Charny's answer

People who know my scholarly work on the writings of Geoffroi de Charny, a fourteenth century knight, may associate me with "Charny's questions," a set of hypothetical problems related to "the law of arms" meant to be analyzed by knights, squires and "men at arms" so that they would be better prepared to relate with other aristocratic warriors.

Charny's questions are unanswered.

But if you want his answer to the problems of the life of arms, consider this from Charny's Book of Chivalry:

[T]hose who have the will to achieve great worth [who] because of their great desire to reach and attain that high honor … do not care what suffering they have to endure, but turn everything into great enjoyment. Indeed, it is a fine thing to perform great deeds, for those who rise to great achievement cannot rightly grow tired or sated with it; so the more they achieve, the less they feel they have achieved; this stems from the delight they take in striving constantly to reach greater heights. And great good comes from performing these deeds, for the more one does, the less one is proud of oneself, and it always seems that there is so much left to do.

Charny's answer?

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