Everything about Code Duello totally explained
A
code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or
duel.
Codes duello regulate dueling and thus help prevent vendettas between families and other social factions. They assure that non-violent means of reaching agreement have been exhausted and that harm is limited by both limiting the terms of engagement, and providing medical care. Finally, they assure that the proceedings have a number of witnesses. The witnesses assure grieving members of factions of the fairness of the duel, and help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved.
From the Roman Empire to Middle Ages
In
Rome, the most famous duel was fought between three
Horatii brothers and three
Curiatii brothers and respecting precise rules during the 7th century BC.
The
Norse sagas give accounts of the rules of dueling in the
Viking Age holmganga. The
1409 Flos Duellatorum is the earliest example of an actual code duello in Europe.
Fechtbücher of
Hans Talhoffer and other
15th century masters give rules for
judicial duels and "
tournament rules" with varying degrees of detail.
Renaissance
A morally-acceptable duel would start with the challenger issuing a traditional, public, personal grievance, based on an insult, directly to the single person who offended the challenger.
The challenged person had the choice of a public apology or other restitution, or choosing the weapons for the duel. The challenger would then propose a place for the "field of honour". The challenged man had to either accept the site or propose an alternate. The location had to be a place where the opponents could duel without being arrested. It was common for the constables to set aside such places and times and spread the information, so "honest people can avoid unpatrolled places."
At the field of honor, each side would bring a doctor and seconds. The seconds would try to reconcile the parties by acting as go-betweens to attempt to settle the dispute with an apology or restitution. If reconciliation succeeded, all parties considered the dispute to be honorably settled, and went home.
Each side would have at least one second; three was the traditional number.
If one party failed to appear, he was accounted a coward. The appearing party would win by default. The seconds and sometimes the doctor would bear witness of the cowardice.
If reconciliation failed, the seconds would help their friend prepare for the duel, and keep alert for cheating and the authorities. Cheaters would be shot, usually out of hand. Honorable seconds sometimes shot their own friend if they found him cheating.
Swords were the typical weapon of the time, although it wasn't uncommon for guns and more unusual items to be selected.
The two parties would start on opposite sides of a square twenty paces wide. Usually the square was marked at the corners with dropped
handkerchiefs. Leaving the square was accounted cowardice.
The opponents agreed to duel to an agreed condition. While many modern accounts dwell heavily on "first blood" as the condition, manuals of honor from the day universally deride the practice as dishonorable and unmanly. Far more common was a duel until either one party was physically unable to fight or the physician called a halt. While explicit duels to the death were rare, many duels ended in death of one or both combatants because of the wounds sustained.
When the condition was achieved, the matter was considered settled with the winner proving his point and the loser keeping his reputation for courage.
Irish Code Duello
Duelling with firearms grew in popularity in the 18th century, especially with the adoption of the
Irish Code Duello, "adopted at the Clonmel Summer Assizes in 1777 for the government of duellists by the gentlemen of
Tipperary,
Galway,
Mayo,
Sligo and
Roscommon, and prescribed for general adoption throughout Ireland." This proved especially popular in America. The basics were similar to the renaissance French method.
Typical weapons were cased
duelling pistols, tuned for identical appearance, reliability and accuracy. In America, the Irish code eventually supplanted the usual method of brutal hand-to-hand combat and gave the combat a respectable feel. However, since the combatants couldn't control guns as precisely as swords, gun duels had a greater chance of being fatal.
Some duels miscarried because both opponents didn't hear or see the starting signal. Agreeing to a signal was helpful.
A custom had grown, before the Irish code, of
deloping, discharging one's firearm in the air (usually to one side) when two friends had quarrelled and one (or both) wished to end the duel without harming his friend or appearing cowardly. Far too often, this custom resulted in accidents and the Irish Duello forbade it.
Marquess of Queensberry
After just a few years, many persons wrote, rather forcefully, that the Irish Code was far too deadly for the necessary business of discovering social positions among the military gentry. Those objecting to the Code Duello included such luminaries as
Benjamin Franklin,
Queen Victoria (in whose day and realm the duel was already nearly extinct) and more than one
Pope.
English
pugilism had been growing in popularity and technique since 1615, when a London armsmaster began offering public lessons in fisticuffs to the gentry. After many years, and several attempts by other men to write acceptable rules,
John Graham Chambers wrote the
Marquess of Queensberry rules in
1865. They were published in
1867.
He intended them solely for
amateur matches, a thinly veiled reference to bouts of fisticuffs between gentlemen. The authorities began to allow prize matches and amateur boxing under this new rule system when
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry endorsed its use.
The new rules had a three-minute limit on rounds, required gloves, and forbade grappling and wrestling. The rules prevented permanent mutilation: They didn't permit punches to the temples, neck or below the belt. They also forbade grappling, kicking, biting and eye gouging.
The result was a viscerally satisfying fight with far less actual hazard than either a sword or gunfight. In other words, it became a nearly perfect vehicle for addressing matters of pride and insult.
As a practical matter, the legal sport of pugilism replaced duelling for most English gentlemen near this time. Only the involved gentlemen ever needed know the points of honour at stake.
Duelling thereby moved underground and to 'sport' and has stayed there. As late as 1960, small town police forces in the U.S. would often take fighting youths to a public square, hand them boxing gloves, and referee the fight.
Southern U.S. Code of Honor
In 1838,
John Lyde Wilson, former governor of South Carolina, published the
The Code of Honor; or Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Dueling. The author later stated that, at the time of writing, he'd never seen the Irish code.
Generally similar in intent, the Code of Honor additionally provided for secrecy (in view of preventing laws) and enforcement (to propel the disinclined). It counseled self command and deprecated public resentment, and recommended silence with everyone except the second who would henceforth bear the insulted party's honor. A second not properly received could issue his own challenge. It advanced the concept of "posting" a public notice to degrade a scoundrel who refused to fight, or properly apologize, or participate at all. Southern duels persisted through the 1840s. Commonly held on sand bars in rivers where jurisdiction was unclear, they were rarely prosecuted.
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