Like many people, I used to think dueling was absurd. Fighting to the death over an insult? Why not just…not?
Then I read Violence by Randall Collins. And while I still wouldn’t call dueling enlightened, exactly, I realized I’d been viewing it through the wrong lens.
I had tacitly assumed duels were a crude form of conflict resolution. Against the backdrop of modern middle-class norms—calm conversations, apologies, mediation—they seemed not only brutal but pointless.
But that framing rests on two faulty assumptions:
That duels were a substitute for nonviolent alternatives, rather than for more chaotic violence.
That their main purpose was to resolve disputes.
In reality, duels were often safer than other fights, because rituals and rules limited the danger. And what danger remained wasn’t a bug but a feature—without risk, a duel couldn’t serve its real purpose: demonstrating courage and honor.
Once I stopped thinking of duels as ineffective conflict resolution methods, they stopped seeming senseless—rather, they were one component of a larger social system. Collins’ account1 makes clear how dueling developed and why it endured—and that duels are often a lesser evil.
The rise
Dueling, in the sense of two individuals squaring off, emerged in sixteenth-century Italy and France. By the late 1500s it had also spread to England, where it became a fad. Crucially, a duel was distinct from a feud or a street fight: it was a scheduled contest between named antagonists, witnessed and contained.
What began among soldiers migrated to courtiers as Europe’s political geography shifted. Centralized monarchies drew elites from scattered castles into princely courts, where reputation was legible and closely monitored. In that world, dueling worked as a badge of belonging among gentlemen. Winning mattered less than demonstrating bravery: an honorable loss beat a coward’s win, and sometimes even outshone an honorable victory2.
That dueling was a sport for gentlemen is underscored by the choice of weapons. Gentlemen carried rapiers or sabers—thin, needle-pointed blades that couldn’t pierce armor, but which were easy to carry and dangerous against civilians. The sword became part of the uniform of elite men, a public signal of readiness to defend one’s honor. Yet courts generally forbade spur-of-the-moment fighting, which pushed duels offstage and into appointment: you challenged today and settled accounts tomorrow.
From the mid-1700s, pistols began to replace swords; by about 1790 they were standard in England, Ireland, and America, while swords lingered in France, Italy, and Germany. But even as the weapon changed, the ritual purpose didn’t. The bravest gesture was not accuracy but indifference to risk—letting your opponent fire first, then sending your own shot into the air. And because duels had to be arranged rather than improvised, and took place within a social class that valued manners and decorum, a whole etiquette grew around them—calling cards, seconds, and rules—which is where the story turns next.
Etiquette
To duel was to advertise a man’s place among the elite: it required not just nerve, but also mastery of the proper rituals. Much of the choreography echoed the manners of polite society: the exchange of calling cards so that seconds could make arrangements, the carrying of gloves, the exaggerated courtesy of speech (often laced with sarcasm). Even the chosen ground had a grandiose name: “the field of honor.”
The rules of conduct dated back to the rapier era, but they became even more elaborate once pistols took over. Challenges followed a script. Verbal sparring was expected, often punctuated by the ritual insult “You lie!”—a phrase that needn’t imply literal dishonesty. A slap across the face with a pair of gloves was another standard flourish, since gloves were part of a gentleman’s attire.
A duelist also had to know whom he could challenge. A great lord wouldn’t stoop to fight with the gentry, and a general would never duel a junior officer. Most contests took place among peers—especially junior officers, who had the most to prove. When conflict arose between unequals, the lower-ranking man had no claim to ritual honors. At best he might be rebuked; at worst, handed over to servants for a beating.
Dueling also cemented a man’s place in the elite social network via the appointment of seconds, without whom no duel could proceed. These were trusted gentlemen recruited to stand on each side. Their presence signaled that the fight belonged to the upper class and was therefore distinct from a common brawl. Seconds negotiated the terms, settled the choice of weapons, and often brought along doctors to tend to any injuries—but were not to engage in the actual fighting.
Fatality
Duels could end in death, but that wasn’t their only possible outcome. In fact, one of the duel’s functions was to resolve a quarrel without spiraling into endless retaliation.
The statistics tell an interesting story: the more common dueling became, the less lethal it was—a pattern which was echoed both across countries, and over time within them. The main underlying reasons were technological development, and the development of social norms which limited the danger3. For instance—
Weapons
The dueling weapon made a huge difference. Pistols, in particular, made dueling more forgiving, because unlike a blade, the bullet didn’t need to hit its target. With blades, it was also harder to know when to stop4—whereas a pistol shot gave a clear dramatic endpoint.
Improvements in pistol technology might have changed this, had pistols not been kept outdated on purpose. In military combat of the 1700s, rifled barrels had replaced smoothbores, dramatically improving accuracy. But rifling was considered unsporting for dueling pistols. Hair-triggers were also rejected as unfair. A proper dueling pistol had to be reloaded after every shot, giving pauses that heightened suspense and formality. Revolvers could have made duels far deadlier, but in gentlemanly contests only one chamber was loaded per round. Owning a set of antique dueling pistols became a kind of fashionable archaism, like officers who still wore ceremonial swords in an age of machine guns.
