Boxing and Duelling

Modes of fighting to settle private quarrels have differed between countries and between social classes or estates. In this essay, Elias makes a detailed comparison of the trajectories of development between duelling and boxing and between France and England from the Middle Ages, and especially from the seventeenth century to the present. He shows how these trends are linked to differences in state-formation processes, and to changing balances of power between the main strata within these state-societies.