The Duel in Early Modern England
Civility, Politeness and Honour

A pioneering analysis of duelling, politeness and civility in early modern England.

Markku Peltonen (Author)

9780521025201, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 March 2006

376 pages
22.8 x 15.4 x 2.4 cm, 0.56 kg

'He has, more generally, in this admirable study, provided a convincing account of the development of duelling in England and offered a sophisticated reading of the contemporary debate on civility, politeness and honour.' James Kelly, St Patrick's College Drumcondra, Dublin

Arguments about the place and practice of the duel in early modern England were widespread. The distinguished intellectual historian Markku Peltonen examines this debate, and show how the moral and ideological status of duelling was discussed within a much larger cultural context of courtesy, civility and politeness. The advocates of the duel, following Italian and French examples, contended that it maintained and enhanced politeness; its critics by contrast increasingly severed duelling from civility, and this separation became part of a vigorous attempt in the late seventeenth century and beyond to redefine civility, politeness and indeed the nature and evolution of Englishness. To understand the duel is to understand much more fully some crucial issues in the cultural and ideological history of Stuart England, and Markku Peltonen's study will thus engage the attention of a very wide audience of historians and cultural and literary scholars.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The rise of civil courtesy and the duelling theory in Elizabethan and early Stuart England
2. The Jacobean anti-duelling campaign
3. Duelling, civility and honour in Restoration and Augustan England
4. Anti-duelling campaigns 1660–1720
5. Politeness, duelling and honour in Bernard Mandeville
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]