DUELS ETIQUETTE

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

CODE DUELLO

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 ensure that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the terms of engagement and by providing medical care. Finally, they ensure that the proceedings have a number of witnesses. 

The witnesses could assure grieving members of factions of the fairness of the duel, and could help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved.

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 alternative. 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 honour, 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 considered to be a coward and the appearing party would win by default. The seconds (and sometimes the doctor) would bear witness to the cowardice. The resulting reputation for cowardice would often considerably affect the individual’s standing in society, perhaps even extending to their family also.

The sword, with or without a companion weapon, was the customary duelling weapon until around 1800, by which time the custom of wearing the sword in civilian life had largely died out and the pistol had taken its pride of place in both duelling and self-defense. Nevertheless, sword duels continued until the extinction of duelling itself.

When using swords, 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 honour from the day universally deride the practice as dishonourable 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 or sustained duels "to the death" were rare, many duels nonetheless resulted in the death of one or both combatants because of the wounds sustained and the limited capacities of doctors of the time to treat such wounds effectively; it was not uncommon for wounded participants to succumb to infection later.

When the condition was achieved, the matter was considered settled with the winner proving his point and the loser keeping his reputation for courage

and as always have a chilled day from the viking