User talk:Peterstrempel/duelling-draft

Title
Was changed from duelling to duel in 2004. Duel, as the singular, signifies a specific duel. I think an article about duelling as a general topic should be plural to reflect its applicability to multiple instances. Ergo, I think the re-driect should be changed from duelling>duel to duel>duelling.

--Peter S Strempel (talk) 13:21, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Citations needed
This template added to the top of the article because it begins with and contains many unreferenced assertions. Finding the references is a worthy task, but beyond the immediate scope of tidying up the existing notices drawing attention to deficiencies that make the article part of the March 2011 copy editing drive.

--Peter S Strempel (talk) 13:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Original readable word count
5966 words

--Peter S Strempel (talk) 13:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Edits
--Peter S Strempel (talk) 14:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The "Russia" section re-written for grammar and repetition.

--Peter S Strempel (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Opening/introduction rewritten for grammar and brevity.

--Peter S Strempel (talk) 02:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Part of History section re-writtend, referenced.

Medieval European martial arts
John Clements, in a foreword to a translation and re-print of Hans Talhoffer's illustrated 1443 German treatise Fechtbuch (literally 'Fight Book' or 'Fight Manual'), commented that the phrase 'martial arts' has wrongly come to be regarded as exclusive to Asian fighting techniques, implying that medieval European combatants 'crudely bludgeoned' and 'hacked and slashed savagely' at each other. He argued that Talhoffer's book, being only one of hundreds of European manuals on the art of combat, is evidence that 'highly developed and innovative European martial arts based on sophisticated, systematic and effective skills' existed in the Middle Ages. --Peter S Strempel (talk) 12:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Judicial duels
'The judicial duel was an officially sanctioned fight to resolve a legal dispute, and was common in Western Europe from the tenth through the fifteenth century) Talhoffer illustrates noblemen fighting a trial by combat in full armour with the sword and the spear. For commoners, the judicial duel involved unique and occasionally bizarre weapon combinations and ritual costumes: the combatants were stitched into cowled leather suits, greased with pig fat, and armed with a selection of wooden maces, swords, and spiked and hooked shields. These trials were rarely 'first blood' affairs, but duels to the death.

One of the most curious episodes Talhoffer illustrates is a judicial duel between a man and a woman.


 * The man stands in a circular pit up to his waist, armed with a club in his right hand, with which he assays to strike at the woman. He is severely prohibited, upon pain of forfeit, from stepping out of the pit. He may, however, steady himself with a hand on the edge of the pit or on the ground.


 * The woman has a veil in her hand, in which a stone of several pounds is knotted. With them she attempts to strike at the man. As soon as the woman is able, she moves behind the man's back, endeavouring to drag his head to the edge of the pit and to strangle him. The woman strikes a blow with her veil, which the man parries with his club. But the veil wraps itself around the club and the woman seizes upon this advantage to wrench the club from the man's hand, disarming him, ending the combat and levying guilt unto the man.


 * However, if the man parries the blow with his free left arm, he is presented with the opportunity to grab the woman about the waist, and to drag her into the pit, ending the fight un favourably for her.4

In this particular duel, if the man is dragged from the pit or the woman into it, the 'forfeit' is to be taken off and immediately executed. --Peter S Strempel (talk) 14:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)