Caste, Skill, and Training: The Evolution of Cohesion in European Armies from the Middle Ages to the Sixteenth

Century Author(s): Dennis E. Showalter Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 407-430 Published by: Society for Military History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2943986 . Accessed: 09/06/2011 04:41
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Caste, Skill,and Training: The EvolutionofCohesion in the European Armiesfrom MiddleAges to the Sixteenth Century

Dennis E. Showalter

sophistication,and nowhere was this more apparent than the craft of war. The image made familiarby Ferdinand Lot and Sir Charles Oman, ofmedievalwarfare featuring as limiteddiscipline,simple tactics, no strategyat all, has given way to a growingappreciation of the and complexityofmilitary operations between the eighthand the sixteenth centuries.1 More and more medieval leaders are emerging fromthe shadows of romance as solid, competent captains. Even Richard the Lion-Hearted is now presented as a strategistcomparable to Bernard the Law Montgomery-a juxtaposition not necessarily favoring latter!2 The parallel reflectsthe high cost of medieval armies relative to a givenpoliticalsystem'smobilizable resources.Like the twentieth-century British marshal, no medieval commander could affordto lose men heedlessly.Large-scale battles were exceptional because oftheirrisk-a riskenhanced by the high development of the science of fortification. An enemy defeatedin thefieldwas likely escape decisiveconsequences to

THE

Middle Ages were characterizedby growinginstitutional

1. The best recentgeneral treatment PhilippeContamine,War in theMiddle is Ages,tr.MichaelJones (Oxford:Blackwell, 1984). 2. JohnGillingham, "RichardI and the Science of Warin the MiddleAges,"in War and Governmentin the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour ofJ. 0. Prestwick, ed. J. Gillinghamand J. C. Holt (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1984), 78-91; and Richard theLionheart (London: Weidenfeld, 1978), passim.
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by withdrawingbehind defenses whose reduction involved massive expenses of time and effort. Medieval warfaretherefore tended towardsa process of small-scale maneuvers, raids, and skirmishesbased on regional networksof fortifications.This attritionalmodel in turnhighlighted familiarlimitathe tions of feudallevies: shortservice and organizational entropy.Warfare had become too complex, too sophisticated, and too low-keyto be sustainedeffectively temporarily by assembled bands ofagonisticheroes. Highlevelsofpatience, cunning,and disciplinewere requiredto achieve even limited ends-not least to preventoperations fromdegenerating into mutual self-destruction throughmutual plundering.3 Tactical considerations reinforcedstrategicfactorsin making high demands on the solidarity and flexibilityof field forces. Medieval commanders were by no means indifferentto the problems and opportunitiesposed by flanks.They were correspondinglyconcerned withbeing able to move formedbodies of men fromplace to place in a hurry. risks disorganizedpursuit The of werealso frequently demonstrated alike by Magyarand Muslim horsemen, Welsh and Prussian peasants.4 Cohesion, in short,became an increasinglyimportantelement of medieval armed forces. Yet the techniques forachieving thiscohesion have been relativelyignored by militaryhistorians more concerned withoperational results.This essay proposes to examine the structure ofmedievalEurope's military systems-and the factors thatheld medieval armed forcestogetherin battle and on campaign. I Medieval Europe was a society organized forwar,whose focal point was the armored horseman, the knight.Expensive technical improveof ments in armor and in horse breeding, combined withthe difficulty mobilizing capital resources in a subsistence economy, set knights To increasingly apart from otherfighters. the price ofknightly equipment were added the costs, material and psychological, of knightly professionalism. The horsemanship necessary to manage a stallion in battle; whethermounted or the abilityto use sword,mace, or lance effectively, on foot-these skills reflectedearly trainingand a lifetime'spractice.
3. Theoryand practice alike counseled caution in the face of an enemy. See particularly WalterGoffart, "The Date and Purpose of Vetegius'De Re Militari," Traditio 33 (1977): 65-100; and JohnBeeler'stwovolumes,Warfarein England, 1066-1189 (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press,1966); and Warfare Feudal Europe in (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press,1971). 4. J. F. Verbruggen, Artof Warfarein Western The Europe During theMiddle S. Ages,tr.S. Willard, C. M. Southern(Amsterdam: NorthHolland, 1977), 82 ff.
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Caste, Skill, and Training They were specialized enough to be essentially incompatible withthe mundane concerns of earning a living.5 Caste position reflectedpride of craft.Ifheavy cavalryincreasingly dominated the high-medieval military scene, thisreflectedits flexibility and adaptabilityas well as its social pretensions. The knightwas not a berserker.Ideally, his belligerence was focused and controlled. He was master of himselfas well as of his horse and arms. As early as the Carolingian era, armored horsemen could execute complex tactical maneuvers.Theycould fight effectively footas well as on horseback.6 on Their successors demonstrated, from the marshes of Ireland to the forestsof Prussia to the deserts of Outre-Mer,a significantability to adjust theirtactics to their opposition. This developing sophistication challenged traditionalwaysoforganizing WesternEurope's nobilityfor war. The patterns of militarygrouping among the German peoples, whose political organizations grewout of the Roman Empire, had been anthropological, based on tribal and clan affinities.Chieftains also increasinglytried to maintain bands of pledged warriorsas a personal following, maintainingthem fromtheirown resources and the spoils of war. These Gefolgschaftenincreasingly formed the core of auxiliary and federateunits in the late Roman army,blending personal oaths to theirleader withinstitutional allegiance to the Empire.7 The concept of fealtyat two levels endured long after Western Europe's disappearance. But while bonds of blood and oath could generate social cohesion, linkages based on personal loyaltydid not to always guarantee enough solidarityand self-sacrifice withstandthe
5. R.Allen Brown, "The StatusoftheNormanKnight," War and Government in in theMiddleAges,18-32, is at once convincing itsarguments comprehensive in and in its surveyof French and Britishliterature. Borst,ed., Das Rittertumim A. Mittelalter (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), has more of a central European focus. Bernard S. Bachrach, "Charles Martel,Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup,and Feudalism," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History7 (1970): 49-75, critiquestheassumptionofa directlinkbetweenmilitary technologyand social structure.Cf. also G. Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal SocietyImagined, tr.A. Goldhammer (Chicago: University Chicago Press,1981), of 293 ff.; and Claude Gaier, "La cavalerie lourde en Europe occidentale du XIIe au XIVesiecle: un problemede mentalite," Revue Internationaled'HistoireMilitaire 34 (1971): 385-96. 6. Charles R. Bowlus,"Two Carolingian Campaigns Reconsidered,"Military Affairs48 (1984): 121-25; and Bernard S. Bachrach, "Charlemagne's Cavalry: Myth and Reality," ibid.,47 (1983): 181-87. 7. WalterGoffart, Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584: The Techniques of Accommodation (Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press,1980), includes an excellentgeneral survey the literature thissubject. Cf.also E. A. Thompson, of on "EarlyGermanicWarfare," Past and Present 14 (1958): 2-29; and C. H. Hermann, Deutsche Militargeschichte.Eine Einfiihrung, rev. (Frankfurt: 2d. Bernardund Graefe,1968), 15 ff.
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shock of a major battle, to say nothing of the stress of long-term campaigning.8 The situation was furthercomplicated because an at increasingnumber of men at arms did not belong to the feudality all. In Spain and Italy, "commoner knights" were a major element of of by military strength the eleventhcentury.In Germanythe growth the put a ministeriales, class ofservileadministrators, even unfreemen into armor and on horseback. And everywherethe fullyarmed horseman was increasingly supplemented by a class of mounted "sergeants." These men, of less exalted birthand less complete equipment than the chivalry proper,oftendepended fortheirhorsesand armoron a wealthier patron or sponsor, whom theylogically followedin the field.9 The noble man-at-arms, far from being an isolated individual, unit and increasinglybecame the focal point of a small administrative incorporatingthe knight combat team, the lance. Beginninginformally, and a few personal attendants, the lance evolved in France by the a centuryinto a man-at-arms, squire, a page, two middle ofthe fifteenth or three mounted archers, and a servant. A Burgundian lance could include as many as nine men, each witha specificoperational function. On campaign, lances were grouped into conroys,usually oftwenty-five to eightymen-more or less permanent bodies. The size of these varied considerably. They mightinclude only the retainersof a single lord. They mightconsist of several smaller groups, or even of isolated individuals assembled ad hoc.10 Conroys most frequently incorporated men from the same neighborhood, who had exercised togetherand tested each others' mettle foryears. Such units capable of followingtheirleader's standard in coherent were perfectly whichwas as maneuvers-even in a maneuver as risky pretended flight, an element of Norman warfareas early as the eleventhcentury.-" Conroys might also be formed into larger units several hundred strong, as in the French army that marched against the Flemish in 1328. At thislevel,once the limitsofpersonal connections werereached,
72. Art 8. Verbruggen, of Warfare, im Studienzum Ritterbegriff 12. und 13. Jahrhundert(Heidelberg: 9. J.Bumke, survey. also BenjaminArnold,German Cf. 1964), is a literary-intellectual Winter, Press, 1985); E. Lourie, Knighthood,1050-1300 (New York: OxfordUniversity "Medieval Spain: A Society Organized for War," Past and Present 35(1966): 54-76; and J. F. Powers, "The Origins and Development of Municipal Military Servicein the Leonese and CastilianReconquest,800-1250," Traditio 26 (1970): 91-111. of an offers excellentoverview 10. Contamine, War in theMiddle Ages,228 ff., and tactics. medievalorganization subject, cf. Beeler, Warfarein Feudal Europe, 84, 11. On this controversial S. Bernard Bachrach, Art 89-90; and as a case study, 94-95; Verbruggen, ofWarfare, Medieval Studies 33 (1971): 264-67. at "The FeignedRetreat Hastings,"
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Caste, Skill, and Training a logical and familiarnext step involved groupingsbased on language orders,withtheirdirect, and place of origin.Even the religiousmilitary principled commitment to the service of a universal God, were unable to submerge regional identities among their members. The resulting of riskof intrigueand rivalry, well illustratedin the history particularly and the Teutonic Knights,was considered balanced by administrative operational considerations.12 mustnot be overstated.Medieval The importanceofthese structures armies lacked anythinglike a comprehensive command structureable to evoke general, conditioned responses. Coherence in even the lance, to say nothing of larger formations,depended on mutual loyalties far more than on discipline, drill,or fearofpunishment.The heavycavalry of feudal Europe was neverthelessreasonably successful in developing functional patterns of internal cohesion that combined personal and institutional elements. influenced by a growingawareness This process was significantly thatarmored horsemen could be vulnerableeven on theirhome ground: the well-watered,relativelyopen terrain of northwesternEurope. As early as the twelfth century,the cities of Flanders and northernItaly were beginning to produce foot soldiers able to defeat the best of the of mounted chivalry.In 1176, it was the infantry the Lombard League then counterthatbroke the charge of FrederickBarbarossa's knights, attacked to drive the Germans fromthe fieldof Legnano. Throughthe thirteenthcentury,the footmen of the Low Countries enabled their a cities to maintain and enhance theirpower vis-a-vis local nobility, the army at process culminatingwiththe destructionof a French knightly Courtraiin 1303.13 At theirbest, however,the civic militiasof urban Europe were parttime fighting men. Their tactical skills were correspondinglylimited. Their operational effectiveness depended on levels of involvementin war that were contrary to the medieval city's purpose. Unlike the
12. MichaelBurleigh, Prussian Societyand theGerman Order:AnAristocratic Corporation in Crisis c. 1410-1466 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 111 ff.; and E. Mascheke,"Die innerenWandlungendes Deutschen RitterHans ordens,"in Geschichteund Gegenwartsbewusstsein. Festschriftffur Rothfels zum 70. Geburtstag,ed. W. Besson, F. Frh. Hiller von Gartringen(G6ttingen: Vandenhoek,1963), 249-77. survey 125 passim,is a brief comprehensive of 13. Verbruggen, of Warfare, Art thecommunalinfantries. DetailedstudiesincludeClaude Gaier,Artet organisation militairesdans la principaute de LiQgeet dans le comte de Looz au MoyenAge of "The Army theFlorentine (Brussels: Palais des Academies,1968); and 0. P. Waley, Century," FlorentineStudies,ed. V. in Republicfrom Twelfth theFourteenth the to University Press, 1968), 70-108. Waley's Rubenstein(Evanston Ill.: Northwestern muchgeneral The!talian CityRepublics(London: Weidenfeld, 1969), incorporates on systems. information respective military
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Roman Republic or the city-states classical Greece, the medieval city of was a commercial, not a political, institution.Civic pride and civic identityultimatelydepended on the community'ssuccessful fostering ofprosperity. And medieval warscould be ruinouslyexpensive even for the victors. The Lombard League virtually bankrupted itselfchecking the pretensions of Barbarossa. The FourthCrusade cost the Republic of Venice farmore than any immediate gains in loot or improved trade networks. A relatedinternalfactor working againsttheevolutionofthemedieval townsman into a hoplite was the growingspecialization of labor within the commune. Ifeach taskhad itsspecificskill,taughtand supportedby specific guilds and craft brotherhoods, was it not correspondingly reasonable to divide up the labor of militaryservice, and to provide specialists in this craftas in all the others? From a few experienced captains and armorersheld on retainer,the permanent armed forcesof Europe's cities and city-states tended to increase duringthe fourteenth century to fairlysubstantial sizes-and to include correspondingly fewercitizens in theirranks.14 II Despite theirlimitations, communal infantries the achieved enough successes to highlightan increasingly obvious fact. The armored horseman was a generalized weapons system, not a comprehensive one. The knights general,however,were soldiersenough to recognize in their own limitations. This self-knowledge was enhanced as medieval warfare spread to its frontiers. Spain or Palestine, Prussiaor the Scottish Marches-each region outside the feudal heartland of northwestern Europe posed its own set ofoperational challenges. Each also produced fightingmen familiar with local conditions. As guides, scouts, and auxiliaries, they were indispensable. For three centuries the Teutonic Knights depended heavily for success, and often for survival,on the native Prussians and Lithuanians who knew their swamps and forests betterthan any alien fromSwabia or Brandenburg. 15Turcopoles, native troops and Europeans using native equipment and local tactics, were
14. R.-H. Bautier,The Economic Developmentof Medieval Europe (London: Thames, 1971), is a usefuloverview withan excellentbibliography. also Yves Cf. Renouard,Les hommesd'affairesitaliens du MoyenAge (Paris: Colin, 1968); and Henri Pirenne, Early Democracies in the Low Countries: Urban Society and Political Conflictin the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, tr.J. V. Saunders, Torched. (New York:Harper,1963). 15. For the importance of local forces and local knowledgeon the Baltic frontier, EricChristiansen, Northern see The Crusades: TheBaltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100-1 525 (Minneapolis: University MinnesotaPress,1980). For Palof
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Caste, Skill, and Training equally valuable to Crusader armies as scouts and lightcavalry.Secular states and theirmilitarycommanders were no less willingto adapt to the circumstances.The Republic ofVenice learned quicklyfrom fighting centurythatindigenous lighthorsemen in the Morea duringthe fifteenth broughtin against the Turksthan men-at-arms were farmore effective fromthe Italian mainland.16 and expense at great effort both in Regional forces as a rule stronglyresembled the knights, up to that craftfromchildhood. In pride of craftand in being brought Wales and thebordercounties of England,boys began learning northern to use the bow almost as soon as theycould walk. The genetours of the Iberian Peninsula and the stradiotsof the Balkans mightbe part-time and but laborers or farmers, theydrew much of theirpersonal identity, proficiency. theirmilitary civilstatus,from an increasingamount oftheir Regional notables able to accept thisassertivenesscould findtheirown power considerably enhanced. The Stanleys of England, forexample, rose to the peerage fromrelativeobscurityin large partbecause oftheir enduring command of the allegiance of the longbowmen of Cheshire and Lancashire.17 specializations also flourishedbecause certain skills Local military at arms proved consistentlyresistantto external cultivation.The Scots more than any people in Europe fromthe longbow, arguably suffered the Scottish crown was never able to institutionalizethe weapon yet north of the Tweed. The Valois monarchy during the Hundred Years' War also periodically sought to fosterskillwiththe bow to the point of banning all otherpublic games and sports. Resultswere soon apparent: in a relativelybrief time some French archers could outshoot some English ones. However,fearsofsocial subversionenhanced by the midWithoutconstant centuryJacquerie kept the experimentsshort-lived. encouragement and constraint,archeryin France rapidly revertedto an arcane craft. When introduced from above or from outside, the
in estine, Christopher see Marshall, Warfare theLatin East, 1192-1291 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press,1992); and R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare(10971193) (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1956). 16. M. E. Mallettand J. R. Hale, The MilitaryOrganization ofa Renaissance Press,1984), 47. State: Venice,c. 1 400 to 1 61 7 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity 17. See CarmelaPescador, caballeriapopularen Leon y Castilla,"Cuadernos "La de Historiade Espaina 23-24 (1961): 101-238; 35-36 (1962): 56-201; 37-38 (1963): 88-198; J. F. Powers,A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal University California of Militias in the CentralMiddleAges,1000-1284 (Berkeley: Press, 1988); and froma later period, Johann Hellwege, Zur Geschichte der Spanischen Reitermilizen.Die Caballeria de Cuantia unter Philipp II. und basis ofthe Philipp III. (1562-1619) (Wiesbaden: Steiner,1972). For the military The Stanleys'power,see M. J. Bennett,"'Good Lords' and 'King-Makers': Stanleys ofLathom in EnglishPolitics,1385-1485," HistoryToday 31 (July1981): 12-17.
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The difficulties surrounding systematic skill transferencehelped generate a logical step, fromutilizingregional specialists locally and on a more or less ad hoc basis to engaging them in organized bodies for campaigns waged outside theirhomelands. The marches ofnorthWales provided mercenaries forthe Englishcrown fromthe eleventhcentury. Welsh footmen were the hard core of the small expeditionary forces thatconquered Ireland. Welsharchersset thepatternforEnglishinfantry tactics during the Scottish Wars. The spread of the longbow into the north and west of England, which increasinglybecame the preferred recruiting ground forarchers,was facilitated and sustained by prospects ofemployment and profit theCeltic Fringe,in France, or increasingly, on in England itself.19 Spanish lightinfantry, fighting terrainsimilarto on its home ground, played a major role in the Sicilian Vespers, and contributedmuch to the military performanceofthe Catalan mercenary companies in the Aegean basin.20 What were the internal dynamics of these regionally recruited commoner forces?John Keegan suggeststhatviolence in medieval life was sufficiently familiarto make battle less of a shock than in conto temporarywesternsocieties, which make substantial efforts isolate theirmembersfrom physicalcombat and physicalrisk.Johann Huizinga makes a similar point, arguing thatthe later Middle Ages were a period ofviolent contrasts,ofoscillation between extremesofdespair and joy, cruelty and tenderness. Huizinga's image of a life lived in primary colors reinforces concept ofsoldieringas essentiallyon a continuum the witheverydayexperiences, as opposed to a drastic departure fromthe norm.
18. Robert Hardy, Longbow: A Social and Military History (Cambridge: Stephens,1976); and JimBradbury, Medieval Archer(New York:St. Martin's, The 1985), 71 ff.; useful are popularsurveys withgood bibliographies. 19. Cf.JohnE. Morris, The WelshWars ofEdward I, reprint 1901 ed. (New of York:Haskell,1969); E. Miller,War in the North: The Anglo-Scottish Wars ofthe MiddleAges (Hull: University Hull Publications, of 1960); R. G. Nicholson,Edward II and theScots: The Formative Years ofa MilitaryCareer,132 7-1335 (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1968); A. D. Carr, "Welshmenand the Hundred Years' War,"WelshHistoryReview 4 (1968): 21-46. 20. C. Carrere,"Aux originesdes grandescompagnies: la compagnie catalane de 1301," in Recrutement, mentalites, societes. Colloque internationaled'histoire militaire,1974 (Montpellier: Universite Paul-Valery, 1975), 1-7; RogerSablonier, Krieg und Kriegertumin der Cr6nica des Ramn Muntaner. Eine Studie zum sp&tmittelalterlichen Kriegswesenaufgrund katalanischer Quellen (Bern: Lang, 1971).
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18 state.

spectrum of skillsand interestsrequired in specialized military activity commonly failed to develop a cultural matrixstrongenough to survive in the absence ofa level ofsocial control unsustainableby any medieval

Caste, Skill, and Training This approach, both provocative and debatable, is useful for with explaining individualpugnacity.Medieval society was also familiar collective violence at grass-rootslevels. Men, both free and servile, could be summoned to war in the feudal levy,or to defend theirhome bandits,and even marauding formations, areas fromorganized military weapons, fromknivesand daggers to wolfpacks. Possession of effective bows and billhooks, was widespread even though their primaryand normal functionswere those of peace, fromcuttingbread to reaping grain. ground promisingwhen not fertile Medieval Europe, in short,offered for militaryrecruiters.Young men reaching maturityin deferential, patriarchial societies could find a soldier's career attractive simply because it promised change fromthe knownand the familiar.Pregnant legal disputes, and domestic quarrels drove young men girlfriends, centuryjust as in the twentieth.21 in fromparental firesides the twelfth as Ambitionplayed a certainrole as well,particularly thecontractual M. M. Poston's conclusion that element of militaryservice increased. England's village land marketremained uninfluencedin the aggregate by the purchases of common soldiers returningfrom the Hundred of Years' War is likelyto apply anywhere,and at any time,in the history modern Europe. Yet men tend to thinkofthemselves medieval and early in termsof exceptions ratherthan aggregates.Non-noble soldiers were hardly likely to aspire to the wealth of which an aristocratic captain might dream, and even less likely to collect the proceeds if they did some commonly born manage to capture a richprisoner.Nevertheless, men did enrich themselves relative to theirstation by loot or fighting ransom. Others did manage to set themselves up as tavernkeepersor smallholders on the proceeds of their campaigns. Such stories lost Theymay have been renderedeven more attractive nothingin thetelling. if Huizinga's interpretationof the late-medieval mind-setis accepted. The concept oftakinghighrisksforhighgains would presumablyappeal

21. JohnKeegan, The Face ofBattle,Vintageed. (New York:Random House, 1977), 115-16, and JohannHuizinga,The Waningofthe Middle Ages,Anchored. Cf. (New York:Doubleday,1954), 9 ff. also GeorgesDuby,The Early Growthofthe European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Press,1973); J. R. Hale, tr. Century, H. B. Clarke (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University in "Violence in theLate MiddleAges:A Background," Violenceand Civil Disorder Press, California University in Italian Cities 1200-1500, ed. L. Martines(Berkeley: and "ViolentDeath in Fourteenth- EarlyFifteenth1971), 19-37; and B. A. Hanawalt, England," Comparative Studies in Society and History18 (1976): 297Century violentbehaviorduringthisperiod at all of treatments aggressive, 320, forfurther social levels.
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to such men, as it did to the Spanish picaros who set so much of the tone in the armyof Philip 11.22 of To describeforces regionalspecialistsas includingdisproportionate contemporary numbersofrestless youngmen is not necessarilyto affirm aristocratic descriptions of these bodies as composed of masterless often social outcasts. Initially,men fromthe same geographic district, related by blood or marriage, foughtfor obvious reasons. The north archertakingthe fieldagainsta Scottishinvader,or the Castilian country needed littleencouragetownsmanridinga raid into Moorish territory, of frequently mentto guardeach others'backs. Patterns local recruitment remained the same afterthe purposes changed. Englisharchers during the Hundred Years' War, for example, were normally enlisted and grouped by counties, and when possible by smaller political divisionsas well. Withinindividual companies they were organized into twenties and hundreds, commanded by the equivalent of Rome's centurions: senior,experienced men fromtheirown ranks.The cohesion generated by this process was a significantfactor in the bowmen's long roll of successes under a wide varietyof circumstances.23

III The developing coherence and complexity of medieval armies reflecteda general pattern of professionalizationin European warfare during the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies. More and more armed forceswere built around men withlong-term commitmentsto military activities,who drew increasing amounts of their identityfromthese commitments.At highersocial levels the process was closely involved withthe nature of knighthood.To some degree thisreflectedpersonal choice. Some noblemen, whetherfromambition, desire, or necessity, sought wider opportunitiesto use theirswords than the feudal system provided. Others correspondinglypreferreddomesticity,spiked with occasional local belligerence. Economics also complicated the feudal order. Subinfeudation,dividinga knight'sfee of land among three or fourpeople, none of them specificallyobligated to performpersonal service, rendered the concept of a fiefas a privilegium earned and maintained with one's own body increasingly vestigial. At the same time, subinfeudationcontributed to the creation of a class of knights
22. M. M. Poston,"The CostsoftheHundredYears'War," Essays in Medieval in Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1973), 63-80, and Geoffrey Parker, The ArmyofFlanders and theSpanish Road (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1972), 179 ff. 23. Morris, WelshWars,92-93.
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Caste, Skill, and Training lacking the resources to maintain theirstatus. Selling one's sword-and one's skills-was an obvious response.24 who made war fora livingdeveloped The growing numberofknights new attitudesas well. They internalized less and less of the chivalric code thatguided theirmore sedentaryor more prosperous fellows.For social occasion, sharing such fortunate ones war remained a significant many features with tournaments and jousts. Color, pageantry, and experience forsome noblemen. ritualwerepartand parcel ofthe military manifestations-pleasant enough For otherstheywerebecoming fringe but ultimately dispensable forthe sake ofvictoryand profit.25 Opportunities for the latter, at least, flourished. Everywherein centurywere considering and Europe, rulersby the end of the twelfth allowing exemptions fromservice in lieu of cash payments. Henry II introduced scutage to England in 1159. Philip Augustus of France adopted similar taxes. The monarchs in turn used the money to hire fighting men. This development was by no means unwelcome froman administrativeperspective. Mercenaries from all social levels could reasonably be trustedto be loyal to theirpaymasterwhile fundslasted. Mercenaries could reasonably be assumed to have some abilityat their more chosen craft.And mercenaries were presumably willingto fight or less when and where theywere told-an importantpoint in an era when governments were ultimately incapable of applying sanctions strongenough to compel any kind ofbehavior outside ofveryrestricted parameters 26 The paid fighting man was no new phenomenon in Europe. William of Normandy had depended heavily for the conquest of England on soldiers engaged for promises of rewards aftervictory.The Normans
24. J.M. W.Bean, The Decline ofEnglishFeudalism, 1215-1540 (Manchester: Press, 1968), is an excellent case studyin the competing ManchesterUniversity ideals. Cf.also BryceLyon,From Fiefto legalismsthatdenaturedso manychivalric Indenture: The Transition from Feudal to Non-Feudal Contract in Western Press,1957). Europe (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity of 25. A good case study thisprocessin thelaststagesoftheHundredYears'War is A. J. Pollard,John Talbot and the War in France, 1427-1453 (London: RHS, Press, 1983), 18-101. MauriceKeen, Chivalry (New Haven,Conn.: Yale University at characterof the knight this 1984), argues forthe essentiallysecular, military in period. Cf. Keen, "Brotherhood Arms,"History 57 (1962): 1-17; and M. G. A. Vale, War and Chivalry: Warfareand AristocraticCulture in England, France of and Burgundyat theEnd oftheMiddle Ages (Athens:University Georgia Press, 1981). The MilitaryOrganisation of Norman England 26. Cf. C. WarrenHollister, Fee and "The Knight theKnight's in England," Clarendon,1965); S. Harvey, (Oxford: Monarchs and Mercenaries: Past and Present 49 (1970): 3-43; and JohnSchlight, A Reappraisal of the Importance of Knight Service of Norman and Angevin Press,1968). of Conn.: University Bridgeport England (Bridgeport,
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initiallyestablished themselvesin southern Italyas mercenaries in the employment of local lords. Nor were Christian Spaniards averse to enlisting under the banners of Islam. Ummayids, Almoravids, and Almohads shared a common reputation as reliable paymasters,and a common willingnessto hire Christianwarriors.27 Earlymercenarieswere,as a rule,hiredsinglyfora specificoperation posed problemsforthe employer.Individual or campaign. This,however, recruitmentinvolved significantoutlays of time and money. Once in the field, moreover, individual fightersdid not automatically sort themselves into the smoothly functioningcombat teams required by medieval warfare.Mercenary footmen, as individuals, were no more be might formally usefulthan the average feudallevy.Mercenaryknights integratedinto the familiarstructureof conroys and battles, but they were bound to that structureby neitherties of blood nor ties of fealty. Whether an individual's sense of honor and his interpretationof his pledge of service would translate into effectivebattle discipline was questionable. correspondingly a Fromthe employer'sperspective, sensible response to thissituation was to hire already-formedbodies of men. On the other side of the bargain, it was clear thatgroups ofwarriorswere oftenbetter able than isolated individuals to make more profitablearrangements for themor knight commoner, desperatelyneeded selves. The typicalmercenary, employment to survive.A famous hero like England's William Marshal might be able to fix his price, but for lesser men prosperitylay in century,foot soldiers in central Europe were numbers. By the twelfth or grouping themselves in bands, fifty a hundred strong,and offering professional theirservicesto townsincreasinglyinterestedin recruiting in soldiers to supplement or replace theirmilitias.More significant the long run were the knightswho signed agreements of service with a greaterlord, coveringfixedperiods oftime. By the end ofthe thirteenth century,these had evolved into retainer contracts. The party of the second part pledged not only his own presence, but the availabilityofa specifiednumber of men withspecifiedkinds of equipment.28 Similar contractual relationships did not necessarily produce a communityofattitudesin the mercenarycommunity.In principle,the
27. JosephF. O'Callaghan, A HistoryofMedieval Spain (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press,1975), 148-49, 280-81. 28. H. Grundman, "Rotten und Brabanzonen. Soidner-Heereim 12. Jahr5 des hundert," DeutschesArchivfiir Erforschung Mittelalters (1941-42): 419-92; and J. Boussard, "Les mercenaires au XIIe siecle. Henri II Plantagenet et les Bibliothequede l'Ecole des Chartes 106 (1945-46): origines l'armeede metier," de 189-224, remain excellent forthe originsand dynamicof the earlymercenaries. Das freie Soidnertum im abendlandischen Usefultoo is Paul Schmitthenner, (Munich: Beck, 1934). Imperiumdes Mittelalters
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Caste, Skill, and Training as knightly elite stillinsistedon an essential distinctionbetween itself a privilegedwarriorcaste and the rest of secular society. Legal restraints on the social rise of baseborn soldiers existed everywherein feudal Europe. In principle, commoners were not supposed to fightat all. When theydid, theywere outside the protection of the laws ofwar.29In theory, and oftenin practice as well,commoners who riskedtheirskins on the battlefieldcould be slaughteredat will-a process facilitated by fromsuch men. the factthat no ransoms could be expected Pragmatismled to certain modificationsof this harsh code. At no time did medieval armies become the bands of brotherscelebrated by the King's speech on the eve of Agincourt in Shakespeare's Henry V. Indeed, at Agincourtthe Englishknights refusedto execute theirFrench fellowsat the battle's climax, leaving that ignoble task to the archers. Even among crusaders or within mercenary companies, birth and social distinctionspersisted.In the military dimension, however,as the thirteenth The overseas centurywaxed, the contract systemflourished. of England's Angevin monarchs depended essentially on campaigns armies raised by captains undertakingto enlist an agreed number and mix of men for a given period. On the other side of Europe, the Teutonic Order relied heavily on mercenary companies, both for againstrebellious campaigns againsttheheathenand for internalsecurity townsand vassals.30 The mercenary company became a usefulmodel operationally as the well as administratively. Well before the Peace of Bretigny, brunt of the Hundred Years' War was being borne by small combined-arms teams of horse and foot, archers and spearmen, tending to sustain themselvesas permanentbodies under the same leader. Withthe truce, these forcesassumed an independent existence as "freecompanions," held togetherby a blend of economic and psychological factors.A free company was a business enterprise,pooling its gains and running on shares, with the captain responsible for feeding, arming, employing, and disciplininghis subordinates.The companies supportedthemselves importingoutsiders to by hiringout to feudal magnates able to afford settle local disputes. They also sold protection. Open banditry was usually a last recourse ratherthan a first choice. Free companies were led not by pirates,but by buccaneers whose most common ambition
29. Maurice Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London: Routledge,1965), 19 and passim. The 30. Cf.Michael Prestwich, ThreeEdwards: War and theState in England, The Organization of War 1980); H. J. Hewitt, 1272-1377 (New York:St. Martin's, Press, 1966); under Edward III, 1338-62 (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity J. W. Sherborne,"IndenturedRetinuesand EnglishExpeditionsto France, 13691380," English Historical Review 79(1964): 718-46; and Burleigh,Prussian Society,72-73, 134 passim..
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was to earn or purchase respectability.The rank and file also sought legitimacy, no more than a believable assertionthattheywere fighting if in just and lawfulcauses. The mercenary companies might skirtthe nor psychologically edges ofcustomn law,but were neitherphysically and strongenough openly to defythem.31 The process of relocalizing Europe's drifting mercenaries began in Italy. A symbiotic relationship between soldiers and employers had begun developing there even before the first northernfreecompanies crossed the Alps. Hiringfighters fromoutside the systemlimitedstrains on local social orders already riven by class and familyconflict. The cities and city states of northernItaly found littlemoral or emotional in difficulty negotiating business contracts with soldiers, as they did with so many outsiders. The companies and their captains in turn foundeasy entryto societies expecting and demanding no pretense of loyaltyor allegiance beyond the termsof the contract. The adventurersofthe fourteenth centuryevolved into the generals and princes of the fifteenth century. They remained soldiers as well. The condottieri paid much attentionto technical progressand tactical innovation. Condottieri battles were by no means the bloodless farces describedby Machiavelli.The operational problem facedby condottieri captains involved not mutual unwillingnessto fight, but armed forces that were essentiallymirror-images each other. Drawn fromsimilar of manpowerpools, armed, trained,and commanded in virtually identical patterns, condottieri armies resembled their eighteenth-century successors in that theirvictories were likely to be either the result of unreckonable chance factors, the product ofclose-grippedattritional or fighting that could well make success meaningless in terms of both long-term and immediatecosts to the ostensiblytriumphant employer.32

31. Philippe Contamine, "Les compagnies d'aventureen France pendant la guerrede Cent ans," Melanges de l'Ecole fran~aise de Rome, MoyenAge, Temps modernes 87 (1975): 365-96, is a recent survey.The companies' activitiesare presentedin a broad contextin Edouard Perroy, The Hundred Years' War,tr.W.B. Wells (London: Eyreand Spottswood,1951), 154 passim. AnthonyMockler,The Mercenaries (New York:Macmillan,1969), 25 ff., a popularsummary. is 32. The best overviewin English is M. E. Mallett,Mercenaries and Their Master: Warfarein Renaissance Italy (Totowa, N.J.:Rowman,1974). G. Trease, The Condottieri,Soldiers of Fortune (New York:Holt, Reinhart,1971), is more in colorful. also D. P. Waley, Cf. "Condotteand Condottieri theThirteenth Century," Proceedings of the BritishAcademy 61 (1976): 337-71; and the case studiesby W. M. Bowsky, and Communal Bands in "Cityand Contado, Military Relationships Fourteenth-Century Siena," in Renaissance Studies in Honor ofHans Baron, ed. IllinoisUniversity A. Molho,J.A. Tedeschi (DeKalb: Northern Press,1971), 75-98; and M. E. Mallett,"Venice and Its Condottieri, 1401-54," in Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R. Hale (Totowa, N.J.:Rowan and Littlefield, 1973), 121-45. W. Block,Die
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Caste, Skill, and Training war's slow The militarysituation in late-medieval Italy highlighted in pace everywhere Europe. Strategically, existence of professional the soldiers fighting pay combined withthe growingfinancial power of for the state to fosterthe extension of campaigning. A governmentcould keep the field as long as its money and its promises held out-even longer ifit could carrythe fight its enemy's territory, the English to as demonstratedduringthe Hundred Years' War.33 Tactically,armies were evolvinginto defensiveinstruments choice and necessity.Takingthe by fight the enemy had littleto recommend it in a period where armies to were not only essentiallyalike in structureand doctrine, but lacked a generallyeffective offensive instrument. Heavy cavalry, long the master of the battlefield,could now be checked as a matter of course. The Hussite Wars demonstrated that even improvised levies could stop a mounted charge in the open. Religious enthusiasm was less a factor in the Taborites' success than theirarmoredwagons,whichprovidedboth an organizationalframework and a tactical rallyingpoint. The battlefieldconsequences, however, were the same.34 Furtherwest, the municipal infantryof Italy and Flanders never developed a significantoffensive capability. Caught in the open, as at Mons-en-Pevele (1304) and Cassel (1328), Flemish infantry were cut to pieces by French men-at-armswho had learned respect for their enemies at Courtrai. Across the English Channel, Scottishpike masses proved consistentlyunable to push home a charge against moderately well-supported longbowmen.Close rangescombined with the valor of desperation to give English arrow flightsan effect virtually equivalent to machine-gunfireagainst the lowland schiltrons, settingthe vauntedfuror scoticus at naught time and again. In sum, the most potentially dangerous offensiveforces on a armed with battlefield, massed armored horsemen and massed infantry shock weapons, had become systematically vulnerable to flexible combined-arms tactics. These tactics were increasinglyfeasibleforthe professionalsoldiers who filledthe ranks of the mercenarycompanies. The English combination of longbowmen and dismounted men-atarms, which proved so formidable on the defensive against French chivalry and Scots pikemen alike, was only a beginning. Mounted crossbowmenwhose quarrelscould smash through archers,lightcavalry,
Condottiere. Studien uber die sogennanten"unblutige Schlachten" (Berlin,1913) remainsa usefuloperationalstudyof condottieriwarfare. 33. C. T. Allmand,"War and Profit the Late Middle Ages," HistoryToday in 15 (1965): 762-69, is a useful overview. also RichardBean, "Warand theBirth Cf. of the Nation State,"Journal ofEconomic History33 (1973): 203-21. 34. J. Duidik, Hussitisches Heerwesen (Berlin, 1961), is a detailed military analysis.Cf. F. G. Heymann,John Ziska and the Hussite Revolution (Princeton, N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press,1955), 57 ff.
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plate armor, hand gunners in increasing numbers-all found their century, places in the order of battle. By the middle of the fourteenth arms, the up-to-date army was an interrelated structureof different each increasinglypossessing its own quirksand its own vulnerabilities. As his armor grew more complex and his horse grew larger,the heavy of the cavalrymanevolved from all-purposewarrior the eleventhcentury into a roughanalog ofthe modern battle tank: an importantelement of a balanced army,but dependent on the cooperation of lighthorsemen and missile-firing infantry achieve consistent results. On all but the to roughestground, archers needed the protection of eithermen at arms or heavilyarmed infantry, pikemen or billmen. These in turnrequired supportto minimize the risksof being shot down or ridden over. Late-medievaland earlyRenaissance commanders correspondingly preferred assemble task forces forspecific campaigns: recruitingso to so many archers,so many hand-gunners, many lightand heavycavalry. This building-blockapproach developed in partbecause itscomponent parts already existed. Organized bodies of men, and contractors with contacts among temporarilyunemployed soldiers, were easily found and easily engaged even forservice farafield. The ethnic composition of such a formationbecame less significantthan its combination of skills.In 1417, an order ofbattle submittedforthe approval ofthe Duke of Burgundy prescribedthe deploymentofa sophisticatedcombination of dismounted men-at-arms,archers, and crossbowmen to take the brunt of an enemy attack, with mounted men-at-arms and archers and acting as a reserve.Sixtyyears later,Charles the securingthe flanks Bold's Ordinance of Lausanne prescribedan even more complex battle pikemen, longbowmenand crossbowmen,men-at-arms, plan, integrating considered and gunners into eight"battles,"each withits own carefully structure,and with systematic provision for liaison and cooperation arms.35 among the different It was no coincidence that these plans both came fromBurgundy. Choice among possible combinations of weapons systems and their users to some extentreflected judgment. personal tasteand professional more than any political entity It was also a matterof finance. Burgundy, on the continent, depended forits ephemeral existence on an efficient military system.Its dukes werebattle captains or theywere nothing.But the wealthycommunes thatformedthe state's economic base preferred voting taxes to levyingmen. The Burgundian administration,among
35. Cf. J. F. Verbruggen, "Un plan de bataille du duc de Bourgogne (14 septembre 1417) et la tactique de l'epoque," Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire 20 (1959): 443-51; and G. Grosjean,"Die Murtenschlacht. Analyseeines Ereigenesses,"in Actes du ve Centenaire de la bataille de Morat (Fribourg and Berne,1976), 51 ff.
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Caste, Skill, and Training in the most efficient Europe, in turn used the money to hire or retain militaryexperts from everywhere,keeping an increasing number of them permanentlyin service in its compagnies d'ordonnance.36 and at least as loyal Armiesraised on thisbasis were skilled,flexible, as any of their successors before the nineteenth century, when nationalism and modern administrationcombined to leave deserters Hungary, for and runaways with no place to go. Fifteenth-century example, stood offthe Turks and extended its rule over Austria and Bohemia largely because of the mercenary companies fromthe west who foughtfor Matthias Corvinus and his successors. The France of Charles VII and his successors is generally credited witha significant advance in movingtowardsa permanent standingarmyduring military the fifteenth century.This decision, however,was not a response to the of unreliability inefficiency mercenaries. It reflectedinstead a need or to restoreorder in a countryracked by a centuryofwar,combined with a growingconcern forconcentratingpower at state levels.37 The new French armywas a formidableforce,whose heavy cavalry in particular enjoyed a high reputation. Nevertheless,French native troops as a whole were considered a cut below units of specialized whetherhired directlyor engaged as auxiliariesfurnished professionals, and financed by an ally. England's Tudor princes as well came increasingly to depend on foreigncontingents to sustain their abortive continental policies. This in part reflectedEngland's increasing failure to keep pace withmilitary progress.But it also reflectedacceptance of the conventionalEuropean wisdomon thesubject ofhiring best available men with the newest weapons and techniques, whatevertheir ethnic
origins.38

IV
the coherence began with evolution The nextdevelopmentin military of a generallyeffective offensive forcewitha regional base. This was the pikemen of the Swiss cantons. Paradoxically,the Swiss initiallyearned
36. RichardVaughn,Valois Burgundy (Hamden, Conn.: Archon,1975), 123 L'arm&ebourguignonnede 1465 a Cf. is ff., a good Englishsurvey. also C. Brusten, 1468 (Brussels, 1963); and "L'armee bourguignonnede 1465 a 1477," Revue internationaled'histoiremilitaire20 (1959): 452-66. PhilippeContamine's massive Guerre,etat et societe ci la 37. Cf.in particular fin du MoyenAge. Etudes sur l'arm&edes rois de France, 1337-1454 (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1972); and Paul D. Solon, "Popular Response to Standing France,"Studies in theRenaissance 19 (1972): Forcesin Fifteenth-Century Military 78-111. J. 38. Gilbert Millar,Tudor Mercenariesand Auxiliaries,1485-1547 (Charlot1980). PressofVirginia, University tesville:
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different reputationin a local context,and withan entirely theirmilitary weapon. The victoryof Morgarten (1315) was won when Leopold of Austriamarched into a narrowdefileand saw his men mowed down like cantons. The next step came when grainby the halberdiersofthe forest the forestcantons formedalliances withthe cantons and cities of the Swisslowlands. Like theircounterpartsin Flandersand Italy,these areas of furnished contingents of spearmen. The superiority this weapon to the halberd was demonstratedat Laupen in 1339. Unable to keep the coming to close quarters,the halberdiers Burgundianheavycavalryfrom of Uri, Unterwalden,and Schwyz were saved fromdestructionby the lowlanders' pikes. Such tactical triumphscould not overcome the essential weakness of the evolving Swiss militarysystem. The Swiss economy could not to afford keep masses of men under arms forany lengthof time. A war of attrition meant corresponding risks of starvation as fields went unsown and crops ungathered.The Swiss, moveover,had littlehope of matching their Burgundian rivals in operational sophistication. Swiss infantry, unable to attack in the open field,would have to depend on archers for fire support and heavy cavalry for shock power. These skillswere scarce in the Swissmountains. Nor could the cantons military afford hire specialists,as did the Burgundians.Pressureto transform to heightened weapon was further the Swiss infantrymen into an offensive by a human factor.Unlikesoldiers fromthe richcities of Lombardyand Flanders, few Swiss could afforddefensive body armor. To survive man had to deliver blows. the physically, Swiss fighting century,Swiss cantons and Swiss captains Through the fourteenth to developed patternsof discipline and trainingenabling theirinfantry attack as well as counterattack.The men of a Swiss pike column knew thatlifeas well as victory depended on an abilityto move quicklyand in good order. The Swiss soldier was both a free man and enough of a warriorto understand his tactical system and enjoy its implications. This was most frequentlymanifested in the ferocitygenerally charbehavior. Far more than theircontemporaries acterizing Swiss military in the mercenary companies, the Swiss tended to see themselves as outside existing feudal and militarysystems,whether challenging or bad even by discipline was proverbially servingthem. Swiss out-of-battle standards,not least because the Swiss had a tendency fifteenth-century to run amok en masse. was no mean At the same time, a reputation forunbridled ferocity asset to a system depending on aggressive assault tactics. It not only intimidated enemies; it inspired the Swiss themselves. The Swiss first established theirreputationas more than a locally formidableforcein 1444 at St. Jacob-en-Birs, whereless than a thousand pikemen attacked a state-of-the-art French army 15,000 strong.The Swiss died to a man,
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Caste, Skill, and Training but took 2,000 foes withthem. MilitaryEurope began to take noticeand make offers. The Swiss responded by improving their specialized skills. They whatseemed adopted an earlyversion of Schwerpunkt tactics,striking most vulnerable point in an enemy position twice,sometimes three the times in succession. They increased the length of theirpikes to fifteen, then to eighteen feet. They enhanced the firesupport of theirassault columns with crossbows, and increasingly with handguns. Like the longbow in England, the handgun penetrated Swiss civil society largely because of its perceived utilityin war. Firearms, however, remained depended on battlefield secondary to pikes. And the pikes' effectiveness cohesion. even aftermercenaryservice replaced home This cohesion survived defense as the Swiss militarypattern. It survivedbecause the cantons and cities went into the contracting business themselves, partly for and partlyto keep control of young men otherwiselikelyto hire profit out individuallyas free companions. Organizing what could not be servicewhen of stopped indicated the continued attractiveness military compared to alternative ways of making a living in Switzerland's subsistence economy. Martial behavior was culturallyconditioned as thatenforcedcompulsory well. The Swiss male, socialized in a structure militaryservice from 16 to 60, bound to canton and captain by a networkof community-sanctioned oaths, found warfarea ready and acceptable riteof passage into adulthood.39
V

