Honor by Sword Alone

[AirshipArmada]

In 1643 Henri de la Tour was on the verge of great things. He was on Cardinal Richelieu's short list to become Marshal of Italy. But Henri took a break to attend the opera L'incoronazion di Poppea and unfortunately he ended up exchanging insults with an Italian gentleman also in attendance. Honor was questioned and a duel was arranged. Henri's entourage was scandalized - a person of Henri's position should not allow himself to be drawn into a duel. Worse - the Italian gentleman had a bad reputation and was known to be a poor swordsman. Worse still - the duel was to be fought with pistols and not with proper swords!

At the appointed time both men entered the field of honor. Shots were exchanged. The Italian gentlemen was unharmed. Henri de la Tour took a bullet to the stomach and died four agonizing days later.

Scandal!

Cardinal Richelieu was furious. Duels were already illegal, but now harsher laws were written against any duel involving a firearm. King Louis himself declared that, while guns may be necessary in warfare, there was simply no honor in employing them in personal matters.

The great writer Milton was in Italy at the time and was influenced by the turmoil. He wrote several popular poems concerning honor . . . and the dishonor of the gun. Milton's friend Hugo Grotis was also in Italy at the time and agreed with Milton. Grotis wrote on Natural Law and was influential throughout Europe. In his opinion, a firearm's use in a duel defied the Natural Law of appropriate use of force.

Italians were shamed and embarrassed. The upper class all condemned the use of guns in duels. The Italian gentleman in question was dishonored, disowned by his family, and forced to flee the peninsula. He eventually died in poverty and disgrace.


Throughout Europe and England, from that time forward, only swords would be used in duels.

 

[I Guangxu]

Interesting, is there more?

 

[AirshipArmada]

I was trying to figure out a way for dueling to last much longer than in OTL. Barbara Holland's book on the history of dueling has several passages pointing out the advantages of the sword over the gun for the purpose of dueling and hints that the use of guns in dueling accelerated its decline. For example in OTL the Germans retained the ues of swords much longer than other nations, and dueling itself was a part of German culture long after it faded from other places.

I wanted gun duels to fall out of fashion in as many places as possible, but for sword duels to stay in fashion. Actually I wanted gun duels to be snubbed in the early days and never even become a part of dueling. I've tied in influential people from several nations: the duel involved an Italian and a Frenchman, John Milton was English, Hugo Grotis was Dutch.

In TTL duels are only fought with swords and the dueling tradition may last until the first half of the 20'th century - perhaps until the present day.

 

[Cornelius]

Interesting idea, but I think you should work on the legality of duel itself. I've always thought that was the main reason which caused the decline of duel...

Worse - the Italian gentleman had a bad reputation and was known to be a poor swordsman.

Shameful! When the italian school of fencing is so clearly superior to the french one!

 

[mrmandias]

American dueling, in the south and the west, was always much more violent and less rule-bound than Continental dueling. In ATL, I'm betting that Americans will still use guns for dueling. Since the Continent has made a big thing about not dueling with guns, and since the practice of dueling as a whole seems to survive better in ATL, I expect this to become more a point of American pride than in OTL (and same for the Continentals).

Imagine an America where "abolitionists" are people calling for the abolition of the inhuman and brutal practice of dueling, Eastern moderates are interested in converting to the civilized and gentlemanly sword duels of Europes, and Southern and Western "duel states" take pride in their gun fights and hotly protest outside interference with their "peculiar social institutions."

 

[mrmandias]

I think you need a better religious justification for dueling also. How do you reconcile dueling with the pacific injunctions of the Gospels?

It doesn't have to be a commonly accepted religious justification, it just needs to be out there. It could be a result of your POD--the increased attention to dueling and the greater popularity gets someone to think about dueling who didn't in OTL.

Possibilities:
1.) Its all right as long as you're defending someone else's honor (e.g., your sister, your family, your community)
2.) Its all right as long as you don't kill (dueling scars, anyone?)
3.) Its all right in circumstances analagous to just war (e.g., when challenged, etc.)
4.) Under certain defined circumstances, the duelist is acting to enforce society's norms, and therefore the Gospels, which are purely about personal behavior, don't apply to him.
5.) A lot of what Christ had to say was meant to apply just to his time and place (this would be a radical departure, probably ASB radical).
6.) Turning the other cheek is a higher law standard that no one should be expected to keep. Its saintly, but it would be improper to bring legal or social pressure to bear on someone to do it.

