IT IS TIME for a survey of medieval mercenaries that describes how they created – in Juhan Kreem’s elegant phrase – the business of war. Although textbooks often pass over mercenaries, they were present throughout the medieval era. Moreover, the textbooks and surveys have neither the personal details that make narrative history interesting and exciting, nor analyses of what mercenaries actually did. These deficiencies are part of what this book intends to address.
A second intent is to examine the popular literature that has created our imagined world of medieval mercenaries. If it is true that what we believed happened is almost as important as what actually did take place, then no study of this era would be complete without looking at authors who made the literature of medieval war popular. Just as no discussion of Italian mercenaries can be complete without referring to Machiavelli, no portrayal of the Hundred Years War can ignore Shakespeare, Conan Doyle and Mark Twain.
A third intent is to investigate how it was that, in an era when money was short and oaths were long, mercenary soldiers were so important. The importance of mercenaries varied from place to place and time to time, but they were rarely of no consequence whatsoever.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Mercenaries were needed because although medieval societies tried to rely upon feudal oaths and local militias, these were often insufficient. Also, neither knights nor peasants complained when strangers risked their lives for them in moments of crisis. Inquiries about personal morals, respect for the law, body odour and so forth tend to be kept short when survival is at stake.
What employers wanted were mercenary units, groups ready for combat from the moment they arrived, not individual warriors of questionable background. Such units were thus a service commodity.
Employers often wanted to command the army, but not all had the talent or experience. Mercenary generals offered some hope of battlefield success. Hope at a price, of course. And at a risk. No one could guarantee that the new employee would perform as expected, or even that he would not attempt to take over the business. Outsourcing has its risks.
Mercenaries also negotiated like unions, picking the most awkward moments to demand an increase in pay. As a student of mine once said of strikers in Paris who had shut down the entire transportation system, ‘Don’t they know that is inconvenient?’
Employers were also beseeched by idealists to avoid armed conflicts, the argument being that war itself was questionable morally and in practice. If abandoning a disputed point was sufficient to make peace, giving way might be the cheaper and wiser course. Of course, hard-headed advisors would point out that if neighbours concluded that a peaceable lord was an easy mark, then bullying could be expected. Fighting had some benefits, even if the war was likely to be lost – the lord who fought back was at least likely to be respected, and therefore left alone.
These aspects of medieval military practice tend to be forgotten. But historical truth is what people remember, as W.C. Sellar (1898–1951) and R. J.Yeatman (1897–1968) remind us. Their 1066 and All That; A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates (1930) said that history is not what you thought it was, but what you remember. What you can remember, for example, is the date 1066. Not what it signified. Moreover, they said:
The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.
This parody of the Whig School of history is also worth noting, because it is so much like modern political correctness, which discourages the writing or reading of military history. According to the Whig School, every person and every action is judged Good or Bad according to whether the cause of parliamentary democracy and the middle class was advanced or retarded. Political Correctness makes similar judgments based on a combination of excessive politeness and tender-heartedness. Thus it occasionally seems that hurting people’s feelings is worse than killing them. There is also a tendency to believe that if war is good for business, that is sufficient reason in itself to hate war.
In this the adherents of political correctness share an important attitude with the medieval Church – that making a profit from someone else’s need is immoral. Thus, the merchant who rushed grain to a war-ravaged land sinned as much by making a profit as the mercenaries who looted and burned it.
Several decades later another humourist-historian gave us an additional insight into mercenaries. Richard Armour (1906–89), the author of It All Started with Stones and Clubs. Being a Short History of War and Weaponry from Earliest Times to the Present, noting the Gratifying Progress made by Man since his First Crude, Small-Scale Efforts to Do Away with Those Who Disagreed with him (1967), wrote:
The Vikings landed in the British Isles, sailed up the Seine to Paris, and traveled even as far as Russia and Constantinople. Whether the Vikings fought simply for the love of fighting, as some historians contend, or were primarily interested in loot, is a matter of conjecture, but there is no reason to believe that the two reasons are mutually exclusive. The Vikings proved that in war you can combine fun and profit, with travel thrown in as a bonus.
More seriously, the bottom line is this: in the Middle Ages rulers generally recruited professional warriors only for emergencies, did what they could to control them, and ultimately dismissed them. The alternative to hiring mercenaries was to suffer defeat, and defeat meant more than turning the cheek to receive another slap. I have been asked many times, rhetorically, ‘What do wars really settle’? ‘Nothing’, I now respond, ‘except who owns the land, who works it, what taxes and services will be demanded, what languages are spoken, what religions are followed. Other than that, perhaps not much’.
When important values are at stake – who lives, who dies, who flourishes, who suffers – one can understand hiring mercenaries. Some will do more for less justification.
Mercenaries were more than a gang of toughs. Nobles were mercenaries, too. As Maurice Keen says in his authoritative work, Chivalry, ‘In terms of motivation, calculation and conduct the line between gentlemen and mercenary was simply too difficult to draw with precision’. Hence, this book will examine the old contention that gentlemen, even today, are too grand to soil their hands with commerce, especially with the business of war. As one who teaches in a small but good liberal arts college in the American Midwest, I am aware of a widespread academic tendency to pour scorn on programs which prepare students for employment – students should be educated, not trained. One extension of this argument is that ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps), which trains volunteer students to be officers, should be abolished. I occasionally ask, ‘Where is a democratic nation to develop its future officers?’ The response is usually a shrug – meaning ‘not here’ – but occasionally I get an answer that suggests that armies are no more necessary than police.
I can live with that. But only in a conversational sense, a willingness to humour overly excitable colleagues, not as agreeing that muggers will disappear as soon as governments do. This book will show that every society has individuals who will take advantage of disorder to indulge their worst instincts.
Also, if Sellar and Yeatman are correct in saying that history is not what you thought it was, but what you remember, I hope that readers will look at modern fictional accounts of medieval history with new appreciation and all movies with scepticism.
No one likes mercenaries. Yet everyone has used them. Advancing the awareness of this widespread practice of the past and the present should be justification enough for a book on mercenaries and the business of war.
William Urban
Lee L. Morgan Professor of History and International Affairs
Monmouth College (Illinois)