Project Proposal

I. Research Question – I am studying the judicial duel in medieval Europe, because I want to find out how they were performed and the reasons why they were conducted, in order to understand what a judicial duel looked like in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

II. Thesis Statement – “What was the significance of the judicial duel as it existed in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, and what did a typical duel look like?”

III. Credible Sources –

Bartlett, Robert. Trial by fire and water: The medieval judicial ordeal. Brattleboro, VT: Echo Point Books & Media, 2014.

Deacon, Jacob Henry. “When It Wasn’t a Game: SINGLE COMBAT DURING THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.” Medieval Warfare 7, no. 3 (2017): 35–39.

Jager, Eric. The last duel: A true story of crime, scandal, and trial by Combat. New York, NY: Crown, 2021.

Janin, Hunt. Medieval justice: Cases and laws in France, England and Germany, 500-1500. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 2009.

Musson, Anthony, and Nigel Ramsay. Courts of chivalry and admiralty in late medieval Europe. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2018.

Sieveking, A. Forbes. “Duelling and Militarism.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (December 1917): 165–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/3678440.

Weinert, Jörn. Die dresdner bilderhandschrift des sachsenspiegels: Studien zur Schreibsprache. Köln ; Weimar ; Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2007. 

https://www.zotero.org/groups/5411010/dh_390_ruemura/library

IV. Research Process – 

While searching for sources to answer my research question, I discovered a lot of information about my topic, particularly regarding the legality of the judicial duel and why it was performed in certain special instances. Judicial duels were typically fought when there was insignificant evidence for a court to reach a particular verdict in the case of a particularly heinous crime. While this form of trial would logically favor the more skilled and better equipped fighter, it was thought that God would intercede to ensure that the honest party prevailed regardless. From these sources, I learned exactly how and why judicial duels were fought, as well as a number of well-documented cases in which duels were actually fought throughout Western Europe. I also learned a number of things about this subject that I was completely unaware of. For example, I was under the impression that the judicial duel was only encoded into law within the Holy Roman Empire. In truth however, forms of judicial duels were also practiced within France and the British Isles around the same time period. I also learned that many of the German fencing masters of the 15th century, such as Johannes Liechtenauer and Hans Talhoffer, wrote about techniques for fighting a judicial duel in their fencing manuals. This is significant because it helps to show how the judicial duel was common enough to where it would be featured in the most prominent fencing manuals of the time. Most interestingly though, I learned about a movie directed by Ridley Scott called The Last Duel, a film about the last judicial duel in France during the Hundred Years’ War. This movie flew completely under the radar for me, as I don’t go to the movies very often these days. I ended up watching it over Spring Break, and absolutely enjoying it. Having studied the Hundred Years’ War, I was excited to see just how many details the film got correct, as well as a depiction of a medieval duel on screen.

With these sources in mind, I’m thinking I’m going to focus my project on both explaining the legal framework and background behind the judicial duel as well as cataloging judicial duels that were fought all throughout the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Providing specific examples of duels will help to provide context as to the “why” and “how” of judicial dueling and what cultural influences the duel had on wider medieval Europe. I’d also like to further explore how this translated into European art and literature of the time period. In terms of finding primary and secondary sources, I found that I needed to search the bibliographies of many of the articles and encyclopedias that appeared in google search results to find more serious academic sources. Many of the articles I ended up using I found by searching JSTOR. My remaining research will likely involve searching for more primary and secondary sources that list specific judicial duels throughout history. In retrospect, I should have further refined my research question and developed an idea of what exactly I wanted my website to look like before I started doing research.