By 1365 the English mercenary John Hawkwood had an army of 7,000 horses with 43 corporals under him serving cities in Italy. With this army his reputation grew and grew.
With his new force Hawkwood turned his attention on Florence. The Florentines (as one of the richest cities in Italy) responded by paying off Hawkwood to avoid Florentine territory. This was a pattern of mercenary activity – a company would arrive in an area and extort bribes to leave that territory alone. If the bribe was not paid (or if an instalment was late in coming) then they would plunder the locality before moving on. We have several letters from Hawkwood extorting huge sums from various cities, usually on the understanding that he would leave their territory alone for a set time. All of this meant that having such vast numbers of mercenaries present in Italy was a particularly dangerous double-edged sword for their employers. They were necessary for defence and offence but might cause more damage to their employers.
This episode was written by Murray Dahm.
Murray Dahm is an ancient and medieval military historian from New Zealand, living in Australia. He has written more than 100 articles on various aspects of ancient and medieval military history, as well as other historical topics from all periods (ranging from the history of opera to the runic alphabet and recipients of the Victoria Cross). He is the author of COMBAT 40: Macedonian Phalangite vs Persian Warrior: Alexander confronts the Achaemenids, 334-331 BC from Osprey publishing. He is a regular on the Ancient Warfare Podcast.
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