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Italian MedievalArmies 1300-1500

Introducńon

Mercenaries were a common feature throughout most of Europę in the 14th and 15th centuries, and had been known far earlier. But nowhere did such a sophisticated system ofhiring, payment and organisation of mercenaries develop as it did in Italy.

This was, of course, a result of the peninsula’s special political, economic and social conditions. Here was a region divided into numerous independent or ąuasi-independent States, but which was also highly urbanised and economically developed. Feudalism had never really taken root, except in the south and in some peripheral areas of the far north. Urban militias in which the poor provided the infantry and the rich the cavalry had, throughout the early Middle Ages, generally been led by a town-based aristocracy. These forces had already re-established the towns’ dominance over the countryside, and had preserved Italy from domination by the Holy Roman Emperor and his German armies. The countryside did provide military levies, and was liberally dotted with castles; but in generał these fortihcations w^;ere either dependent upon nearby towns, for whom the surrounding landscape formed a food-producing contado, or were owned by local lords who themselves spent most of their lives in town.

The importance of the mercenary rosę, either as urban militias declined in military effectiveness; or as political aggressiveness led to a need for standing armies; or as political tensions within the towns became painfully reflected in their militias. It was less true that rising incomes encouraged townsmen to hire others to fulfil their military obligations, or that towns fell under the domination of tyrants who did not trust their turbulent subjects. Many of these phenomena were seen elsewhere in Europę, and similarly led to a greater reliance on mercenaries. Yet Italy remained an

extreme case, and the condołtiere—whose name came from the condotta or contract between him-self and his employer—was the result.

Whether commander or humble trooper, the condottiere was a complete professional. His skill has never been doubted, but his loyalty and dedication to a particular cause often has. The Italian condottiere’s poor reputation was, ironically enough, a result of later criticism within Italy itself. Machiavelli was not the only ibth century propagandist who, harshly judging the political scene in his native land, went on to provide an overstated armchair-strategist’s critiąue of the condottiere system. While a mercenary was obviously not looking for a hero’s grave, he was at