of capital punishment, since the effect of this decree was to deprivernanvone but the king of the right to vengeance. Bv Bracton’srntime, one could not—outside the Welsh marches—killrneven an outlav’, if he made no resistance to capture, and thernright to kill had been so thoroughly nationalized that statutesrnhad to be passed gi’ing householders the right to kill a thiefrnwithout having their goods forfeited—the normal pcnaltv forrnmanslaughter.rnhi place of the old Germanic blood feuds and duels, Williamrnimported the trial by combat, a formal judicial process bvrnwhich a nobleman accused of a serious crime (e.g., treason)rncould challenge his accuser to single combat, and while judicialrncombat is a far cry from the right to personal vengeance, itrnhelped to sustain the notion of individual responsibilitv inrnages when the power of the king was steadily encroachingrnupon the right of the freeman.rnt is always in therninterest of arnnation’s rulers—rnwhether ancient Roman or modernrnAmerican—to restrict the ability ofrnmen to defend themselves.rnJudicial combat was eventually so regulated and circumscribedrnthat gentlemen preferred to settle their disagreementsrnw ithout the presence of a king’s representative, but it enduredrnin English law down to the 19th century as a remedv availablernto a man acquitted of murder and retried upon appeal b’ thernvictim’s next-of-kin. Charles I, a kind and compassionaternking, attempted to foil an exercise of judicial combat invokingrnmcrcenarv champions, but he refused to deprive his people ofrna single one of their constitutional liberties, hi reviewing thernsame case, the Long Parliament, which did not share the king’srntender conscience, struck down this ancient right in a moment.rnAmong gentlemen, dueling took the place of trial bv combat,rnwhile simpler men resorted to boxing matches as a nonlethalrn(usually) alternative. Where one man did kill another inrna fair fight, he would be tried for murder, but according to J.M.rnBeattie (Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800), the usualrnverdict was manslaughter, for which the punishment wasrnbranding on the hand. A gentleman of property who killed arnman, unless he was defending his home against a thief or wasrnthe victim of an unprovoked attack, had to prove that he hadrnattempted to a’oid homicide by retreating to the wall. If herncould not, his propertv was subject to confiscation, unless he receivedrna roval pardon—a faidv routine matter in cases of selfdefense.rnThe duty to retreat was part and parcel of the “Norman” effortrnto gain a state monopok on the use of violence. In thernNew World, it was impractical, and as Richard Maxwell Brownrnhas shown in his recent book (see his essav on the subject in thernnext Chronicles), Middle American judges in Ohio and Indianarndeclared that it was unreasonable to expect a true man tornback down in the face of aggression. One benefit of these rulingsrnwas the license it gave to men on the frontier to shoot it outrnin the street without the victor having to face a rope.rn/’// Die Before I Run is the title of C.L. Sonnichsen’s classicrnstudv of Texas feuding, and I would be accounted h}pocritiealrnif I pretended not to admire the spirit, if not always the judgment,rnof the duelists and feudists who spattered the pages ofrnour history with their enemies’ blood and their own. It is thernsame spirit we cannot help admiring in the border ballads andrnthe Icelandic sagas. One of the heroes of “Njal’s saga,” GunnarrnIlamundarson, even from his grave, sings of the pleasuresrnof a life well-spent (in Magnusson and Palsson’s translation),rndescribing himself as a manrn ho so lavishl- gave battlernDistributing wounds gladly . . .rnHe would rather die than yield,rnMuch rather die than yield.rnMost nations, at least in their childhood, have explicitlyrnrecognized a man’s right to defend himself bv killing an attacker.rnAncient Rome, more than any Indo-European nation,rnattempted to restrict this right, but even there the legal adagernprevailed, vim vi repellere licet. This applied onh to the heat ofrnthe moment, however, and not to acts of revenge or punishmentrnthat would constitute “self-help.”rnOne such case of self-help was the murder of a political gangster,rnPubius Clodius Pulcher, by a rival gang-leader, T. AnniusrnMilo. In the course of a street brawl between their followers,rnClodius was wounded and took refuge in a taherna. Wellrnaware that Clodius would plot an immediate revenge, Milo sentrnhis followers into tlie place to drag Clodius out to his death.rnSince Roman law did not condone revenge-killings, his casernstood little chance of victorv, cspeeiallv since he was out of favorrnwith the most powerful man in Rome. Even so, his advocate,rnMarcus Tullius Cicero, in publishing the speech he probablyrncould not deliver, made a brilliant statement of whatrnAmericans would call the unwritten law:rnThere is this law, not written but natural.. . that if ourrnlife be beset bv treachery, exposed to the force andrnweapons of robbers or enemies, there would be excrvrnhonorable justification for gaining safety, for the lawsrnare silent amid the clash of arms nor do they bid us waitrnfor them.rnHow far may a man go in his own defense? By natural instinctrnwe seem to “know” that the laws of life are survivalrnand propagation, that each creature seeks to preserve its ownrnidentity and to transmit its genetic heritage through time. It isrnmere reflex to strike a blow, when one is reeei’ed, and to kill,rnwhen death is threatened.rnPrudence might go further and kill, by anticipation, thosernwho hae made serious threats against life. But what constitutesrna serious threat? Mere fighting does not count; wolves, afterrnall, and baboons may struggle to acquire dominance withinrnthe pack and fight with tooth and claw, but the surrender ofrnone of the combatants is supposed to restore peace. Such naturalrnjustice may underlie the Common Law provision that inrna fray, no matter how it began, both parties hae a “duty to retreat”rnto prcN’ent homicide.rnlO/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn