Mercenaries

Amercenary is a soldier hired to fight for pay for a foreign country. Mercenaries may be employed because of their special skills or their willingness to take part in activities that the state's citizens avoid. Sometimes mercenaries fight alongside a country's own forces. The use of mercenaries began in the ancient world, and by the Renaissance, mercenaries formed the basis of most armies.

Renaissance Mercenaries. The mercenary units of the Renaissance stood out because of their large size—several hundred to several thousand troops. Estimates of the total number of mercenaries in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s range from 100,000 to 1 million. Sometimes mercenaries came from within the state that hired them, but more often they came from foreign countries. During the Middle Ages, a mercenary unit might include people from various lands. However, Renaissance states usually recruited mercenaries as a group from certain regions, such as Germany, Switzerland, or Italy. As warfare became more common and more destructive, the number of mercenaries employed in Europe increased.

The most popular mercenaries were soldiers armed with pikes or primitive guns called arquebuses. Units of artillery filled out the ranks. Heavy cavalry, or mounted knights, and gunners formed the core of Italian armies during the Renaissance.

The Mercenary Life. Men joined mercenary companies for a variety of reasons. Pay was the most obvious reason, although the wages that mercenaries received barely enabled them to make a living. However, other financial opportunities were available to mercenaries. Armies often sacked the towns that they conquered, seizing control over the city and its residents. Troops reportedly looted more than 20 million ducats after the sack of Antwerp in 1576. Taking prisoners and holding them for ransom was another way to earn money.

Mercenary life held other attractions, too. It offered adventure and a sense of freedom from the boredom of everyday life. Some men used mercenary service as an opportunity to indulge in violence and sexual excesses outlawed by civilized society. Although it paid little, mercenary service did offer steady work in an age plagued by underemployment and unemployment.

Mercenaries had a reputation for being undisciplined and difficult to control. In fact, they were usually reliable unless their pay was late or missing. In such cases their behavior could be unpredictable, from taking out their anger on the local population to forcing commanders to attack against their wishes. Even when they received their pay, mercenaries might disobey orders for their own reasons. For example, the leader of the Holy League army at the battle of Fornovo in northern Italy in 1495 ordered his troops to take no prisoners. However, many soldiers ignored this order to profit from ransoming captives.

The Italian political writer Niccolò Machiavelli popularized the image of the undisciplined mercenary who avoided combat and fought only to collect pay. He also accused mercenaries of refusing to engage in real combat when facing foes that came from the same region. Like Machiavelli, many people questioned the loyalty of mercenaries. Critics accused them of changing sides at will and encouraging citizens to avoid military careers. Modern historians have shown that this picture is largely inaccurate. They find mercenaries in general to be loyal and skilled at the art of war.

Contract Fighters. The most effective Renaissance mercenaries were the Italian condottieri, named for their employment contract, or condotta. The condottieri arose from the commercial success of Italian states that could afford to pay others to fight for them. They were also a product of the reluctance of most rulers to arm civilians. Condottieri leaders usually came from the noble classes, and the profits of war often generated much-needed revenue for their principalities.

At first, contracts called for a firm period of employment (the ferma) and an option period, during which the employer could renew the contract. The normal ferma lasted for three months. This system suited the needs of the employer and the seasonal nature of warfare in the Middle Ages, when armies went home during the winter. But as standing armies emerged, states faced a continuous need for soldiers. The terms of the contracts changed to meet this need, and some mercenaries served for extended periods of time. This often led to changes in the relationship between mercenary units and the state that employed them. Venice, for example, offered many benefits, such as property, pensions, and even eligibility for public office, to ensure the loyalty of its condottieri.

(See alsoArms and Armor; Warfare. )