information:extraction, structural:expansion
Holy Roman Empire and Germany

In Early New High German, the duel was known as Kampf, or Kampffechten. The German dueling tradition originates in the Late Middle Ages, within the German school of fencing. In the 15th century, duels were fought between members of the nobility wearing full plate armor. During the late 16th and the 17th century, this tradition was gradually replaced with the modern fencing with the rapier following the Dardi school, while at the same time the practice of dueling spread to the bourgeois classes, especially among students.

The term Kampf is replaced by the modern German Duell during the same period, attested in the Latin form duellum from c. 1600, and as Duell from the 1640s. A modern remnant of German dueling culture is found in the non-lethal Mensur tradition in academic fencing.