What would be really interesting would be if you had sophisticated and vulgar defenses of dueling with swords only.
"I come not to bring peace but the sword"?
"he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword"?
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword"?
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/rom/13/4#4

Scriptural defenses of dueling are perhaps more likely in England, where radical Protestantism took an Old Testament turn.

 

[AirshipArmada]

Interesting idea, but I think you should work on the legality of duel itself. I've always thought that was the main reason which caused the decline of duel...

Dueling was always illegal, but it was usually considered a personal matter - sort of outside the law. Before the Napoleonic Code, laws in Europe were a mishmash of local custom and judicial decisions, but there was an attempt to use the rediscovered Roman Laws. Interestingly, Germany, who kept dueling the longest also kept a version of the Roman Laws the longest. hmmm.

I think the Natural Law argument may go like this:
Nature is like a book written by the Almighty and left open for Man to read.
By observing natural phenomena, scholars have discovered some laws of nature which guide the physical world.
Similarly, by observing human behavior it is possible to discover Natural Laws which guide Man - these laws are not created by kings or judges, but were created by God himself and may be discovered by men.

Natural Law spent some effort puzzling over war and settled on the concept of a just war. The Natural Laws guiding dueling should parallel the just war.

An attack on a person's honor is an attack on his character, on his position, on his livelihood, and thus on his life itself. One is as justified in using force to defend one's honor as one is justified in using force to defend one's life. Further, if honor is not defended then dishonorable men will achieve positions of influence and they will harm civilization by their dishonest acts. Natural Law requires that honor be defended - for the sake of the individual, for the sake of the group to which he belongs, and for the sake of civilization itself. {I know this sounds over-the-top but I've read opinions on the subject which really do equate dueling with the continuance of civilization}.

In a Just War only sufficient force is used - it is unjust to use overwhelming force or to be unnecessarily brutal. In dueling one must also use only sufficient force and not too much force. As such; guns have no place in duels.

...

There were different levels of insult which required different levels of response. Most insults may be settled by an apology or explanation and would never come to violence. Even if it came to a duel the level of the insult would influence the rules of engagement (which were mutually agreed upon through negotiation and tradition). I'll imagine three broad levels:
1. Slight: Allowed weapon is something like a saber where only a small portion of the blade is sharp and the blade is curved to discourage thrusting. Some armor is allowed (this sounds strange but early duels were often fought in full armor and the latest German student duels also had a type of armor). The duel ends with the slightest show of blood.
2. Medium: Something in the middle.
3. Grave: Armor would not be allowed for most serious duel. The weapons would be long and capable of deadly thrusts. It is unlikely for both participants to escape alive or without serious injury.

American dueling, in the south and the west, was always much more violent and less rule-bound than Continental dueling. In ATL, I'm betting that Americans will still use guns for dueling. Since the Continent has made a big thing about not dueling with guns, and since the practice of dueling as a whole seems to survive better in ATL, I expect this to become more a point of American pride than in OTL (and same for the Continentals).

Pistol duels were more popular in OTL in Russia and America. American duels were more wild, but not as wild as imagined in Europe. I think you overestimate America's rejection of European fashion. In the American South (where dueling was most prominent) land owners drove themselves deep into debt trying to copy expensive English fashions in architecture, dress, and behavior. I think American duels between self proclaimed gentlemen would most often be with swords in TTL.

Your examples of religious justification for duels are better than anything I could come up with.

 

[mrmandias]

Swords were deadlier

Incidentally, are you sure that pistols would be deadlier than swords? In a pistol duel in Europe, usually an apology or a reconciliation would be patched up after each party had fired his first shot, and the rules of dueling were such that they tended to minimize the accuracy of shooting. But in sword dueling, you just keep going and going until exhaustion or until you stop by convention.

If you really want to make sword dueling less deadly, and therefore to keep dueling alive, I think you need to make dueling to first blood only (or to cutting off the ear or whatever) the norm. The one advantage swords have over pistols is that its possible to calibrate the level of force.

I think you underestimate the *reasons* why America dueling was deadlier and more gun-based than European dueling. It wasn't a rejection of 'effete Europeans' (that's a late 20th C. thing). It was a practical response to anarchic frontier conditions, the utility of guns on the frontier, and the violent people who were attracted to the frontiers. I don't think a kinder, gentler dueling practice in Europe is going to change that, at least not in the more rural and more western areas.