Swiss success not only inspiredbut demanded emulation. The Swiss filledtoo large a gap in the specialized ordersofbattle thatcharacterized late-medieval armies to be shrugged offas regionally limited. Swiss
des Entwicklungsgeschichte deutsche 39. FortheSwiss,Eugenvon Frauenholz, Heerwesens,vol. 2, Das Heerwesender Schweizer Eidgenossenschaftin der Zeit Der Schaufelberger, alte desfreieS6ldnertums(Munich:Beck, 1936); and Walther vornehmlichim 15. JahrSchweizer und sein Kreig.Studien zur Kreigsfiihrung side.Albert on hundert, 2nd ed. (Zurich:Europa,1966), remainstrong themilitary in Winkler, "The Swiss and War: The Impact on Society of the Swiss Military the 1982), YoungUniversity, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries"(Ph.D. diss.,Brigham includes an excellent bibliography;K. W. Deutsch and H. Weillenmann,"Die eines sozialen Systems:Die SchweizerEidgenossenschaft militirischeBewahrung Soziologie KolnerZeitschriftffur im 14. Jahrhundert," Beitrage Militarsoziologie, zur und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft12 (1968): 38-58, is more concise. Schaufeldes zur Kulturgeschichte berger,Der Wettkampf der alten Eidgenossenschaft. in Sports von 13. bis ins 18. Jahrhundert(Bern: Haupt, 1972), establishesthe level as a means ofdeveloping importanceofmilitary exercisesat the community individual efficiency groupcohesion. and
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pikemen were, however, expensive enough and refractory enough to encourage governments seek substitutes. to Unlikethe Englishlongbow, moreover,the basic Swiss weapon did not seem so complex that only conditioning fromchildhood could develop efficiencyin its use. The most familiarSwiss imitators were the Landsknechts. The HussiteWars generated corresponding interest in new tactical approaches among German professional soldiers. An increasing number of captains in Burgundian or Habsburg service acquired extensive-and painfuldirect experience of Swiss methods. In recruiting infantry, theyturned increasingly south Germany,the regionsborderingthe Swiss cantons to fromVorarlbergto the Sundgau. Not everySwiss mercenarywent to war through cantonal contracts. Freelance Swiss oftenservedin the same companies withGermans who borrowedtechniques fromtheirneighbors.The Landsknecht, however, was partofa drastically different social matrix.Late-medievalSwitzerland was a tightly structured society,able at local levelsto exercisea significant level ofcontrol over individuals.SouthwesternGermanyin the fifteenth centurywas experiencinga population explosion. A typicalvillage with 500 inhabitantsin 1490 had doubled its population by 1560. Famine and plague providedonly episodic relief.Larger familiesmeant smaller inheritances. Underemployment became endemic in communities already suffering economically fromthe decline of the regional textile Men moved fromvillage to town and back again, looking not industry. undermined only for work but for opportunity.Their search further traditional structures alreadyweakened from internalconflictgenerated by the introduction of Roman law. Peasant villages were increasingly able to balance among conflicting claims to their labor and their allegiance. Lords and priests, merchants and magistrates, faced consistent challenges to theirsocial and religiousauthority. This generalizedbreakdownofdeferencecreated a climate favorable to the soldiers' trade. Landsknechts emerged from a society where possession of knivesand swordswas universal,and ownershipof armor and heavier weapons was common. Not everyLandsknecht, moreover, was a dispossessed craftsmanor peasant. Burghers' sons and aristocrats' sons found places in the ranks. Runaway serfsstood side by side with freebornmen. A recruit'sclaims to personal status were unlikelyto be closely investigatedas long as they were not patentlyridiculous. As a common denominator, Landsknechts were men perceiving limited opportunitiesat home, but who feltthey were as good as anyone else withweapons in theirhands. But no matterhow assembled, a Landsknechtcompany ofthem was stillno more than an aggregationofmore or less belligerentindividuals-an aggregation,moreover,too small to be tacticallyuseful. Medieval contractors and captains had thought in hundreds.
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Caste, Skill, and Training Landsknecht officers preparingto compete withthe Swiss had to think in thousands. Nor could these men merelybe warm bodies. The Swiss depended fortheirsuccess on aggressivenessand cohesion. How could these be introduced in a Landsknecht forcewhose verysize meant that any pre-existingbonds of dialect and culture would be significantly limited. How could they be sustained among men whose choice of a military was in large part an affirmation theirpersonal freedom, life of theirrightto drinkand gamble, to defend theirhon.orin duels, to wear outrageous clothing,and swaggerat will among the women? One answerinvolvedsupplantingthe communitywiththe regiment. The process began with mustering,where prospective recruits were passed before theirofficers, read the articles of service and discipline, then ceremonially sworn to their cause and their leaders. A typical Landsknecht regiment consisted of 4,000 men divided into ten companies, each with its own standard as rallying-point and symbol. These companies, or Fahnlein, were in turn subdivided into platoons or Rotten, each of forty men. Where officers the larger formations of were appointed by the colonel-contractor,the Rottenelected theirown leaders from among the veterans in their ranks. Other officials,the Fuhrer, the Gemeinwaibel, the Furiere, represented the interestsof the common Landsknechts in administrative and operational matters, frequently acting as mediatorsin disputeswiththe command structure. Their advice and recommendations were not lightly disregardedby any colonel hoping to exercise effective command over whatwas essentially a forceof freeagents. A Landsknecht regiment was not merely a pirate band. Plunder, while still important for the early modern soldier, was increasingly becoming a kind of incentive bonus. Larger armies meant more competition foravailable loot. Fewer wealthynoblemen now went to war; an aristocraticprisoner was likelyto be relativelyas impecunious as his captor. While men continued to serve for booty only, it was of usuallywiththe hope ofbeing taken on the paid strength a formation. At least before the general European rise in prices at mid-sixteenthcentury, pay for Swiss or Landsknecht compared favorably with craftsmen'swages, and could be over twice as high as a laborer's pay. Collecting on time and in something like fullwas so unlikelythat riot and mutinybecame forall practical purposes institutionalizedamong the Landsknechts early in theirexistence. But to claim theirwages in the first well. Victorymightgenerplace, the Landsknechts had to fight ate at least partial payment of money owed, while defeatusually meant empty pockets for everybody. Profitable employment, moreover, WhileindividualLandsknechts depended heavilyon past performances. could always find service, terms were likely to be better as part of a formedbody. Formationsand commanders withbad reputationsfound
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to difficult secure contracts. it correspondingly Discipline was also for the Landsknecht an element of survival. Landsknecht formations,recruited ad hoc, were vulnerable to the pressure of combat, when economic considerations became vague Panic, however, abstractionscompared withthe visceraldesireto survive. meant higherorders of riskforthe Landsknechts than almost anyone else. Tactical orders of battle frequentlyplaced them opposite the despised the imitatorsof theirtechniques, and were Swiss,who bitterly even less predisposed than usual to show mercy in victory. mechanism and Cohesion,then,was botha career facilitator a survival for the common Landsknecht. Contrary to later myth,the Landsknechts were not a sworn egalitarian brotherhood. Their complex structureof rightsand privilegesreflecteda correspondinglycomplex internal hierarchy. Yet if Landsknecht commanders frequentlydismounted in battle to fightin the frontranks, this was only in part a of vulnerability thehorse. Itwas also a significant of reflection thegrowing withthe footmen,a sign ofphysicalcommitmentto gestureofsolidarity a common purpose. Should positive incentives fail, Landsknecht including structure, disciplinary a incorporated comprehensive regiments a provostand an executioner-officials fearedand detested, treatedas pariahs withouthonor, but regarded as necessary by even the most hardened freebooters. Landsknecht captains were too wise to trustentirelythe power of martialintangibleson one hand and physicalcompulsion on the other. but integrationinto Landsknecht rank and filemightbe self-selected, by the organization was reinforced early formsofindividualinstruction and collective battle drill. The Landsknechts depended heavily on crossbowmenand arquebusiersto screen and supporttheirpike squares. These "shot" were drawnincreasinglyfromthe veteran Doppelsoldner, the double-pay men who presumably knew what theywere doing. The were similarlydrawn fromthe oldest ranks ofthe pike formations front was however, and most experienced soldiers. The Landsknecht recruit, not leftentirelyto his own devices. Unlikethe longbow,the handgun, or the sword, the pike was relativelysimple in its technical demands. agility,and good will could learn to Anyone withreasonable strength, use it quickly. This did not mean that a coherent force of pikemen from equivalentnumberofapprenticesand farmboys. an could be formed Weapons trainingwas a major guarantor of morale. A man crowded than an arquebusier intoa pikesquare mightfindit harderto runor shirk or a light horseman. But even a wavering line of pikes was an open invitationto disaster. Individual fear or even individual clumsiness in those dense masses could generate collective panic more readily than in, forexample, a firingline of archers, where every man's attention was absorbed by his personal weapon and where a runaway might
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Caste, Skill, and Training correspondingly be disregarded as an exceptional case. The more confidence a man had in himself,his weapon, and his comrades, the and less was it likelyhe would consider flight, the more probable thathe would be able to maneuver successfully.Perhaps the best evidence of commanders' relative is theLandsknechts'growinginternalsolidity their emphasis on finesse and timing in their attacks, as opposed to the head-down,batteringcharges favoredby the Swiss.40 The Landsknechts exemplified and illustrated the patterns of cohesion required by the rapidly expanding armies of the sixteenth It century.This process has been described as professionalization.41 was that-and something more. Free companions developed into contract theninto standingarmies. Personal honor gave wayto regimental forces, honor in justifying tavern brawls and formalduels alike. The Spanish army of the sixteenthcentury,the archetype of early modern military depended heavilyon discipline patternsand unit rituals effectiveness, established in earlier centuries to cope with a multi-ethnicbase and complex combined-arms tactics. The soldiers of the Spanish army and consistentlydemonstrated,moreover,a common sense of identity both theiremployersand theirsenior officers. a mutualsolidarity vis-a-vis By no means all of the men in the ranks were commoner outcasts with could contribute The disrespectofsuperiorofficers self-images misfits. as as much to one of the frequentmutiniesas arrears in pay.42 The Spanish armyand its counterpartswere developing along lines whose antecedents can be traced as far back as the collapse of the westernRoman Empire. For a thousand years the general conditions of European warfareput high premiums not on heroic anarchy, but on coherence and cooperation. Beginningat one end ofthe socio-military scale withcaste identity, and at the otherwithregional identitiesbased

