Early Modern English Duels: Challenging Norms

Duelling came to England by the 1580s, and grew in popularity over the following decades.  Men of all sorts challenged others to fight, quite often to the death.  At one level, we might safely consider duels to have been transgressions: one ordinance against the practice insisted, for example, that ‘the fighting of duels upon private quarrels is a thing in it self displeasing to God, unbecoming Christians, and contrary to all good order and government’. A duel, then, potentially registered at once as a sin, a crime, and a violation of social norms. It defied religious injunctions to forgive; it denied the authority of the king and the law to adjudicate disputes; it challenged masculine standards of rational self-discipline. Yet, unlike the Scots and others, the early modern English never quite got around to banning duelling as such; they often accorded duellers high praise; and men of all social ranks participated openly and often. Can we, then, treat duelling as transgressive?

Duelling is often considered in the context of declining levels of deadly violence, typically assumed to have displaced noble feuds, channelled elite men’s vengeful urges, and contributed to heightened civility. While this thesis can be challenged, firm evidence either for or against it is lacking. This paper focuses instead on the social and cultural meanings of this violent practice, drawing upon writings about duels in general and the records of a few particularly well documented instances. It examines duelling not just to see how it did or did not violate norms of behaviour, but also to interrogate how we discuss boundaries, trangressions, deviance and norms in early modern society.