting permission from the king or minister, the duellists would arrive at the appointed field "with great pleasure". Duelists would wear no armor and were bare from the waist up. From the waist down they wore cotton cloth tightly round with many folds. The weapons used for dueling were swords, shields and daggers which the king would appoint them of equal length. Judges decided what rewards would be given to duelists; the winner may even acquire the loser's estate.<ref>{{cite book |title=Travels of Duerte Barbosa |author=M.L. Dames |year=1918 |location=London}}</ref>

Duels in [[Manipur]] were first recorded in the ''Chainarol-Puya'' which details the ethics of dueling. When a fighter was challenged, the day for the bout would be fixed to allow for time to prepare the weapons. Allowing the opponent the first chance to fire an arrow or hurl a spear was considered particularly courageous. The duel itself was not necessarily to the death, and usually ended once first blood has been drawn. However, the victor was still expected to behead the loser. Either before the duel or before the beheading, the fighters would share the meals and wine prepared by their wives. If it had been so requested beforehand, the loser's body may be cremated. Heads were taken as trophies, as was custom among the headhunters of northeast India. Various taboos existed such as not killing an opponent who runs, begs or cries out of fear, or anyone who pleads for protection.{{citation needed|date=March 2015}}

In medieval [[Kerala]], duels known as [[ankam]] were fought between the [[Chekavar]] or ''Ankachekavar'' warriors trained in [[Kalaripayattu]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xNAI9F8IBOgC&q=Chekavar+Sevakan&pg=PA27 |title=Religion and Social Conflict in South Asia.Page 27 |editor=Bardwell L. Smith |publisher=BRILL publications ,1976 |isbn=978-90-04-04510-1 |access-date=2007-12-28 |year=1976}}</ref> These duels were conducted in order to settle disputes between nobles, chieftains or rulers. Each side used to engage warriors to fight for them in combat at a fixed location and time. Both nobles would be represented by a Chekavar. These duels were usually fought to death, and the ruler whose Chekavar survived was considered as the winner.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=Chekavan+ |title=Communal Road to a Secular Kerala.Page 30 |author=George Mathew |publisher=Concept Pub.Co, 1989 |isbn=978-81-7022-282-8 |access-date=2007-12-28 |year=1989}}</ref>

===Indonesia===
Weapons and rules for dueling in the Indonesian archipelago vary from one culture to another. In [[Madura Island|Madura]], dueling is known as ''carok'' and was typically practiced with the sickle or [[celurit]]. The [[Madurese people]] imbued their sickles with a {{transliteration|id|khodam}}, a type of mythical spirit, by a way of prayer before engaging in a duel.<ref>{{cite book |author=A. Latief Wiyata |title=Carok: Konflik Kekerasan Dan Harga Diri Orang Madura |year=2002 |publisher=PT LKiS Pelangi Aksara |isbn=978-979-949267-8}}</ref>

The traditional form of dueling among the [[Bugis people|Bugis]]-[[Makassar people|Makassar]] community was called ''sitobo lalang lipa'' in which the duellists fight in a [[sarong]]. The challenger stands with a loosened sarong around him and respectfully invites the other man to step into the sarong. The sarong itself is kept taut around both their waists. When both men are inside, an agreement to fight til death and thereafter shall be no hereditary grudge nor will any party be allowed to question the duel, shall be made. If both fighters agree, they then engage each other within the confined space of a single sarong.<ref name="Sitobo Lalang Lipa">{{cite web |url=http://mirror.unpad.ac.id/koran/mediaindonesia/2010-09-18/mediaindonesia_2010-09-18_021.pdf |title=Tomanurung Perang Sejati Orang Bugis |publisher=Media Indonesia |access-date=18 May 2014 |archive-date=2014-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606202038/http://mirror.unpad.ac.id/koran/mediaindonesia/2010-09-18/mediaindonesia_2010-09-18_021.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Unlike the more typical [[kris]] duel of Javanese and Malay culture, the Bugis-Makassar community instead wield [[badik]], the local single-edge knife. Because avoiding injury is near-impossible even for the victor, this type of duel was considered a sign of extraordinary bravery, masculinity and the warrior mentality. Although true ''sitobo lalang lipa'' are no longer practiced, enactments of these duels are still performed at cultural shows today.

===Japan===
[[File:Miyamoto-Musashi-Fights-Sasaki-Kojiro-at-Ganryujima-Ukiyo-e.png|thumb|Depiction of the duel of [[Miyamoto Musashi]] vs. [[Sasaki Kojirō]]]]

In [[Edo period]] Japan, there was a tradition of dueling ({{nihongo||決闘|kettō}}) among the [[samurai]] class.

On April 14, 1612, the famous Japanese swordsman [[Miyamoto Musashi]] dueled his rival [[Sasaki Kojiro]] on the island of Funajima. Miyamoto is said to have fought over 60 duels and was never defeated.

