Medieval Mercenaries: The Business of War

By William Urban

The Middle Ages were a turbulent and violent time, when the fate of nations was most often decided on the battlefield, and strength of arms was key to acquiring and maintaining power. Feudal oaths and local militias were more often than not incapable of providing the skilled and disciplined warriors necessary to keep the enemy at bay. It was the mercenary who stepped in to fill the ranks.

A mercenary was a professional soldier who took employment with no concern for the morals or cause of the paymaster. But within these confines we discover a surprising array of men, from the lowest-born foot soldier to the wealthiest aristocrat the occasional clergyman, even. What united them all was a willingness, and often the desire, to fight for their supper.

In this benchmark work, William Urban explores the vital importance of the mercenary to the medieval power-broker, from the Byzantine Varangian Guard to fifteenth-century soldiers of fortune in the Baltic. Through contemporary chronicles and the most up-to-date scholarship, he presents an in-depth portrait of the mercenary across the Middle Ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Release date: Nov 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781848328556

William Urban

William L Urban is an internationally recognized authority on the history of European warfare. He served as L Morgan Professor of History and International Studies at Monmouth College (Illinois). For several years he was editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies. He has written some two dozen scholarly books including The Teutonic Knights (2003) and Small Wars, and their Influence on the Nation State (2016)

Reviews for Medieval Mercenaries

[ex_ottoyuhr · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Clumsy and poorly focused. I expected a book that could compete with Braudel; I got something that is basically a cursory history of the entire Middle Ages, plus assorted meanderings in the varied directions of Vikings, movies, Frederick II, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan-Doyle, and Terry Jones versus Geoffrey Chaucer. And the author, being English, leaves no wisecrack uncracked, however puerile or irreverent, particularly when he can gun for the Catholic Church and/or the French. If the names Hawkwood, Gattamelata, Colleoni, Giangaliazzo Visconti, Cosimo de' Medici, and Leo X (Luther's era) don't ring a bell, you'll find this book decently servicable, particularly if you're also interested in (and unfamiliar with) the 19th-century novel; but even there, this is more like a rather condescending high-school textbook than a serious study, and I would recommend Clausewitz instead. (Ack -- I meant Delbruck.)The forward, which I only now realize was written by the same Terry Jones mentioned above, is spectacularly wrong-headed. How did he ever become a respectable medieval historian, much less a respectable humorist, if he interprets everything through the tired old Lefty lens that he uses here? Note that I didn't finish this book, so perhaps there are some gems in his discussion of the Teutonic Order's campaigns in Lithuania. But judging by his track record so far, I don't think it's worth it to check...