Gonzalo de Berceo. S. Dom. 388.
The history of Europe during the dark ages abounds with examples of exoculation, as it was called by those writers who endeavoured, towards the middle of the 17th century, to introduce the style-ornate into our prose after it had been banished from poetry. In the East, the practice is still continued. When Alboquerque took possession of Ormuz, he sent to Portugal fifteen of its former kings, whom he found there, each of whom, in his turn, had been deposed and blinded!
In the semi-barbarous stage of society, any kind of personal blemish seems to have been considered as disqualifying a prince from the succession, like the law of the Nazarenes. Yorwerth, the son of Owen Gwynedh, was set aside in Wales because of his broken nose; Count Oliba, in Barcelona, because he could never speak till he had stamped with his foot three times like a goat. Aquest Oliba frare del Conte en Grifa no era a dret de sos membras. Car lo dit Oliba james no podia parlar, si primer no donas colps ab lo peu en terra quart o sinc vegades, axi comsi fos cabra; e per aquesta raho li fou imposat lo nom, dient li Olibra Cabreta, e per aquest accident lo dit Oliba perde la successio del frare en lo Comtat de Barcelona, e fou donat lo dit Comtat o en Borrell, Comte de Urgell, qui era son cosin germa.—Père Tomich, c. xxviii. ff. 20.
In the treaty between our Henry V. and Charles VI. of France, by which Henry was appointed King of France after Charles’s decease, it was decreed that the French should “swear to become liege men and vassals to our said son King Henry, and obey him as the true King of France, and without any opposition or dispute shall receive him as such, and never pay obedience to any other as king or regent of France, but to our said son King Henry, unless our said son should lose life or limb, or be attacked by a mortal disease, or suffer diminution in person, state, honour[9], or goods.”
Lope de Vega alludes to the blindness of Theodofred in his Jerusalem Conquistada:—
Criavase con otras bellas damas
Florinda bella,——
Esta miro Rodrigo desdichado,
Ay si como su padre fuera ciego!
Saco sus ojos Witisa ayrado,