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 which the town is divided, the town hall, county court, free libraries, and school of art, grammar school with university and foundation scholarships, technical school, mechanics’ institute, Guest hospital (founded by Joseph Guest, a citizen, in 1868), and a dispensary. In the market-place stands a large domed fountain, erected by the earl of Dudley (1867). There is a geological society with a museum, for the neighbourhood of Dudley is full of geological interest, the Silurian limestone abounding in fossils. To the north of the town are extensive remains of an ancient castle, surrounded by beautiful grounds. The hill on which it stands is of limestone, which by quarrying has been hollowed out in extensive chambers and galleries. The view from the castle is remarkable. The whole district is seen to be set with chimneys, pit-buildings and factories; and at night the glare of furnaces reveals the tireless activity of the Black Country. Dudley and its environs are connected by a tramway system, and water communication is afforded by the Dudley canal with Birmingham and with the river Severn.

Included in the parliamentary borough, but in Staffordshire, and 2 m. by rail S.W. of Dudley, is Brierley Hill, a market-town on the river Stour and the Stourbridge and Birmingham Canals. Its chief buildings are the modern church of St Michael, standing on a hill, the Roman Catholic church of St Mary, by A. W. Pugin, the town hall and free library. Between this and Dudley lie the great ironworks of Roundoak, and the extensive suburb of Netherton in the enclaved portion of Worcestershire. The industries are similar to those of Dudley. Three miles W. of Dudley is Kingswinford, a mining township, with large brick works, giving name to a parliamentary division of Staffordshire. The parliamentary borough of Dudley returns one member. The town itself is governed by a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area 3546 acres.

In medieval times the importance of Dudley (Dudelei) depended on the castle, which is mentioned in the Domesday Survey. Before the Conquest Earl Eadwine held the manor, which in 1086 belonged to William FitzAnsculf, from whom it passed, probably by marriage, to Fulk Paynel, afterwards to the Somerys, Suttons and Wards, whose descendants (earls of Dudley) now hold it. The first mention of Dudley as a borough occurs in an inquisition taken after the death of Roger de Somery in 1272. This does not give a clear account of the privileges held by the burgesses, but shows that they had probably been freed from some or all of the services required from them as manorial tenants, in return for a fixed rent. In 1865 Dudley was incorporated. Before that time it was governed by a high and low bailiff appointed every year at the court leet of the manor. Roger de Somery evidently held a market by prescription in Dudley before 1261, in which year he came to terms with the dean of Wolverhampton, who had set up a market in Wolverhampton to the disadvantage of Roger’s market at Dudley. According to the terms of the agreement the dean might continue his market on condition that Roger and his tenants should be free from toll there. Two fairs, on the 21st of September and the 21st of April, were granted in 1684 to Edward Lord Ward, lord of the manor. Dudley was represented in the parliament of 1295, but not again until the privilege was revived by the Reform Act of 1832. Mines of sea-coal in Dudley are mentioned as early as the reign of Edward I., and by the beginning of the 17th century mining had become an important industry.

 DUDO, or (fl. c. 1000), Norman historian was dean of St Quentin, where he was born about 965. Sent in 986 by Albert I. count of Vermandois, on an errand to Richard I., duke of Normandy, he succeeded in his mission, and, having made a very favourable impression at the Norman court, spent some years in that country. During a second stay in Normandy Dudo wrote his history of the Normans, a task which Duke Richard I. had urged him to undertake. Very little else is known about his life, except that he died before 1043. Written between 1015 and 1030, his Historia Normannorum, or ''Libri III. de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum'', was dedicated to Adalberon, bishop of Laon. Dudo does not appear to have consulted any existing documents for his history, but to have obtained his information from oral tradition, much of it being supplied by Raoul, count of Ivry, a half-brother of Duke Richard I. Consequently the Historia partakes of the nature of a romance, and on this ground has been regarded as untrustworthy by such competent critics as E. Dummler and G. Waitz. Other authorities, however, e.g. J. Lair and J. Steenstrup, while admitting the existence of a legendary element, regard the book as of considerable value for the history of the Normans. Although Dudo was acquainted with Virgil and other Latin writers, his Latin is affected and obscure. The Historia, which is written alternately in prose and in verse of several metres, is divided into four parts, and deals with the history of the Normans from 852 to the death of Duke Richard I. in 996. It glorifies the Normans, and was largely used by William of Jumièges, Wace, Robert of Torigni, William of Poitiers and Hugh of Fleury in compiling their chronicles, and was first published by A. Duchesne in his Historiae Normannorum scriptores antiqui, at Paris in 1619. Another edition is in the Patrologia Latina, tome cxli. of J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844), but the best is perhaps the one edited by J. Lair (Caen, 1865).

 DUDWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Sulzbach, 4 m. by rail N.E. from Saarbrücken. It has extensive coal mines and ironworks and produces fire-proof bricks. Pop. (1905) 16,320.

 DUEL (Ital. duello, Lat. duellum—old form of bellum—from duo, two), a prearranged encounter between two persons, with deadly weapons, in accordance with conventional rules, with the object of voiding a personal quarrel or of deciding a point of honour. The first recorded instance of the word occurs in Coryate’s Crudities (1611), but Shakespeare has duello in this sense, and uses “duellist” of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. In its earlier meaning of a judicial combat we find the word latinized in the Statute of Wales (Edw. I., Act 12), “Placita de terris in partibus istis non habent terminari per duellum.”

Duels in the modern sense were unknown to the ancient world, and their origin must be sought in the feudal age of Europe. The single combats recorded in Greek and Roman history and legend, of Hector and Achilles, Aeneas and Turnus, the Horatii and Curiatii, were incidents in national wars and have nothing in common with the modern duel. It is, however, noteworthy that in Tacitus (Germania, cap. x.) we find the rudiments of the judicial duel (see, for the wager of battle). Domestic differences, he tells us, were settled by a legalized form of combat between the disputants, and when a war was impending a captive from the hostile tribe was armed and pitted against a national champion, and the issue of the duel was accepted as an omen. The judicial combat was a Teutonic institution, and it was in fact an appeal from human justice to the God of battles, partly a sanction of the current creed that might is right, that the brave not only will win but deserve to win. It was on these grounds that Gundobald justified, against the complaints of a bishop, the famous edict passed at Lyons ( 501) which established the wager of battle as a recognized form of trial. It is God, he argued, who directs the issue of national wars, and in private quarrels we may trust His providence to favour the juster cause. Thus, as Gibbon comments, the absurd and cruel practice of judicial duels, which had been peculiar to some tribes of Germany, was propagated and established in all the monarchies of Europe from Sicily to the Baltic. Yet in its defence it may be urged that it abolished a worse evil, the compurgation by oath which put a premium on perjury, and the ordeal, or judgment of God, when the cause was decided by blind chance, or more often by priestcraft. 