{"id":895,"date":"2008-05-04T02:33:43","date_gmt":"2008-05-04T06:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=895"},"modified":"2018-08-14T07:49:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T11:49:39","slug":"16197-%c2%a0-frances-stonor-saunders-the-devil%e2%80%99s-broker-%e2%80%95-seeking-gold-god-and-glory-in-14th-century-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=895","title":{"rendered":"16197. (Frances Stonor Saunders) The Devil\u2019s Broker \u2015 Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in 14th Century Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a very well-writ\u00adten study of the role of the Eng\u00adlish con\u00addot\u00adtieri<\/em> who were the Hal\u00adibur\u00adton Gang of four\u00adteenth cen\u00adtury Italy. It focus\u00ades on the char\u00adac\u00adter of John Hawk\u00adwood, a minor Eng\u00adlish knight who rose to lead\u00ader\u00adship among the mer\u00adce\u00adnary armies that were cast loose on France and Italy, when the Hun\u00addred Years War entered a lull. Saun\u00adders\u2019 prose is excel\u00adlent, and evoca\u00adtive, her grasp of the evi\u00addence is strong, and she has a com\u00admon-sense vision of the real life behind the documents.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Com\u00admon action against these for\u00admi\u00adda\u00adble fight\u00ading machines could nev\u00ader be achieved as long as local inter\u00adest dom\u00adi\u00adnated Ital\u00adian pol\u00adi\u00adtics, as Mat\u00adteo Vil\u00adlani under\u00adstood. \u201cAlthough both the tyrants and the pop\u00adu\u00adlar gov\u00adern\u00adments of Italy hat\u00aded the [com\u00adpa\u00adnies],\u201d he wrote, \u201cso great was the divi\u00adsion into fac\u00adtions and the rival\u00adry between republics and tyrants that each pre\u00adferred to spend mon\u00adey on hir\u00ading com\u00adpa\u00adnies rather than fight\u00ading them.\u201d The mere exis\u00adtence of a sup\u00adply of mer\u00adce\u00adnar\u00adies cre\u00adated a demand for their ser\u00advices. Gov\u00adern\u00adments employed them sim\u00adply because they were there, and because, if they didn\u2019t, rival gov\u00adern\u00adments would. It had become \u201ca ruinous\u00adly expen\u00adsive game of see-saw,\u201d in which the val\u00adue of the com\u00adpa\u00adnies was the pure\u00adly neg\u00ada\u00adtive one of main\u00adtain\u00ading the bal\u00adance of mil\u00adi\u00adtary pow\u00ader between the cities. Again and again, as the free\u00adlance depre\u00adda\u00adtions became intol\u00ader\u00ada\u00adble, plans for form\u00ading a league against the com\u00adpa\u00adnies were put for\u00adward, but each time the ambi\u00adtion or fear of some city would ruin the attempt, and the scram\u00adble for sol\u00addiers would be repeat\u00aded. As one his\u00adto\u00adrian writes, \u201cThe leagues became sources of intrigue and exclu\u00adsion, cyn\u00adi\u00adcal devices, serv\u00ading only to deep\u00aden mutu\u00adal antipathies.\u201d In any case, it would have been nec\u00ades\u00adsary to hire more sol\u00addiers to dri\u00adve them out, thus exac\u00ader\u00adbat\u00ading the prob\u00adlem. And it was use\u00adless for the popes to cling to their res\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion of induc\u00ading the adven\u00adtur\u00aders to go on cru\u00adsade as long as they remained one of their largest employ\u00aders. <\/em>(p.85\u201386)<\/span><\/p>\n

We are talk\u00ading about medieval Europe, here, but the process is inher\u00adent to any place where you have trained war\u00adriors detached from loy\u00adal\u00adties to home and hearth. This, in a nut\u00adshell, I would pro\u00adpose, describes the process by which the ancient world\u2019s vil\u00adlages and ear\u00adly cities acquired kings and aris\u00adtoc\u00adra\u00adcies. I sus\u00adpect that, far from being the prod\u00aduct of an inter\u00adnal \u201cevo\u00adlu\u00adtion into com\u00adplex\u00adity\u201d, the rule of aris\u00adtoc\u00adra\u00adcies was essen\u00adtially an exter\u00adnal pre\u00adda\u00adtion that ear\u00adly vil\u00adlage and town soci\u00adeties were unable to fend off, for much the same rea\u00adsons that con\u00addot\u00adtieri <\/em>were effec\u00adtive in this medieval context.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a very well-writ\u00adten study of the role of the Eng\u00adlish con\u00addot\u00adtieri who were the Hal\u00adibur\u00adton Gang of four\u00adteenth cen\u00adtury Italy. It focus\u00ades on the char\u00adac\u00adter of John Hawk\u00adwood, a minor Eng\u00adlish knight who rose to lead\u00ader\u00adship among the \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8514,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/8514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}