===Philippines===
Dueling was a common practice in the Philippines since ancient times, and continued to be recorded during Spanish and American colonialism.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marcialtirada.net/filipino_weapons |title=Philippine Martial Arts Institute – Traditional Filipino Weapons |publisher=Marcialtirada.net |access-date=2012-10-22}}</ref> In the [[Visayas]], there is a tradition of dueling where the offended party would first ''hagit'' or challenge the offender. The offender would have the choice whether to accept or decline the challenge. In the past, choice of weapons was not limited. But most often, [[Bolo knife|bolos]], rattan canes, and knives were the preferred weapons. Duels were either first-blood, submission, or to the last man standing. Duels to death were known as ''huego-todo'' (without bounds).{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} Some of the older generation of [[Filipino martial art]]ists could still recall details of duels which occurred during their youth.

Duels with the bolo knife were prominent in North and Central Philippines, common in farmlands where the machete-like bolo is commonly used as a domestic tool. A duel reported internationally occurred on 14 April 1920 by Prescott Journal Miner which was known as "The First Bolo Duel in Manila since the American Occupation". It happened when Ángel Umali and Tranquilino Paglinawan met with friends in a vacant lot near the city centre before dusk to settle a feud; Paglinawan lost his left hand. With no law against bolo fights, Umali was charged for a petty crime.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=906&dat=19200416&id=HllIAAAAIBAJ&pg=3515,3703863 |title=Bolos Weapons in Filipino Duel: One Hand Cut Off |access-date=2012-10-22}}</ref>

Bolo fights are still seen today, albeit rarely, and have become part of Filipino rural culture. On 7 January 2012, two middle-aged farmers were wounded after a bolo duel over the harvest of rice in a village in [[Zamboanga City]]. Geronimo Álvarez and Jesús Guerrero were drinking and at the height of their arguing Álvarez allegedly pulled out his bolo and hacked Guerrero. Guerrero also pulled his bolo and repeatedly hacked Álvarez, and their relatives immediately intervened and rushed them to a hospital.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.sunstar.com.ph/zamboanga/local-news/2012/01/07/argument-over-rice-harvest-leads-bolo-duel-199362 |title=Argument over rice harvest leads to bolo duel in Zamboanga City |newspaper=Sun.Star |date=2012-01-07 |access-date=2012-10-22 |archive-date=2016-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701222555/http://www.sunstar.com.ph/zamboanga/local-news/2012/01/07/argument-over-rice-harvest-leads-bolo-duel-199362 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of duels]]
* [[Battle royal]]
* [[Blood sport]] 
* [[Champion warfare]]
* [[Single combat]]
* [[Code duello]], a set of rules for dueling
* [[Julie d'Aubigny]] (1670–1707), a French woman duelist
* [[Duelling pistol]]
* [[Gladiator|Gladiatorial combat]] 
* [[Gunfighter]], a popular stock character commonly placed in a gun duel or showdown
* [[Holmgang]], a Scandinavian form of dueling
* [[Trial by combat]], judicially sanctioned duel
* [[Truel]], a duel with three participants
* [[Mutual combat]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* Baldick, Robert. ''The Duel: A History of Duelling''. London: Chapman & Hall, 1965.
* Banks, Stephen. [https://www.amazon.com/Duels-Duelling-Shire-Library-Stephen/dp/0747811431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341995871&sr=8-1&keywords=duels+and+duelling ''Duels and Duelling'', Oxford: Shire, 2012].
* Banks, Stephen. ''A Polite Exchange of Bullets; The Duel and the English Gentleman, 1750–1850'', (Woodbridge: Boydell 2010)
* Banks, Stephen. "Very little law in the case: Contests of Honour and the Subversion of the English Criminal Courts, 1780-1845" (2008) 19(3) ''King's Law Journal'' 575–594.
* Banks, Stephen. "Dangerous Friends: The Second and the Later English Duel" (2009) 32 (1) ''Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies'' 87–106.
* Banks, Stephen. "Killing with Courtesy: The English Duelist, 1785-1845," (2008) 47 ''Journal of British Studies'' 528–558.
* Bell, Richard, "The Double Guilt of Dueling: The Stain of Suicide in Anti-dueling Rhetoric in the Early Republic," ''Journal of the Early Republic,'' 29 (Fall 2009), 383–410.
* Cramer, Clayton. ''Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform''
* Freeman, Joanne B. ''Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001; paperback ed., 2002)
* Freeman, Joanne B. "Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel." ''The William and Mary Quarterly,'' 3d series, 53 (April 1996): 289–318.
* Frevert, Ute. "Men of Honour: A Social and Cultural History of the Duel." trans. Anthony Williams Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.
* Greenberg, Kenneth S. "The Nose, the Lie, and the Duel in the Antebellum South." American Historical Review 95 (February 1990): 57–73.
* {{cite book |last=Hopton |first=Richard |title=Pistols at Dawn: A History of Duelling |date=1 January 2011 |publisher=Little, Brown Book Group Limited |isbn=978-0-7499-2996-1}}
* Kelly, James. ''That Damn'd Thing Called Honour: Duelling in Ireland 1570–1860'' (1995)
* Kevin McAleer. ''Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany'' (1994)
* {{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Cecilia |year=1995 |title='In Search of the Phantom Misnamed Honour': Duelling in Upper Canada |journal=Canadian Historical Review |volume=76 |issue=4 |pages=529–562 |doi=10.3138/chr-076-04-01 |s2cid=162014999}}
* Rorabaugh, W. J. "The Political Duel in the Early Republic: Burr v. Hamilton." ''Journal of the Early Republic'' 15 (Spring 1995): 1–23.
* Schwartz, Warren F., Keith Baxter and David Ryan. "The Duel: Can these Gentlemen be Acting Efficiently?." The Journal of Legal Studies 13 (June 1984): 321–355.
* Steward, Dick. ''Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri'' (2000),
* Williams, Jack K. ''Dueling in the Old South: Vignettes of Social History'' (1980) (1999),
* Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. ''Honor and Violence in the Old South'' (1986)
* Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. ''Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South'' (1982),
* Holland, Barbara. "Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling" New York, NY. (2003)

