How did this change across the centuries with improvements to the weapons and how did attitudes shift as a result?
Hiya, I am by no means discouraging anyone from answering, but while I am fairly sure he will appear to enlighten you on duelling anyways, /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov wrote (among others) this answer which covers a lot what you're asking about. Check out the the duelling part of his profile for much more, too!