 

[mrmandias]

Let me add that this is a fascinating POD. Social practices like this can have lots of knock-on effects and are interesting in their own right, yet they often get ignored or are done with handwaved PODs.

 

[dummnutzer]

Interestingly, Germany, who kept dueling the longest also kept a version of the Roman Laws the longest

Germany adopted Roman Civil Law, not Criminal Law. The BGB still has a Latin accent, but it is under attack from Brussels with its shitty EU-directives.

Duels are mainly a matter of Criminal Law, and the Roman one had little influence (except in some procedural aspects) on the German one. Neither culture excelled in this area IMHO.

There is an old story about conservative members of the Reichstag offering the following deal to some SPD colleagues: You get legalized abortion, if we get legalized dueling.

This might be a more recent POD, ca. 1890 IIRC.

 

[Cornelius]

Dueling was always illegal, but it was usually considered a personal matter - sort of outside the law.

You should separate the judicial duel, that was actually eliminated in Europe from late middle ages, and duel as a matter of honour, which lived in a sort of juridical limbo.

The legality of duel is an issue, because it was the goverments desire to curb personal violence that led to its extintion.
In the middle ages there were rules regarding who could challenge who, which categories were exempted and so on. There was even the possibilityto "hire" a swordman if you could not defend yourself.

Preserving this could keep the tradition of duel alive, but would also mean making huge changes to the law system.

 

[AirshipArmada]

More Timeline:
----------------

In 1640 the philosopher Thomas Hobbes had fled England and made his home in Paris and was still living there when talk of the dueling scandal was on everyone's lips. Hobbes had been giving considerable thought to Natural Law and to honor and often made his opinions known in private. Friends encouraged him to set his thoughts to paper and have them published. He wrote a slim volume and found a publisher, but then he reconsidered and demand that the book not be produced and that any existing copies be destroyed. The publisher agreed but proved to be dishonest; he merely removed the title page from the books so that he could secretly sell them without Hobbes' name appearing within.

The book was distributed without title page and came to be known as "The Fountain of Honor". It was rare: people knew of it but few had read it. They knew it discussed dueling so they believed that Hobbes asserted that dueling was the fountain of honor. Even after copies became more widely available Hobbs was frequently misquoted in this regard.

Hobbes highlighted the current contradictions. A sovereign's power was dependent on the honor of his subject but defense of personal honor was both required and unlawful. Further Hobbs stated that a sovereign did not have a natural right to punish duelists or to pass laws strictly forbidding duels.

Here are some selected excerpts from "The Fountain of Honor" (first published in 1646 but not widely available until the 1660's):

Sovereignty is the fountain of honour. Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public. The riches, power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects. For no king can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either too poor or too contemptible to maintain a war against their enemies.
. . .
At this day, in this part of the world, duels are, and always will be, honourable. Duels which the law expressly condemneth, but the lawmaker by other manifest signs of his will tacitly approveth, are less crimes than the other acts condemned both by the law and lawmaker. For seeing the will of the lawmaker is a law, there appear in this case two contradictory laws. The law condemneth duels; the punishment is made capital: on the contrary part, he that refuseth duel is subject to contempt and scorn, without remedy; and sometimes by the sovereign himself thought unworthy to have any charge or preferment in war: if thereupon he accept duel, considering all men lawfully endeavour to obtain the good opinion of them that have the sovereign power, he ought not in reason to be rigorously punished.
. . .
An offence against a private man cannot be pardoned without the consent of him that is injured; or reasonable satisfaction. For there be some things honourable by nature; as the effects of courage, magnanimity, strength, wisdom, and other abilities of body and mind: others made honourable by the Commonwealth; as badges, titles, offices, or any other singular mark of the sovereigns favour. The former, though they may fail by nature or accident, cannot be taken away by a law.

Some Hobbes-inspired mantras of the time were:
"Dueling is the fountain of honour!"
"All men have the natural right to obtain the good opinion of others."
"The sovereign ought not punish a man for pursuit of good reputation."
"Personal honour cannot be taken away by a law."

When "The Fountain of Honor" first started to gain fame, Hobbes was employed as the private math tutor for Charles, Prince of Wales, who was 17 at the time and also living in exile due to the English Civil War. The young Charles found Hobbes' ideas both exciting and disturbing. Charles himself is credited with the concept of the permissible duel. This idea was that only a certain type of duel would be legal. These Permissible Duels would adhere to their own set of rules and would be far less lethal than impermissible Duels.

Charles became King of England in 1661.

