Note 69 — Chapter VIII · GLORY AND DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE [969-1204 A.D.]

Cruelty similar to that of Basil was perpetrated on a smaller scale by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, though of course it is not necessary to place strict reliance on the numbers reported by the Byzantine historians. Richard, to revenge the loss of a body of men, ordered three hundred French knights to be thrown into the Seine, and put out the eyes of fifteen, who were sent home blind, led by one whose right eye had been spared. Philip Augustus, nothing loath, revenged himself by treating fifteen English knights in the same way.—Putting out men’s eyes was, for several centuries, a common practice all over Europe, and not regarded with much horror. As late as the reign of Henry IV. 1403 A.D., an Act of Parliament was passed, making it felony for Englishmen to cut out one another’s tongues, or put out their neighbours’ eyes.