Sword duels could also be limited. In Germany, sabers were often blunted, and their curved blades were less likely to cause deep wounds. Rules forbade striking a fallen man or attacking one who had lost his weapon until he recovered it. Duelists stood close together, limiting the force of their thrusts. Men wore heavy gauntlets; scars and serious cuts were prized as marks of honor, and the bulkier the gauntlets, the more visible the wounds that could be inflicted without causing death. In contrast, in France the goal was often simply to draw blood. Fighters exposed bare skin so any nick would end the match, and gloves were avoided so that hands and wrists—common targets—remained vulnerable. Thus the level of armor could be calibrated to obtain the desired level of wounding.
Format
Another safeguard was the individual format itself. Compared with a free-for-all brawl, a duel was tightly scripted. In earlier days, seconds might join the fight, but over the centuries the line between a personal duel and a group vendetta grew sharper. You can even see the shift in Shakespeare: in Romeo and Juliet, first performed in 1597 when dueling was still a novelty in England, a duel collapses into a street fight; by the time Hamlet was staged only a few years later, the rules were clearer, and the climactic duel unfolds within a more formal frame.
Although they no longer joined in the actual fighting, seconds remained crucial. They didn’t just arrange time and place—they also acted as brakes. A seasoned second might negotiate a face-saving apology or declare the whole affair a misunderstanding. For this reason, it was considered unwise to recruit a young hothead.
When fights did go ahead, the seconds could dial the danger up or down. They agreed on the number of shots, the distance, and the format. Four rounds was considered bloodthirsty, though one duel between German officers in 1886 dragged on for a staggering twenty-seven shots. Distances varied too: twenty-five paces was typical in France, fifteen in Germany; ten was harsh, five point-blank. In terms of format, barrier duels were most common; signal duels the least deadly5.
Sometimes the seconds quietly reduced the risk even further. Since they loaded the pistols, they could choose lighter powder charges, smaller bullets, or even trick rounds made of quicksilver that disintegrated in flight. Old-style smoothbore weapons made such tampering easier, and their round balls were less accurate to begin with.
There were procedural escape clauses as well. A challenge was supposed to be delivered within twenty-four hours of the insult, and the fight staged within forty-eight; the obligation vanished after the deadline passed. A duelist who failed to appear within fifteen minutes forfeited. Weather could get in the way: with such short notice, a heavy downpour or fog might obscure aim. And in places where duels were illegal, it was always possible to tip off the police. Even mechanical mishaps provided an exit—if a pistol misfired, it often counted as a round and ended the match, unless both sides had agreed otherwise.
The result was a staged danger: real enough to demand courage, but often less lethal than it looked. The duelists played their part by displaying honor under threat, while the seconds managed the practicalities to keep the bloodshed within limits.
The fall
Dueling was never without its critics. The church condemned it, and governments, intent on monopolizing violence, tried to suppress it. In practice, though, opposition did little during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When aristocrats filled the ranks of government, they condemned dueling in public yet quietly tolerated—or even practiced—it in private.
By the nineteenth century the culture of dueling began to erode. Once pistols replaced swords, the practice spread more widely, and with that expansion it lost its cachet as an aristocratic privilege.
But what truly undermined dueling, unevenly but steadily across countries, was democratization. Before the 1800s, only gentlemen—and military officers, deemed gentlemen by virtue of rank—had the right to fight for honor. But as armies grew and recruited more broadly, dueling ceased to be the exclusive mark of an elite officer corps. Civilian duels followed the same trajectory. By the late nineteenth century, dueling in France and Italy had moved well beyond the nobility: politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens claimed the right to defend their honor with pistols. In Germany, university dueling clubs spread into the middle class. What looked at first like aristocratic values conquering the wider society, in the end diluted the prestige of dueling by making it ordinary.
This process was especially clear in the pre-Civil War American South. Unlike European aristocrats, white Southern men prided themselves on equality—at least among themselves—and insisted that any man could issue a challenge. The wealthiest landowners soon turned away from the practice, dismissing it as the behavior of uncultivated men. By mid-century, genteel manners in the South were redefined not by violence but by the ability to keep the peace.
The last flourishing of the pistol duel in America thus came not in Southern plantations but on the frontier. Between 1865 and 1900, the “wild West” produced a new figure: the professional gunfighter. He held a kind of reputational elite status, romanticized and demonized in equal measure. But he was no gentleman—rather, he was a rough man living by his wits. Gunfights sometimes carried echoes of the old rituals—prearranged meetings, a semblance of formality—but most of the dueling paraphernalia had fallen away. There were no calling cards, no seconds, no polite firing into the air. Success meant striking first, often by ambush. The gunfighter stood halfway between the aristocratic duelist and the modern barroom brawler.
