The Duel

Forever Denied of Ecclesiastical Sepulture:

The Church Against Dueling

The Official Ban

CHAPTER XIX.

Duelling is prohibited under the most severe penalties.

The detestable custom of duelling, introduced by the contrivance of the devil, that by the bloody death of the body, he may accomplish the ruin of the soul, shall be utterly exterminated from the Christian world. Any emperor, kings, dukes, princes, marquises, counts, and temporal lords by whatsoever other name entitled, who shall grant a place within their territories for single combat between Christians, shall be thereupon excommunicated, and shall be understood to be deprived of jurisdiction and dominion over any city, castle, or place, in or at which they have permitted the duel to take place, which they hold of the church; and if those places be held as a fief they shall forthwith escheat to their direct lords.

As to the persons who have fought, and those who are called their seconds (sponsors), they shall incur the penalty of excommunication, and the confiscation of all their property, and of perpetual infamy, and are to be punished as homicides, according to the sacred canons; and if they have perished in the conflict itself, they shall be forever deprived of ecclesiastical sepulture. Those also who have given counsel in the ease of a duel, whether for the question of right, or fact, or have in any other way whatever persuaded any one thereunto, as also the spectators thereof, shall be subjected to the bond of excommunication, and of a perpetual malediction; any privilege soever, or evil custom, though immemorial, notwithstanding.

—from The Canons and Decrees of The Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent. Invoked by Pope Paul III (1468–1549), the Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563 and is to this day one of the Catholic Church’s most influential ecumenical councils. The influence of the council was far reaching and immediate, as it dealt with such large subjects as the recent “Protestant heresies” as well as minutiae like curating the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Banned Books”) which led to the banning and eventual burning of books considered detrimental to the faith. Many civil laws, such as the prohibition of dueling, were also formed from these meetings.

No Exceptions

Wrongfulness of Duelling—After what has been said above there can be no doubt that duelling is contrary to the ordinances against duelling, the Council of Trent plainly indicated that duelling was essentially wrong and since then theologians have almost universally characterized it as a sinful and reprehensible course of action. However there were always a few scholars who held the opinion that cases might arise in which the unlawfulness of duelling could not be proved with certainty by mere reason. But this opinion has not been tenable since Pope Benedict XIV in the Bull “Detestabilem” of the year 1752 condemned the following propositions: (1) “A soldier would be blameless and not liable to punishment for sending or accepting a challenge if he would be considered timid and cowardly, worthy of contempt, and unfit for military duty, were he not to send a challenge or accept such, and who would for this reason lose the position which supported him and his family, or who would be obliged to give up forever the hope of benefitting and well-earned advancement.” (2) “Those persons are excusable who defend their honour or to escape the contempt of men accept or send a challenge when they know positively that the duel will not take place but will be prevented by others.” (3) “A general or officer who accepts a challenge through fear of the loss of his reputation and his position does not come under the ecclesiastical punishment decreed by the Church for duellists.” (4) “It is permissible under the natural conditions of man to accept or send a challenge in order to save one’s fortune, when the loss of it cannot be prevented by any other means.” (5) “This permission claimed for natural conditions can also be applied to a badly guided state in which, especially, justice is openly denied by the remissness of malevolence of the authorities.” Like his predecessors, Leo XIII in his letter “Pastoralis officii,” of 12 September, 1891, to the German and Austro-Hungarian bishops, laid down the following principles: “From two points of view the Divine law fobids a man as a private person to wound or kill another, excepting when he is forced to it by self-defence. Both natural reason and the inspired Holy Scriptures proclaim this Divine law.”

—from Volume V of 1909 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference On The Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of The Catholic Church.

You’ll Poke Your Eye Out

Dueling is a little less cruel, and a little more senseless, than hazing. It adds some fairness in giving the other party an equal chance to gash the hazer; but it inflicts more damage for less cause. A young man at the age when students’ duels are fought knows not the value of a whole face; and the scars and loss of a nose are regretted for a lifetime, though they are the result of an hour’s folly. Young men should not be given a chance to ruin themselves before they get their sense, and the immorality of the practice is largely in the custom which sanctions it. Having come from a more barbarous age, it should not be tolerated now; and he who takes sport out of a duel as a looker-on, is a participant in the wrong.

—from Ethics For Schools: Being a Treatise on The Virtues and Their Reasons by Austin Bierbower (1844–1913). Bierbower was a lawyer and prolific writer whose books attempted to reconcile the differences between politics, evolutionary science and the Christian religion.

The Worst of Acts

Truth is, to fight a duel is a thing that all kingdoms are bound to restrain with the highest severity; it is a consociation of many the worst acts that a person ordinarily can be guilty of; it is want of charity, of justice, of humility, of trust in God’s providence; it is therefore pride, and murder, and injustice, and infinite unreasonableness, and nothing of a Christian, nothing of excuse, nothing of honour is in it, if God and wise men be admitted judges of the lists. And it would be considered, that every one that fights a duel must reckon himself as dead or dying (for however any man flatters himself by saying he will not kill, if he could avoid it; yet rather than be killed he will, and to the danger of being killed his own act exposes him): now, is in it a good posture for a man to die with a sword in his hand, thrust at his brother’s breast, with a purpose, either explicit or implicit, to have killed him? Can a man die twice, that, in case he miscarries and is damned for the first ill dying, he may mend his fault, and die better the next time? Can his vain, imaginary, and fantastic shadow of reputation, make him recompense for the disgrace and confusion of face, and pains and horrors of eternity? Is there no such thing as forgiving injuries, nothing of the discipline of Jesus in our spirits? Are we called by the name of Christ, and have nothing in us but the spirit of Cain, and Nimrod, and Joab? If neither reason nor religion can rule us, neither interest nor safety can determine us, neither life nor eternity can move us, neither God nor wise men be sufficient judges of honour to us; then our damnation is just, but it is heavy; our fall is certain, but it is cheap, base, and inglorious. And let not the vanities, or the gallants of the world, slight this friendly monition, rejecting it with a scorn, because it is talking like a divine: it were no disparagement if they would do so too, and believe accordingly; and they would find a better return of honour in the crowns of eternity by talking like a divine, than by dying like a fool; by living in imitation and obedience to the laws of the holy Jesus, than by perishing or committing murder, or by attempting it, or by venturing it, like a weak, impotent, passionate, and brutish person. Upon this chapter it is sometimes asked, whether a virgin may not kill her ravisher to defend her chastity? Concerning which, as we have no special and distinct warrant, so there is, in reason and analogy of the gospel, much for the negative. For since his act alone cannot make her criminal, and is no more than a wound in my body, or a civil or a natural inconvenience, it is unequal to take a life in exchange for a lesser injury, and it is worse that I take it myself. Some great examples we find in story, and their names are remembered in honour; but we can make no judgments of them, but that their zeal was reprovable for its intemperance, though it had excellency in the matter of the passion.

—from The Whole Works of The Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor, D.D. The Reverend Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) was an English clergyman and important prose stylist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Taylor’s vehemence against duels was in part born of the loss of his eldest son to a duel. Taylor is considered a Saint of the Church of England and was nicknamed the “Shakespeare of Divines” for his poetic and innovative writings on social and liturgical matters.