Name: The merciless mercenaries of the Italian Renaissance - Stephanie Honchell Smith
Uploaded: 2023-07-20T18:37:27.000Z
Duration: 5 min 19 s
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At dawn on July 29th, 1364, John Hawkwood—

an English soldier turned contract mercenary—

led a surprise attack against an army of sleeping Florentine mercenaries.

The enemy commander quickly awoke  and gathered his men

But as soon as the defending army was ready to fight,

Hawkwood's fighters simply turned and walked away.

had simply done just enough fighting to fulfill their contracts.

And for Italy's condottieri, war wasn't about glory or conquest:

For much of the 14th and 15th centuries, the condottieri dominated Italian warfare,

profiting from— and encouraging— the region's intense political rivalries.

The most powerful of these regions were ruled either by wealthy representatives

or merchants who'd grown rich from international trade.

These rulers competed for power and prestige

by working to attract the most talented artists and thinkers to their courts,

leading to a cultural explosion now known as the Italian Renaissance.

But local rivalries also played  out in military conflicts,

fought almost entirely by the condottieri.

Many of these elite mercenaries were veterans of the Hundred Years' War,

When that war reached a temporary truce in 1360,

some soldiers began pillaging France in search of fortune.

And the riches they found  in Catholic churches

drew their raiding parties to the center of the Church's operations: Italy.

But here, savvy ruling merchants saw these bandits' arrival

they could control the violence and gain an experienced army

without the cost of outfitting and training locals.

The mercenaries liked this deal as well, as it offered regular income

and the ability to play these rulers off each other for their own benefit.

Of course, these soldiers had to be kept on a tight leash.

Rulers forced them to sign elaborate contracts, or condotta,

a word that became synonymous with the mercenaries themselves.

Divisions of payment, distribution of plunder, non-compete agreements—

making war merely another dimension of business.

Contracts specified the number of men a commander would provide,

and the resulting armies ranged from a few hundred to several thousand.

Individual soldiers regularly moved between armies

condottieri commanders became free agents with no expectation of ongoing loyalty.

When John Hawkwood launched his surprise attack

Later, he would fight for Florence and many of Pisa's other enemies.

But regardless of who was contracting them,

the condottieri fought primarily for themselves.

Their extensive military experience allowed them to avoid

taking unnecessary risks in the heat of battle.

And— while still deadly— their clashes rarely led to crushing victories

Condottieri commanders wanted battles to be inconclusive—

after all, if they established peace, they'd put themselves out of business.

enemy combatants were typically held hostage and released to fight another day.

But there was nothing merciful about these decisions.

Contracts could just as easily turn them into ruthless killers,

as in 1377, when Hawkwood led the massacre of a famine-stricken town

who'd tried to revolt against the local government.

Over time, foreign condottieri were increasingly replaced by native Italians.

war-for-profit offered an attractive alternative to farming or the church.

And this new generation of condottieri leveraged their military power

in some cases even founding ruling dynasties.

However, despite cornering the market on Italian warfare for nearly two centuries,

the condottieri only truly excelled at engaging in just enough

close-range combat  to fulfill their contracts.

Over time, they became outclassed by the gunpowder weaponry

of France and Spain's large standing armies,

as well as the naval might of the Ottomans.

these state-sponsored militaries forced all of Europe into a new era of warfare,

putting an end to the condottieri's conniving war games.

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The merciless mercenaries of the Italian Renaissance - Stephanie Honchell Smith

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