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A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched .
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly fought with (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using . 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 . On occasion, duels with swords or pistols were fought between women.Hopton, p.182Hopton, pp.173-174
Legislation against dueling dates back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) outlawed duelsIV Lateran c. 18, Peter R. Coss, The Moral World of the Law, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 78 and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against dueling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years' War. 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 South. The History of Dueling in America PBS. Retrieved February 8, 2014 Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change. Research has linked the decline of dueling to increases in state capacity.
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 Lateran Council of 1215, but the judicial duel persisted in the Holy Roman Empire into the 15th century.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. The word duel comes from the Latin duellum, cognate with bellum, meaning 'war'.
The first published 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.
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 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.Lynn, p. 257.
In Ireland, as late as 1777, a code of practice was drawn up for the regulation of duels, at the Summer 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.
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 industrialize and benefit from urban planning and more effective 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.
Influential new intellectual trends at the turn of the 19th century bolstered the anti-dueling campaign; the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham stressed that praiseworthy actions were exclusively restricted to those that maximize human welfare and happiness, and the Evangelicalism 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 abolition of slavery, condemned dueling as ungodly violence and as an egocentric culture of honor.David W. Bebbington, "The Evangelical Conscience," Welsh Journal of Religious History (2007) 2#1, pp 27–44.
By about 1770, the duel underwent a number of important changes in England. Firstly, unlike their counterparts in many continental nations, English duelists enthusiastically adopted the pistol, and sword duels dwindled.[2] Special sets of Duelling pistol 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.
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.Banks, S. "Very little law in the case: Contests of Honour and the Subversion of the English Criminal Courts, 1780-1845" 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, and dismissed from the army for failing to issue a challenge after he was publicly insulted.Hoptin (2011), pp.26-27 This attitude lingered on – Queen Victoria even expressed a hope that Lord Cardigan, prosecuted for wounding another in a duel, "would get off easily". The Anglican Church was generally hostile to dueling, but non-conformist sects in particular began to actively campaign against it.
By 1840, dueling had declined dramatically; when the 7th Earl of Cardigan was acquitted on a legal technicality for homicide in connection with a duel with one of his former officers, 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 describing the verdict as "a defeat of justice." The Times 17 February and 18 February 1841, quoted in Woodham-Smith (1953)
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, 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. In both cases, the winners of the duels, Hawkey and Barthélemy, were tried for murder. But Hawkey was acquitted and Barthélemy was convicted only of manslaughter; he served seven months in prison.
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, 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". 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.
Reports of dueling gained in popularity in the first half of the 19th century especially in the 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.Cassidy, William L., The Complete Book Of Knife Fighting, , (1997), pp. 9–18, 27–36: 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.
Dueling began an irreversible decline in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even in the South, public opinion increasingly came to regard the practice as little more than bloodshed.
Another American politician, Andrew Jackson, later to serve as a General Officer in the U.S. Army and to become the seventh president, fought two duels, though some legends claim he fought many more. On May 30, 1806, he killed prominent duellist 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 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.Edmondson, J. R. (2000), The Alamo Story-From History to Current Conflicts, Plano, Texas: Republic of Texas Press (2000), ISBN 1-55622-678-0
On September 22, 1842, future President Abraham Lincoln, at the time an Illinois state legislator, met to duel with state auditor James Shields, but friends intervened and persuaded them against it. "Abraham Lincoln Prepares to Fight a Saber Duel", originally published by Civil War Times magazine
In 1864, American writer Mark Twain, then a contributor to the 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.[4]
On 30 May 1832, France 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.
In 1843, two Frenchmen are said to have fought a duel by means of throwing billiard balls at each other.
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.Holland, Barbara (2003). Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling. New York.
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.R. E. Oakeshott, European weapons and armour: From the Renaissance to the industrial revolution (1980), p. 255.
In 1839, after the death of a congressman, dueling was outlawed in Washington, D.C. A constitutional amendment was even proposed for the federal constitution to outlaw dueling. Some U.S. states' constitutions, such as West Virginia's, contain explicit prohibitions on dueling to this day. 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 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. "Electoral College Affirms Biden's Victory", The New York Times, December 15, 2020. Other U.S. states, like Mississippi until the late 1970s, formerly had prohibitions on dueling in their state constitutions, but later repealed them, whereas others, such as Iowa, constitutionally prohibited known duelers from holding political office until the early 1990s.
