Free company
A free company (sometimes called a great company or, in French, grande compagnie) was an army of
The free companies, or companies of adventure, have been cited as a factor as strong as plague or famine in the reduction of Siena from a glorious rival of Florence to a second-rate power during the later 14th century; Siena spent 291,379 florins between 1342 and 1399 buying off the free companies.[3] The White Company of John Hawkwood was active in Italy in the latter half of the 14th century.[4]
Early history
Mercenary groups first appeared in the 12th century, when they participated in the Anarchy (a conflict of succession between King Stephen and Empress Matilda between 1137 and 1153).
In the 1180s, similar groups were integrated into the armies of the King of France under Philip II of France. These troops of seasoned mercenaries were organized and mobile, a valuable advantage during the battles of the time, and were important elements of the armies of Henry II of England and his son, Richard I. King John used them at the beginning of his reign, when he was richer and more powerful than the King of France. However, in 1204, he did not pay the mercenaries. Philip II of France used them to overcome the Plantagenets.
During the
The Catalan Company, formed in Spain in the early 1300s, fought in the Byzantine Empire before ending up in what is now Greece and the Navarrese Company, also formed in Spain, followed them there.
By 1356, free companies, men at arms, and brigands had spread throughout the country from the Seine to the Loire engaging in unlawful activities. They had especially infested the roads from Paris to Orléans, Chartres, Vendôme, and Montargis.
Brigands
Brigands were recruited from all nations, but mainly from troops dismissed from the army of Edward III of England after the peace treaty of Brétigny. On October 24, 1360, after the Treaty of Calais ratified the ceasefire of 8 May, Edward III had ordered the evacuation of English troops from fortresses in many parts of France.
One of the main brigand leaders was a Welshman named Ruffin, who was enriched by robberies and became a knight[citation needed]. These bands of brigands occupied and ransomed towns such as Saint-Arnoult, Gallardon, Bonneval, Cloyes, Étampes, Châtres, Montlhéry, Pithiviers-en-Gatinais, Larchant, Milly-la-Forêt, Château-Landon, and Montargis. Meanwhile, Robert Knolles headed an Anglo-Navarrese band of brigands near the borders of Normandy, where he earned 100,000 écus.
Eventually the King of France sent his constable to escort these bands to Spain in order to rid France of them. There they could assist Henry of Trastamara in his ongoing feud with his half-brother Peter of Castile. However, after placing Henry of Trastamara on the throne of Castile, the companies returned to France. One company plundered Vire in 1368[5] and another, conducted by John Cresswell and Folquin Lallemant, seized Château-Gontier.
The
The White Company (Compagnia Bianca) was also formed after the Treaty of Brétigny and was under the command of John Hawkwood.
The
The Écorcheurs were demobilized mercenaries who desolated France in the 15th century after the Treaty of Arras in 1435.
Italy
The structure of 12th-century Italy, where a patchwork of rich city states were in a state of perpetual dispute with their neighbours, provided an ideal base for the later and larger mercenary groups with their complements of cavalry, infantry and archers and complex internal structure. Predominantly made up of Italian and German troops, they included the Great Company formed by the German knight Werner von Urslingen (1342), the Compagnia di San Giorgio formed by the Italian nobleman Lodrisio Visconti in 1339, the White Company formed by Albert Sterz (1360) and the Compagnia della Stella of Anichino di Bongardo (Hannekin Baumgarten) (1364).
The companies made a good living by extortion (Siena paid the companies 37 times not to attack them) or by contracting to fight on behalf of one city state against another. They came to be known, in particular their leaders, as
By the mid-1400s, the power of the free companies had come to an end with the rise in centralised state power and military force.[6]
List of Free Companies
Company | Founded | Leaders | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Catalan Company | 1302 | Roger de Flor; Bernat de Rocafort | Disbanded, 1390 |
Navarrese Company | c.1360 | Mahiot of Coquerel; Pedro de San Superano | Disbanded, c.1390? |
Great Company | 1342 | Fra' Moriale; Konrad von Landau |
Disbanded, 1363 |
Compagnia di San Giorgio (I) | 1339 | Lodrisio Visconti | Disbanded, 1339 |
Compagnia di San Giorgio (II) | 1365 | Ambrogio Visconti | Disbanded, 1374 |
Compagnia di San Giorgio (III) | 1377 | Alberico da Barbiano | Italians only |
White Company | c.1360 | Albert Sterz; John Hawkwood | Disbanded c.1390 |
Company of the Hat | 1362 | Niccolò da Montefeltro | Disbanded, 1365 |
Compagnia della Stella (I) | 1364 | Anichino di Bongardo; Albert Sterz | Disbanded, 1366 |
Compagnia della Stella (II) | 1379 | Astorre I Manfredi | Disbanded, 1379 |
Company of Bretons | c.1375 | Jean Malastroit[7] | |
Company of the Hook | 1380 | Villanozzo of Brumfort; Alberico da Barbiano | |
Company of the Rose | 1398 | Giovanni da Buscareto; Bartolomeo Gonzaga | Disbanded, 1410 |
See also
- Compagnie d'ordonnance
- Routiers
- Condottieri
- Tard-Venus
- Écorcheurs
- Chivalric orders of knights associated with the Catholic Church, but not necessarily any particular feudal state or kingdom.
- Knights Templar
- Knights Hospitaller
- Teutonic Knights
- Spanish military orders, who were associated with various Christian states of the Reconquista
References
- ^ M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press) 1965.
- ^ The free companies headed by condottieri are discussed as a social rather than biographical phenomenon in Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy 1974.
- ^ William Caferro, Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Johns Hopkins University Press) 1998.
- ISBN 0-8018-8323-7.
- ^ Yves Buffetaut, « La prise de Vire par les grandes compagnies », Itinéraires de Normandie, no 15, septembre 2009, p. 60-64.
- ^ "Italy and the Companies of Adventure - William Caffero" (PDF). Retrieved 28 March 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-5788-1. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
Further reading
- Carr, A. D. (1968/9), Welshmen and the Hundred Years' War, Welsh History Review/Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru, 4, pp. 21–46.
- Contamine, Philippe (1984) War in the Middle Ages, part I, sect. 4 "Free Companies, Gunpowder and Permanent Armies" The relevant section in the definitive book on medieval warfare.
- Mallett, Michael (1974), Mercenaries and their Masters. Warfare in Renaissance Italy
- Severus, Alexander (1941), "The Fetish of Military Rank", Military Affairs, 5, pp. 171–176.
- Showalter, Dennis E. (1993), Caste, Skill, and Training: The Evolution of Cohesion in European Armies from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, Journal of Military History, 57(3), pp. 407–430.
- Rowe, B. J. H. (1932). John Duke of Bedford and the Norman 'Brigands'.The English Historical Review, 47(188), pp. 583–600.