Italy and the companies of adventure in the fourteenth century

William Caferro

The Historian: Vol.58 (1996)

Abstract

A multitude of villains of various nations associated in arms by the greed to appropriate the fruits of labor of innocent and unarmed people, let loose to every cruelty, to extort money, methodically devastating the countryside. …”Thus pope Urban V described the bands of mercenary soldiers that rode throughout Europe in the fourteenth century.’ This essaywill focus on the impact of these mercenaries on Italian cities. It will discuss what recourse was available to towns in guarding against mercenary attacks, and will sketch the far-reaching economic and consequences of what was, along with plague and famine, one of the most severe scourges of the era.

[smartads]

Although mercenaries had plied their trade for centuries, the bands of the fourteenth century were particularly burdensome. Known collectively as “free companies,” they were large, autonomous units tied together in loose confederations under the command of an elected captain. Continuous wars, combined with a lack of economic opportunity, had swelled their numbers, which included professional soldiers, restless knights, and assorted adventurers from all over Europe. Their organization was corporate, with a well-articulated hierarchy of sub-commanders and chancellors, and an internal machinery that oversaw the democratic distribution of loot.

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