The common portrayal of dueling in movies is that dueling was a brutal and murderous hand of an authoritarian regime.In the movies unwilling participants are herded into muddy arena and forced to fight someone much better trained than they are, while the audience jeers.
In reality, when the state did require a duel it was frequently an advanced mediation technique. Often matters were settled immediately before or even during the duel. In many regions, fatalities directly resulting from the duel were uncommon, although depending on the crime and region the loser was sometimes hung afterwards.
Duels were often rare, with one a few being conducted a year. Dueling was used to resolve a very short list of crimes. In addition, they were repeatedly outlawed beginning in the middle ages, and continuing throughout the Renaissance into the early modern age.
In addition to various governments forbidding dueling, the church either decryed the practice, or forbid the participation of church members. Informal criticism of dueling can be found as early as the 6th century in Avitus of Vienne's letters. In 1213 with the Fourth Council of the Lateran, the church forbade dueling, judicial tests and ordeals.
Still, dueling continued, despite critics from both church and state. 'Extra-judiciary' duels were fairly common up until this century. In France, despite Louis the XIII outlawing the duel in 1626, petitions to courts to settle matters of wildly varying levels of importance were a common feature through the 17th century into the modern era. Overall, there doesn't seem to be a true pivotal moment to end to dueling, instead it just slowly faded into history.
So that brings the question of when the last sword duel was fought in Europe. The last recorded duel I can find was between two members of the French Parliament. Gaston Defferre insulted Rene Ribere and Ribere later challenged him to a duel with swords. Ribere was wounded twice, and lost. This was in 1967.
'In conclusion, it may be remarked- and the wiser portion of the community will probably do so with satisfaction- that dueling of any kind, which in England is a thing of the past, on the Continent is everywhere on the wane, and that the days seem not so very distant when the "Noble Science of Defense," However assiduously pursued in sport will never need to be put to the test in earnest except on military duty'
- Egerton Castle, 1885