In 1667, in the midst of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England was running short on money, ships, and officers. Charles II lamented the previous loss of officers from dueling, remembered his Permissible Duel idea, and had it worked into law.

 

[AirshipArmada]

Charles' Permissible Duel did not gain much traction in England and may have actually resulted a a few deaths by hanging. In OTL gentelmen tried by law for duels were often found innocent because everyone recognized that dueling was socially required. But in this TTL a few of these men were executed because they had the option of a Permissible Duel but had failed to exercise it.

The reason the Permissible Duel did not find footing is that it was poorly defined and was thought too safe too be a real duel. The laws stayed in place in England and the idea floated around Europe for some time, but did not find acceptance until Fredrick William I of Prussia cast it in a more palatable form.

The King of Prussia was making major reforms and was renown for his frugality. He could not stand that good men were wasted in duel who might later be needed in war. He introduced the Erlaubtes Duell with very detailed rules. When the idea returned to England the name was altered to be the Erhlot Duel.

Some rules of the Erhlot Duel:
- One day must take place between the time of offense and the time of the duel.
{This allowed heads to cool a bit}.
- A Erhlot Duel can not take place if more than a fortnight has passed from the time of learning of the offense.
{This helped prevent duels fought over old grievances}
{The period of time in which a duel could be fought became known simply as "The 13 Days".}
- Only swords could be used in Erhlot Duels. They could only be sharp on one side of the blade. The blade's length could not exceed the distance formed measuring from the tip of the finger of the outstretched arm to the the armpit.
{In later years the sharpened portion of the blade was further reduced, and in some nations the tip was to be blunted somewhat.}
- Armor must be worn by the principles and their seconds which covered the torso, the neck, and the sword arm. More armor could be worn if mutually agreed upon.
{Originally this armor was steel, but in later years it was made of thick leather.}
- Each duelist must be accompanied by three seconds.
{Presumably these men initially tried to dissway the duel from taking place by encouraging reconciliation; failing that they would see that the duel took place according to the rules. In later years only a single second was required for each principle.}
- Death could not be a pre-negotiated condition of the duel.
{It was recognized that duel were dangerous, and deaths could occur, but the duelist could not agree beforehand that it was going to be a duel to the death.}
- For a duel to be permissible under the law, it must take place in an authorized location.
{Cities all soon had their own dueling grounds. In the military, dueling grounds could be authorized by upper officers as needed, but this gave those officers a chance to try and prevent or forbid the duel.}

These rule are not unlike the Dueling Codes of OTL but they mandate armor and forbid guns.

England, most the principalities of Germany, and many other nations adopted some form of the Erhlot Duel.

 

[AirshipArmada]

Listed below are the effects on mortality rates of duelists.

England: Before adopting the new rules the mortality rate of duels was actually pretty low - around 1%. After the new Code was accepted this dropped to about 0.5%. The debate in England became one over who had the right to duel.

Italy: Italy was where the first dueling codes originated and they flatly rejected the new codes. Even without the new codes, however, duels were extraordinarily safe in Italy with a mortality rate of about 0.5%.

France: Duels were considerably more dangerous in France, almost 3% of duels resulted in a fatality. Adoption of the new code was very spotty, but the death rate did drop to below 1 death per 50 duels.

Spain: Did not legally adopt Erhlot Duel, but the rules were often used anyway. Like France, the mortality rate dropped from 3% to 2%.

Russia: Like Italy, Russia rejected the new code. The taboo against using firearms in duels, however, also existed in Russia's borders. {Sorry, I can't find any statistics on the mortality rate of Russian duel, or even much discussion of Russian duels for that matter - anyone have a suggestion on where to look?}

America: As in OTL, American duels fought prior to 1740 did not involve guns. When Clonmel Summer Assizes drew up the "The Code Duello" he included the ideas of the Erhlot Duel. This written code was often ignored, however - the use of armor was very rare, for example. Laws were transplanted from England. Society was tolerant of the use of pistols in duels but the law was clear - if a gun was involved then it was an illegal act. {I also don't have statistics on American rates of dueling mortality}.

Germany: In OTL German duels became more deadly than in any other nation. At it's height the rate topped 20% (and was over 28% in parts of Bavaria). The changes of TTL happen well before this extra-deadly form of dueling evolves, nevertheless I'd expect Germany to be deadly. Let's say the mortality rate drops to about 3% (still high compared to its neighbors). This is a very significant drop. German armies will be better manned and better lead than in OTL - this is would cause the biggest butterflies in the jar.