At what point in England did use of swords to settle impromptu arguments become unusual?
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In The Jury and the English Law of Homicide, 1200-1600 T. A. Green outlines much of the history of modern British legal jurisprudence for murder. In summary:
- From Anglo-Saxon times, the distinction arose between emendable slayings (what we might term as non-premediated slayings) and unemendable slayings.
- The punishment for emendable slayings was monetary compensation to the kin of the victim, and is well documented back to within a century of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England.
- The honour culture (of revenge through feuding for emendable slayings, has been replaced by a dignity culture (of accepting monetary compensation for such) sometime between Alfred's time (late 9th Century) and the 11th Century.
Henry II's legal reforms eliminate the distinction between emendable and unemendable slayings, and the consequent concept of monetary compensation for the former. All felonious homicides became capital offenses punishable by hanging, with only a very weak, threshold, definition of malice necessary.
At no subsequent time was the employment of deadly force, other than in self-defence or certain judicial or quasi-judicial circumstance, legally acceptable behaviour.
So to address the specific question:
By the time of King Alfred it was already legally unacceptable in England to employ deadly force for the resolution of impromptu arguments. Punishment varied by era and circumstance, from hanging to monetary compensation, to forfeiture of property and chattels to the Crown as well as gaol time (in exchange for a Grace Pardon). One was, however, allowed to defend oneself from deadly attack, though at times only if physically constrained so as to make any thought of escape clearly impossible.
During the Plantagenet era there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that, in general, juries crafted statements of facts found specifically to enable the finding of self defence for defendants regarded by the community as being of good character and substantial societal value. This practice disappeared after the Tudor legal reforms redefined trial juries, removing their evidence gathering power and beginning the modern practice of making them impartial arbiters of the facts.
Note also that for peers of the land, trial juries were composed exclusively of other peers of the land.
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Source: stackoverflow.com
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