40. For the Landsknechts' socio-economic matrix,see ReinhardBaumann, Das S6ldnerwesen im 16. Jahrhundertim bayerischen und siiddeutschen Beiand Enterpriser 1978). FritzRedlich,The German Military spiel (Munich:W6lfle, his Work Force, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1964), 14 passim, is still the best des deutsche English account. Eugen von Frauenholz,Entwicklungsgeschichte Heerwesens,vol. 3, Das Heerwesendes Reiches in der Landsknechtzeit(Munich: Beck, 1937); Baumann, Georg von Frundsberg. Der Vater der Landsknechte Verlag,1984); and M. Nell,Die Landsknechte. Entstehung (Munich:Siiddeutscher der erstendeutschen Infanterie(Berlin: Ebering,1914), providethe operational und Brauchtumder Landsknechte,"Mitteilungen data. G. Franz, "Von Ursprung des Institutsfur osterreichische Geschichtsforschung61 (1983): 79-98, is a general introduction. useful 1550-1660," "The Military Revolution, in 41. Most familiarly Michael Roberts, and Nicolson, ed in Essays in Swedish History, M. Roberts(London: Weidenfeld 1967), 195-225. of 42. Parker, Army Flanders, 185 ff.
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on common military abilities, armies developed integrating structures thatincreasingly reflected acquired skills, and attitudes whose desirability was defined theinstitution by rather thanitsmembers.From Roncesvalles to Ravenna and beyond, the studyof the internalstructures Europe's of military systemssustains the relevance of S. L. A. Marshall'soften-cited dictum thata soldier knownto those around him has thebest ofreasons well: fearof losing the one thingthat he is likelyto value more to fight than life-his standingas a man among othermen committedto highly a common enterprise.

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