Free companies | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2019-02-08

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_company


00:01:20 1 Early history
00:03:43 2 Brigands
00:06:29 3 Italy
00:07:56 4 List of Free Companies
00:08:06 5 See also



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SUMMARY
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A free company (sometimes called a great company or grande companie) was an army of mercenaries between the 12th and 14th centuries recruited by private employers during wars. They acted independently of any government, and were thus "free".  They regularly made a living by plunder when they were not employed; in France they were the routiers and écorcheurs who operated outside the highly structured law of arms. The term "free company" is most applied to those companies of soldiers which formed after the Peace of Brétigny during the Hundred Years' War and were active mainly in France, but it has been applied to other companies, such as the Catalan Company and companies that operated elsewhere, such as in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire.
The free companies, or companies of adventure, have been cited as a factor as strong as plague or famine in the reduction of Siena from a glorious rival of Florence to a second-rate power during the later fourteenth century; Siena spent 291,379 florins between 1342 and 1399 buying off the free companies. The White Company of John Hawkwood, probably the most famous free company, was active in Italy in the latter half of the fourteenth century.