===Popular works===
<!-- -in date order makes sense... -->
* [https://www.amazon.com/Duels-Duelling-Shire-Library-Stephen/dp/0747811431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341995871&sr=8-1&keywords=duels+and+duelling ''Duels and Duelling'' (Stephen Banks) 2012].
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20060509130900/http://faculty.columbiabasin.edu/faculty/dabbott/duAmericanCode.htm The Code of Honor; or, Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling]'', [[John Lyde Wilson]] 1838
* ''The Field of Honor'' [[Benjamin C. Truman]]. (1884); reissued as ''Duelling in America'' (1993).
* ''Savannah Duels & Duellists'', Thomas Gamble (1923)
* ''Gentlemen, Swords and Pistols'', Harnett C. Kane (1951)
* ''Pistols at Ten Paces: The Story of the Code of Honor in America'', William Oliver Stevens (1940)
* ''The Duel: A History'', [[Robert Baldick]] (1965, 1996)
* ''Dueling With the Sword and Pistol: 400 Years of One-on-One Combat'', [[Paul Kirchner]] (2004)
* ''Duel'', [[James Landale]] (2005). {{ISBN|1-84195-647-3}}. The story of the last fatal duel in Scotland
* ''Ritualized Violence Russian Style: The Duel in Russian Culture and Literature'', Irina Reyfman (1999).
* ''A Polite Exchange of Bullets; The Duel and the English Gentleman, 1750–1850'', Stephen Banks (2010)

==Further reading==
* [[Marek Żukow-Karczewski]] (1987), ''Pojedynki w dawnej Polsce'' (Duels in the old Poland), [[Przekrój]], 2204, 17.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68nuAcSuWQ 1967 Epee Duel Deffere vs. Ribiere]
* Ahn, Tom, Sandford, Jeremy, and Paul Shea. 2010. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20100531181249/http://gatton.uky.edu/faculty/sandford/dueling.pdf Mend it, Don't End it: Optimal Mortality in Affairs of Honor]" mimeo
* Allen, Douglas, W., and Reed, Clyde, G., 2006, "[https://www.sfu.ca/~allen/duelingaler.pdf The Duel of Honor: Screening for Unobservable Social Capital]," ''American Law and Economics Review'': 1–35.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110509201800/http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/best-served-cold/ Banks, Stephen, Dead before Breakfast: The English Gentleman and Honour Affronted", in S. Bibb and D. Escandell (eds), Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160126002254/http://www.anzlhsejournal.auckland.ac.nz/pdfs_2007/ANZLHS_E-Journal_-_Banks1.PDF Banks, Stephen "Challengers Chastised and Duellists Deterred: Kings Bench and Criminal Informations, 1800-1820" (2007) ANZLH E-Journal, Refereed Paper No (4)]
* Kingston, Christopher G., and Wright, Robert E. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20100602001700/http://www3.amherst.edu/~cgkingston/duels.pdf The Deadliest of Games: The Institution of Dueling]" Dept. of Econ., Amherst College, Stern School of Business, NY Univ.
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6085/pg6085-images.html THE CODE OF HONOR; or Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in DUELLING] by [[John Lyde Wilson]] 


* {{Wikisource-inline|list=
** {{Cite NIE |wstitle=Dueling |year=1905 |short=x |noicon=x}}
** {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Duel|short=x |noicon=x}}
** {{CathEncy|wstitle=Duel|noicon=x}}
** {{Cite Americana |wstitle=Duel and Dueling |year=1920 |short=x |noicon=x}}
** [[s:The Duel (Chekhov-Garnett)|''The Duel'']] by [[Anton Chekhov]]
** "[[s:Sketches by Boz/The great Winglebury duel|The great Winglebury duel]]" in [[s:Sketches by Boz|''Sketches by Boz'']] by [[Charles Dickens]]
** "[[s:Duellists|The Duellists. Fable VI.]]" by [[Christopher Smart]]
}}
{{martial arts}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Dueling]]