According to this testimony, the knights dismounted, presumably because they were forced to fight from the lower ground, and they cut off their shoe-tips for better mobility. Even though they would have had a sufficient force of mercenaries to engage the outnumbered Swiss, the nobility wanted to engage the enemy on their own, because they were concerned that the mercenaries would make such short work of the peasants that they themselves would not see any action at all, which would have been to their dishonour: