Can you tell me about mercenaries Veeky Forums?

Can you tell me about mercenaries Veeky Forums?

I can understand why one might decide to become a mercenary, but I'm more interested in the organisation and administration of mercenary bands themselves

How were they contracted? What did they do during peacetime? Were they held under the authority of kings or their own leaders? Where would they live? How were they paid?

Depends of the type, the nationality and the era you're talking about.
Note that I'll mostly talk about France because this is what I studied.

In France, there were always bands of "routiers", local soldiers who would form huge bands moving from village to village until they found an employ during a private war. After a big conflict, like the one between Philip Augustus and John Lackland, they could have been awarded castles or even be knighted.

The more "professional" bands of mercenaries must have been the Genoese, highly paid, trained together, living together roman-style, with their valets and their crossbows. They would leave Genoa, follow the King, fight, and then head back home once the war is finished. Doesn't mean the french liked them. At Crécy, when they retreated, they were cut down by the frog knights.

But overall, mercenaries have always been a pain in the ass. In the XVth Century, they were nicknamed the "écorcheurs" (The flayers), because they were huge bands of soldiers, some of them were even knights, who would go from village to village, and force the peasants to feed them, to give them shelter and everything, looting and stealing so that they could still keep a living.
Mercenary bands were mostly nomadic. They were generally united under one big leader, a "pack wolf" if you will, who would have to be very charismatic. In theory they only follow the guy who pay them, the problem is that sometimes the King would have no more money to feed them, and then they were off to pillage and ruin the countryside.
In fact, it was at such a point, that peace was even more ruinous than war from France. In the XIVth Century, the Marshall of France Du Guesclin had to move away all of the mercenary bands that were plaguing France ; He could not destroy them, so he just took them with him into Spain.

Well my knowledge of Mercenaries is mostly about the sort you'd find in antiquity, mainly the Hellenistic period 323BC to 31BC.

Greece was over populated, and many men would migrate to the Hellenic states of Egypt or the Seleucids. These men would be granted land in return for military service obligations, typically as cavalry or in the phalanx. However they were not mercenaries, they were not paid a wage, their "pay" was the farm they'd been given.

The other type of Greek who did want to leave Greece, but not settle, became a mercenary, and there were hundreds of thousands of them. They would typically join a mercenary company, just like in Medieval times. They were generally always trained as either Thureophoroi, or Thorakitai. These troops use a spear and sword and light oval shield, they are mobile troops, able to skirmish with javelins or fight in a sort of formation, the Thorakitai are Thureophoroi except they wear armour. Essentially they're a very versatile band of soldiers, extremely useful to any leader, unlike the effective but inflexible phalanx that made up the core of a Greek army. Some exceptions were the famous Cretan archers, hiring themselves out as not just archers but capable in light melee as well, and of course the Galatians, who would form their own mercenary bands, and were very popular in use across the Greek world, I guess they were a form of shock troops to be used at the right moment.

Mercenaries were simply called "Paid troops" in Ancient Greek, which itself proves that getting a wage was a rare thing, considering almost all troops who were paid were mercenaries. In fact, mercenaries sometimes comprised up to 75% of an army, the smaller Greek states, lacking in manpower but having plenty of money, had almost entirely mercenary armies. They were less of a problem than the roving mercenaries of the middle ages, as they were more akin to a standing army. The mercenary band would soon find itself in employment and on a permanent payroll, they were often stationed on garrison duty and employed for many years. The line between mercenary and soldier can sometimes become blurred, especially when you have mercenaries who are actually the nationality of the nation they are fighting for, but ultimately they are mercenaries as if their pay stopped for any reason, they simply left.

Some mercenaries got to very high ranks within the military they fought for and would then go on to start their own mercenary bands, we know this from some funeral stele found recording their lives.

Free companies were open for anyone to join and were the most notorious for looting and acts of banditry, they were also semi-democratic,with their most experienced troops allowed to vote.

A condottiere was essentially a noble and his vassals undertaking contractual missions for an employer.Most condotte revolved around a core of heavy armored knights,John Hawkwood began as the captain of a free company then got upgraded to a noble condottiere.

Landsknechts are a German version of condottiere but they were banned from serving enemy powers,altough the notorious Black Band openly fought under the French banners.

All you need to know is that the modern word Brigand meaning bandit, ambusher, etc, in medieval times simply meant soldier.

Not OP but do you have any more info about the genose mercs, i heard a lot about them but i never found anything good to reab about them

>That pic
based Graham Turner

They were to the French what balearic slingers were to the Carthaginians. Professional, skilled skirmishers generally.

Or is this just meme history that I got from playing total war? Who knows.

Brigand comes from Brigandine, the armour