From 1921 until 1992, 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".
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.
In 1949, former Vichy official Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour fought school teacher Roger Nordmann."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." Lubbock Avalanche-Journal i, 13 November 1949, p. 55.
The last known duel in France took place in 1967, when Socialist Deputy and Mayor of Marseille Gaston Defferre insulted 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. In Uruguay, a pistol duel was fought in 1971 between Danilo Sena and Enrique Erro, in which neither of the combatants was injured. "Los Últimos Duelos". LaRed21, 28 November 2011. (
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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. Few if any modern jurisdictions allow armed duels.
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), p. 575), and the English phrase of "throwing down the gauntlet" occurs in the context of Tudor-era tournaments from the 1540s.
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.Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Southern Honor: Ethics & Behavior in the Old South. Oxford University Press, 2007, p.355–356
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.Lynn, p. 255, 257.
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. 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.
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 code duello of 1777. Rule XII stated: "No dumb shooting or firing in the air is admissible in any case ... children's play must be dishonourable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited."
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.
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 paces.Hoptin (2011), p. 81 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.Hoptin (2011), p. 82
A method popular in Continental Europe was known as a barrier duel or a duel à volonté ("at pleasure");Jeff Kinard (2025). 185109475X, ABC-CLIO. 185109475X 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.Hoptin (2011), pp. 85–90
Many historical duels were prevented by the difficulty of arranging the "methodus pugnandi". In the instance of Richard Brocklesby, the number of paces could not be agreed upon; 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. John Wilkes, "who did not stand upon ceremony in these little affairs", when asked by 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."
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 dueling was well entrenched within a militarized peerage – one of the most important duels being that between Lord Kinloss and Edward Sackville (later the 4th Earl of Dorset) in 1613, during which Bruce was killed. 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 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. 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 Duke of Hamilton and Charles 4th Baron Mohun were killed in a 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 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, County Mayo, County Sligo and County Roscommon, and intended for general adoption throughout Ireland. 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:
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 as a public symbol of his regret. Despite numerous challenges, he refused ever to fight another duel.O'Faolain, Sean (1938). King of the Beggars: A life of Daniel O'Connell. Mercier Press. p.198
The last duel in England was fought in 1852 between two French political exiles. 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.
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. A modern remnant of German dueling culture is found in the non-lethal Mensur tradition in academic fencing.
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.
Dueling was also common among prominent Russian writers, poets, and politicians. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin fought 29 duels, challenging many prominent figures 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.
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.
Uruguay decriminalized dueling in 1920, and in that year José Batlle y Ordóñez, a former President of Uruguay, killed Washington Beltran, editor of the newspaper El País, in a formal duel fought with pistols. In 1990, the La República owner Federico Fasano Mertens editor was challenged to a duel by an assistant police chief. Although not forbidden by the government, the duel did not take place. Dueling was once again prohibited in 1992.
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. 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.Marc Mancini, Selling Destinations: Geography for the Travel Professional, p. 236R David Finzer. The Southron's Guide to Living in Uruguay.
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." 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
Dueling was the subject of an unsuccessful federal amendment to the United States Constitution in 1838. 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 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:
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, or firearms of any type or description. 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. 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.
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 brought by Southern emigrants.DeArment, Robert K. Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 3. University of Oklahoma Press; First edition (March 15, 2010). p. 82. The Fast draw duel is a common trope in a gunfighter story in most 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 and Tom Carberry became infamous for participating in at least two quick draw duels in their lifetimes.McGrath, Roger D. Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier. University of California Press (March 23, 1987). pp. 99–100. . Besides quick draw duels, more formal European duels were also fought in the Old West such as those participated by former Hugh Anderson and Burton C. Mossman. Settlements such as Tombstone and Dodge City attempted to prevent these so-called duels by prohibiting civilians from carrying firearms by local ordinance, with little success. Instead, conflicts were increasingly resolved by the formation of organized law enforcement and the institution of judicial process.
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. In one ancient form of dueling, two warriors wielded a knife in the right hand while their left hands were tied together.
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.
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.
In medieval Kerala, duels known as ankam were fought between the Chekavar or Ankachekavar warriors trained in Kalaripayattu. 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.
The traditional form of dueling among the Bugis people-Makassar people 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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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