By the twentieth century, pistols had vanished from staged one-on-one combat. Where ritual fights persisted, they were fought with fists or knives. Where guns were used, it was no longer in duels but in straightforward attempts to cause harm.
Conclusion
Duels were a type of staged fair fight among elites. But why did they spring up when they did? What conditions actually produce such fighting cultures?
One setting is loose military coalitions—groups too large to be clans, but too unstable to have a settled chain of command. Historically, this happened when tribal units gave way to raiding bands or temporary inter-tribal alliances. In that environment, the stage was set for the berserker: the lone hero who built a following through sheer ferocity and reckless courage. These men preferred one-on-one combat, since victory (or even fearless defeat) maximized their personal reputations. What mattered wasn’t family honor or clan vengeance—those produced cycles of ambush and reprisal—but individual glory. Each hero attracted his own entourage, and coalitions were little more than gatherings of these entourages under temporary banners.
This kind of culture usually produced a sharp divide between the elite and everyone else. The heroes fought each other for honor, while the masses were excluded. In theory, status came from personal valor; in practice, property and inheritance played a role too. Over time, hereditary elites softened into something less ferocious: men defined as much by their manners as by their fighting prowess.
That’s the transition point where the berserker gives way to the gentleman duelist. Once strong states replaced ad hoc coalitions, dueling could persist so long as aristocrats still stood apart from commoners. Elite clubs and training schools kept the ethos alive, rehearsing etiquette and codifying the rituals. Most fights in such settings weren’t to the death but staged within the school or circle, performed for sport rather than blood. The practice faded once the aristocrat/commoner divide disappeared, though it often spiked during transitional periods6.
All of which raises the question: should we be glad that dueling has disappeared?
The obvious answer is yes. Duels could be lethal, and modern norms of non-violent resolution have undeniable advantages.
Yet the picture is not quite that simple. Ritualized violence had benefits of its own. Compared with middle-class scripts of time-outs, HR mediation, or calm conversation, duels gave men a way to compete for honor and status. Fighting could feel meaningful even to the loser.
This resonates with Richard Reeves’ argument that boys and men today are adrift7. Schools reward long stretches of sitting still, which many children—especially boys—struggle with. Teachers are overwhelmingly female, limiting the supply of adult male role models. Physical fights are punished. Boys lack initiation rituals, and traditionally masculine virtues are often treated with suspicion.
Of course, kids still invent their own fights, despite adult supervision. Collins notes that children account for a disproportionate share of violence, though it’s usually harmless. But at some point we expect children to self-regulate and taper off violent behavior.
I find myself wondering if that expectation is entirely for the best. Many men seem hungry for violent conflict—perhaps not duels to the death, but real fights with real stakes. And the staged one-on-one duel was among the least bad options. Compared with elites beating down inferiors, duels were respectful and contained. Compared with clan feuds or gang wars, they resolved disputes directly without cycles of retribution or collateral harm8.
Maybe, then, dueling deserves to be remembered not only as a relic but as a partial antidote to the malaise Reeves describes: a way of settling conflicts that displayed masculine virtues (and vices), rather than feminine ones.
After all, is there any way to demonstrate courage without risk?
Collin’s Violence is my source for all the facts throughout the post. Any speculation is my own.
Assuming one survived.
This was, however, a slow process, which could take decades or even centuries.
By the 1830s, it was common to stop a sword duel at the first draw of blood, which also solved this problem.
In a barrier duel, the men began thirty to fifty yards apart, each behind a staked boundary zone. At the signal, they walked toward the barrier and fired at will. If one man fired early and missed, he was honor-bound to stand still while his opponent advanced and took careful aim.
In the signal duel, men were pushed closer but given no time to aim: pistols pointed down until the signal, then a count of three to raise and fire. Shooting late was dishonorable. The signal duel also had the duelists standing sideways, which narrowed the target.
More dangerous than both of these was the ‘visé’ duel, which allowed both sides a set amount of time (usually sixty seconds) to aim and fire. In one such duel, carried out between Hungarian parliamentarians in 1893, the opponents stared each other down for thirty seconds, then put their pistols down, embraced, and made up.
Echoes of the same pattern survive today in some closed, stratified communities. Some high schools, for instance, or prisons. Both settings combine rigid pecking orders with constant proximity, producing bullying of the low-status and ritualized contests among those at the top.
I haven’t read this book—my knowledge of it comes from second-hand sources, including the linked Wikipedia page.
In the epilogue to Violence, Collins speculates about ways to limit violence in the contemporary U.S. One of his suggestions is to encourage individual honor-bound fights, most likely in the form of boxing or wrestling matches, instead of gang shoot-outs. (Though how this social change could be brought about, I’m not sure.)