ABSTRACT
A more attractive sight, however, and a more entertaining one results if two squinting or one-eyed knights are willing to joust with lances, for, as these men look distortedly at each other, even though their horses gallop straight, so too, since the lance on each side is aimed awry, it is thought impossible for either to hit its mark. Yet because the very speed of their horses' meeting brings them to close quarters, they demonstrate very easily that it is not hard even for men with a squint to encounter each other with lances, particularly when the contest takes place on open ground, where no foe should be despised even if he is quite blind, as Cicero records very plainly of Appius Claudius Caecus, and others like him, in his Tusculan Disputations, etc.1Yet in the northern kingdoms, although you very seldom run into squinting and one-eyed men, nevertheless, when they do appear and are trained, they engage their enemies with distinction, so much does actual courage strive to remove or alleviate the body's imperfections.2 Now when at the courts of princes retainers with such a disability have turned out more arrogant than others through winning a victory, they will only settle their differences by jousting or tournaments according to military custom. In these the decision is reached by the dreadful death sometimes of one, sometimes of both. Otherwise by their mutual consent the loser, whose life is spared, hands over to the victor his property, arms and armour, horses, and whatever military decorations of gold and silver he displays at the time of the combat.
