Editing Code duello (section)

==From the Renaissance to the 19th century==
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 honor". The challenged person 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 that bystanders could avoid the location and stay out of harm's way. 

At the field of honor, 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 his family also.

The sword, with or without a companion weapon, was the customary dueling 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 dueling and self-defense. Nevertheless, sword duels continued until the extinction of dueling 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 [[handkerchief]]s. 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 dishonorable 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 their point and the loser keeping their reputation for courage.