Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena

 Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena, by William Caferro

“Ultimately, mercenary raids must be regarded in the same manner as the plagues and famines of the era – as disasters that were destined to run their course and exact a certain price. The only real hope that Siena had to avoid the great costs was if, by chance, a company chose not to enter its territory.” (Caferro 1998, 102)

The above quote neatly sums up the authors interpretation of the cities response to the mercenary companies that attacked Siena in the 14th century. There were at least two key components that led to the city succumbing to the mercenary raids, its location and its economy. Firstly the city was positioned along the Via Francigena, in between Florence and the Papal States. If you wanted to get your mercenaries to Rome, you passed through Siena’s hinterland. Secondly the sparsely defended agrarian economy of Siena was an attractive target to the mercenary bands in addition to being located on their way to elsewhere. The companies could restock their livestock and grain at little to no danger to themselves, extort a bribe from the government of Siena, and then be on their way to wherever they had been hired to go to. The book covers the period between 1342 to 1399 which includes times of relative peace during the Hundred Years War in France that prompted those free companies to seek their pay elsewhere.

There’s a great deal of analysis of the books and accounts of Siena from the available records of the time that shows how much the city paid in bribes to the companies to get them to leave, including the frequency of bribes and where the money came from. In brief, the city was in a near constant financial crisis for over 50 years as its livelihood was decimated by the frequent mercenary raids that it could not prevent. The city celebrated a single major victory over a single mercenary company in that time which actually cost the city more in gold in payments to its soldiers and own mercenaries than it would have cost to pay off the raiders. With a shrinking revenue base, the different groups that ruled the city were all forced to extract loans from their citizens to pay off the mercenaries, a cycle that placed the city in the debt of its own citizens. The Tuscan cities attempted to utilized the economic tools of trading leagues for mutual defense but the mistrust and backstabbing between the cities kneecapped the leagues from having a meaningful function.

The author is as fair as he can be with describing the efforts of Siena to resist the mercenary companies. They had almost no control over the companies that regularly invaded their territory and had little choice other than to borrow money from themselves to pay off the companies. Returning to the initial quote, I think the author unintentionally does the people of the city a disservice by categorizing the mercenary companies as a natural disaster. One can compare the effects of natural disasters to the rampage of the companies and see a similar outcome, but the motive force behind the different disasters renders the comparison unjust. The hand that chooses to wield the sword is responsible for the life they take; just because their victim cannot defend themselves doesn’t absolve the moral failing of the attacker. I don’t believe the author intends to make such an argument, but I’m wary of any generalizations that rob the agent of their responsibility for their actions.

Medieval Mercenaries by Kenneth Fowler

I finished Medieval Mercenaries yesterday. The book wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be but I'm glad I read it. The book is focused on the time between the first and second phases of the Hundred Years War, the time between the signing of the Treaty of Brétigny and the "resumption" of hostilities in 1369 and follows the movements of the mercenary companies that were supposed to disarm following the Treaty. During the roughly 9 years of “peace” these companies were a problem for everyone, from the nobles that wanted to hire them to the peasants whose lives they ruined. This book covers the movements of the companies in modern day France and Spain; the author intended a second volume to review the companies in Italy from 1369-94 but sadly they have passed away. Medieval Mercenaries was first published in February, 2001.

One of the recurring themes throughout the book is the damage that the companies inflict wherever they go. There is no place they went that they didn’t pillage, burn, rape, or murder. They were like locusts, descending upon a population, taking what they want, and leaving nothing of value in return. When they took castles and towns by force, the local governments had to pay them ransom if they couldn’t evict them by force. These taxes for these ransoms were collected from the same people that the companies had rampaged through; peasants suffered when the companies came and they suffered when they left. Leaders would triage their countryside, bringing needed supplies and people into fortified places when the companies were operating in the area because often times the government did not have the force of arms to adequately deal with them. Instead of relying solely on a standing army, these mercenary companies were used as the armies of the states, and instead of disbanding at the conclusion of peace to be penniless and without a job, they continued fighting for whoever would pay them and in lieu of employment travel from region to region, capturing and ransoming cities and towns.

When state leaders would make plans to hire the companies they included stipulations in their contracts to try and prevent the companies from pillaging in their lands but these empty promises. The companies knew they had the power. As long as the state lacked it’s own military, the companies were a necessary evil for the governments who employed them. The companies could be considered weapons of war that no one had control over. They were used because there was no adequate alternative to them and they consequences of their use were felt mainly by the lower classes. In some ways one might compare them to a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon of today, not in the sense that there are no alternatives, but that that is no “safe” way to employ them. There are environmental consequences inherent to the manufacture and use of NBC weapons and the depredations of the companies could be viewed as analogous to an environmental impact of those weapons.

The state leaders had no love for these mercenaries. The book lists accounts of many company captains captured and executed instead of ransomed. The popes at various times excommunicated the companies or promised them absolution in order to persuade them. If the nobles didn’t pay the companies after they had completed their campaign the companies would simply take what they wanted from the region. At one point some of the companies who had been hired to invade a region to put someone on the throne there were later hired by another noble to go and remove him.

One thing I’ve thought of often while reading this book is the St Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare's Henry V. Though that battle of Agincourt doesn’t happen until 1415, a few decades after the events of this book, I don’t believe the principle agents involved in the war have changed their tactics. Armies and companies still took whatever they wanted from the people and land they passed through, destroying the lives of the people who would be later told to be pay coin to pay for the war. The men celebrated in the St Crispin’s Day Speech are no heroes and deserve no such honors. On the whole they were armed brigands who fought to make themselves rich at the expense, both economically and physically, of the poor.

The next book I’m reading is Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena, a book published in 1998 about the companies in Italy in the 14th century.

 "Taufers on the Tyrol" by Charlotte J. Weeks (Magazine of Art, Illustrated, published 1878).

CRACK! Smack ! We hear the whip of the driver of the “ Stellwagen,” and the cessation of the intolerable rattling caused by the wheels of this delightful equipage over the “petrified kidney” stones of the quiet little street in Bruneck informs us that the aforesaid vehicle has stopped at the “Sun” inn, according to orders, to take up two passengers who are bound on a trip of exploration for Taufers.

Having been told that Taufers is “malerisch,” that an old castle is there, formerly inhabited by giants (so say the peasants), we determine to spy out this promised land for our sketch-books and canvas, and set out on a June morning with the freshness and energy which come specially at 6 a.m. and in Alpine atmosphere at an elevation 3,000 feet above sea-level. After a drive of an hour and a half we reach our destination — the little village of Sand, which lies immediately under the shadow, as it were, of the old castle. This interesting building, dating from the twelfth century, occupies a most commanding site on an eminence overtowered on both sides by high and thickly-wooded mountains, and in the background the glaciers and snowy peaks of the Zillerthaler Kamm rise in fairy-like beauty.

But where shall we begin among the many attractions which this neighbourhood offers us? Shall we take a peep along that road under the castle, on the left of which rises the mountainside, covered with fir-tree forests which cast a gloomy shade over the scene and heighten the weird effect of the rapid, rushing stream which dashes down the valley, forming the right-hand boundary of the road — a road destined in a few months to become the victim of this impetuous, mighty torrent at its side? The occasional peeps one gets through the trees of the distant glaciers add a magic charm to this bit of nature.

Or shall we scale the rugged eminence on the other side of the torrent, which is crowned with that hoary sentinel and hider of so many dark secrets, the “Schloss”? We will scramble up the stony, zigzag path leading to it, a work of twenty minutes, and now we stand breathless at the foot of what was once a drawbridge. The watch-towers stand faithful at their post, but where are the watchers? The arrowslits for the defenders face us indeed, but we pass unchallenged through the desolate archway, and find ourselves in a long passage between the inner and outer walls of the fortress. We come to another archway, stolid in its granite firmness, and here are traces to be found of a second drawbridge, now done away with; the old oaken doors which still remain in this archway, thickly studded with nails, are a study of colour in themselves. Passing on over the roughly paved and ascending path, we turn a corner, and through the last archway reach the courtyard, now still and green, but once how busily thronged with the retainers and men of war of the Lords of Taufers!

On the right hand as one enters is the oldest building — the house which is set apart for the female part of the family; it is far gone in ruin, but its narrow windows, with column and arch, tell of its origin in a time corresponding to our Norman period. Adjoining this is the one remaining wall of the once fatal tower known as the “Fallthurm," or Fall Tower, indicating by its name its convenient trap-door arrangement in the top storey, through which many an inconvenient personage made acquaintance for the last time with the cold steel of the pikes and halberds awaiting him below. On the other side of the courtyard is the part which is still inhabited, truly, hut by peasants, who, however, from an artistic point of view, fit better into these odd nooks and corners than we children of the present do. On the ground-floor is a large panelled room, coloured a deep, rich brown tone by the hand of time ; quaint windows, with little round panes of glass, produce a picturesque light and shade over the whole not otherwise obtainable.

Above this is another panelled room, richly carved and ornamented, a little gem of its kind; round half the chamber, as border, a riddle is carved in old German characters and orthography, hardly intelligible now. Each door is a study, in colour, form, and ornament, with hinges of cunningly worked iron; the window is alcove-shaped; and a bank runs round the wall. To describe everything in detail would be to destroy its charm. The kitchen, the windows with their little cornered seats, the old well in the courtyard, the little garden on the rock outside the outer wall — in all the artist finds material for his sketch-book, and rich suggestions for future work.

A slight history of the owners of the castle may not be uninteresting or out of place. Taufers is first mentioned in the year 1080, but not until the year 1140 does the family seem to have risen to any importance; but from then, until it died out in 1312, it was one of the most influential in that part of the Tyrol, had built and owned many castles in the vicinity, such as Neuhaus, Uttenheim, Eppem, etc., and was connected by ties of marriage with most of the noble families of the country. The last of the Taufers was Ulrich IV., and on his death the Castle of Taufers and part of the estates went to his wife's family, the Counts of Gorz and Tyrol. In their hands it remained till 1456, when it came, partly by inheritance and partly by purchase, to the Bishopric of Brixen. After much changing of hands it was bought in 1689 by the Count of Ferrari, whose family again sold it, a few years ago, to a Vienna Building Company, to whom now belong the venerable building and the wooded acres. Truly a prosaic fate ! It was in 1485 that the outer entrance and watch-towers, with part of the outer walls, were added to the castle, much to the enhancement of the general effect.

As I am not a landscape-painter, I have confined my description and sketches to that which had the most interest for me, and which I can say, without exaggeration, is a treasure-trove for genre and historical painters, viz., Schloss-Taufers. Not that I am insensible to the voice of nature, which in this picturesque district is varied as the human voice itself, bright sunshine dispelling the hazy mists of morning or tinging the mountain peaks with its parting rays, storm and cloud adding only to the grand effect of gloomy forest, mountain glade, and dashing waterfall. It is worthy of note that there are three beautiful waterfalls within an hour’s walk of the village of Sand — the Bojerhach Fall, and the first two Rainthal Falls.

I will only add, for the guidance of intending pilgrims to this “artists’ haunt,” that the nearest railway station is Bruneck, on the Pusterthaler branch line from Franzensfeste. From Bruneck the distance is about an hour and a half’s drive. Daily postal communication, and very good inns.

C. Weeks