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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
Interesting because the connection to Chaucer, but not really the biography it claims on the back cover. Also it seems to lose steam.
Abandoned on page 100 of 350. Just couldn't face any more. Interesting bits but a bit to jumbled and confusing.
The Devil's Broker is a fascinating popular account of the life of infamous knight and mercenary commander John Hawkwood. One of the minor English warriors who participated in the 100 Years War under Edward III, after a truce he quit formal service and joined a mercenary company. The difference between royal service and mercenary work was rather theoretical. The English chevauchee was pure economic warfare, wide-ranging looting of the countryside that paid for itself. Mercenary work was much the same.
Hawkwood's company, the White Company, crossed into Italy, and there Hawkwood found his calling. His career was complex, to say the least, with Hawkwood fighting for Milan, Florence, and the Papacy at various points, although contrary to popular beliefs about mercenaries, Hawkwood did not suddenly switch sides on the eve of battle, or avoid battle entirely. Along with sacks and sudden assaults by storm and stealth, he was a master of the feigned retreat, luring his foes into vulnerable positions for a counter-charge. He participated in the brutal Massacre at Cesena while working for the papacy, and then switched to secular service.
Saunders makes the case for Hawkwood as an influential figure of the age. Aside from someone who executed the bloody intrigues of Italian politics, he also served as model for the protagonist of Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" (the two met several times), and advanced English foreign policy in Italy, a vital market for English wool, and a strategic theater for apply leverage against the French from a second front.
Despite his long career and evident success in battle, Hawkwood died essentially broke, leaving his wife and children to make their own way in the world rather than establishing a major line. Dying in bed at the age of 71 or 72 is more than a lot of his contemporaries could say.
A Distant Mirror, this book, Mercenaries and Their Masters and
The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior would make a solid survey of the era.
Hawkwood's company, the White Company, crossed into Italy, and there Hawkwood found his calling. His career was complex, to say the least, with Hawkwood fighting for Milan, Florence, and the Papacy at various points, although contrary to popular beliefs about mercenaries, Hawkwood did not suddenly switch sides on the eve of battle, or avoid battle entirely. Along with sacks and sudden assaults by storm and stealth, he was a master of the feigned retreat, luring his foes into vulnerable positions for a counter-charge. He participated in the brutal Massacre at Cesena while working for the papacy, and then switched to secular service.
Saunders makes the case for Hawkwood as an influential figure of the age. Aside from someone who executed the bloody intrigues of Italian politics, he also served as model for the protagonist of Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" (the two met several times), and advanced English foreign policy in Italy, a vital market for English wool, and a strategic theater for apply leverage against the French from a second front.
Despite his long career and evident success in battle, Hawkwood died essentially broke, leaving his wife and children to make their own way in the world rather than establishing a major line. Dying in bed at the age of 71 or 72 is more than a lot of his contemporaries could say.
A Distant Mirror, this book, Mercenaries and Their Masters and
The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior would make a solid survey of the era.
Highly accessible history of late Medieval Italy. This is a superb read, one that is evocative of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror.
Like Tuchman, Saunders frames her book around the life and times of an individual - in this case, English mercenary John Hawkwood, who found himself in rather constant employ due to the various feuds and wars among the city-states of Italy.
Through Hawkwood, we get a good look at several of the major players in the region during this time - Catherine of Siena, the Visconti "Vipers," various popes, and royalty from France, England and the Holy Roman Empire.
It skews heavily towards the politics of the age, without getting too bogged down in details. You do get some idea of what life was like, but mainly for the elite like Hawkwood. It touches on a few subjects like religious ardor and the importance of the Church in daily life, how warfare was conducted during the time, what the average person's sex life might have been like, and so on.
There's a ton of great anecdotes in here, too.
I still consider Barbara Tuchman's book the first thing you should reach for if you're interested in the 14th century - but her work focuses more on the French and English. When you're done with it, read this book to get an idea of the workings of Italy during this time.
Like Tuchman, Saunders frames her book around the life and times of an individual - in this case, English mercenary John Hawkwood, who found himself in rather constant employ due to the various feuds and wars among the city-states of Italy.
Through Hawkwood, we get a good look at several of the major players in the region during this time - Catherine of Siena, the Visconti "Vipers," various popes, and royalty from France, England and the Holy Roman Empire.
It skews heavily towards the politics of the age, without getting too bogged down in details. You do get some idea of what life was like, but mainly for the elite like Hawkwood. It touches on a few subjects like religious ardor and the importance of the Church in daily life, how warfare was conducted during the time, what the average person's sex life might have been like, and so on.
There's a ton of great anecdotes in here, too.
I still consider Barbara Tuchman's book the first thing you should reach for if you're interested in the 14th century - but her work focuses more on the French and English. When you're done with it, read this book to get an idea of the workings of Italy during this time.
Begins briskly enough, but halfway through she gets bogged down in the minutiae of fourteenth century Florentine politics, which puts the Byzantines to shame. Nice to get a glimpse of Geoffrey Chaucer along the way.
1300's Italy, what could go wrong at this time period. The Renaissance is beginning, millions in Gold Florins are being spent on private armies, Black Death, poor harvests and famine, and millions spent on art, books, literature is expanding, the Church is in crisis, Etc Etc. On this seen arrives Hawkwood and the White Company, makes millions and has millions in costs. A quick read on a time that I am not overly familiar with. Very informative if your a history buff. Maps are excellent. The style is follow Hawkwoods career as a mercenary commander to respectable Florentine General. Digressions to how life was actually lived at this time covering eating, transport, politics, sex and religion, the three topics that are NOT discussed in a Gentleman's Mess. Good read and worth the time.
One thing is for sure: war is about money. Always has been and always will be. John Hawkwood was merely an excellent and unashamed practitioner of war as a revenue-generating activity. 1360, a treaty is signed and the Hundred Years War pauses, but people keep fighting, mostly English soldiers who stay in France to kill and burn and pillage because it beats going home and doing an honest day's work or dying of the plague. The soldiers coalesce into large companies who style themselves mercenaries, though instead of being paid to fight, they mostly just fight until they're paid to go away. Amongst the hordes laying waste to much of France is unassuming Essex man, John Hawkwood. They range far and wide until they finally threaten the pope, living in luxurious exile in Avignon. In sheer self-defence, the pope hires Hawkwood and tells him to go to Italy, and that's where Hawkwood goes, bringing an exciting new era of death and destruction with him.
Northern Italy is full of strong, prosperous city states like Milan, Florence and Siena, all of whom hate each other, a situation which Hawkwood coolly and calmly and ruthlessly exploits. Soon he and his men are killing peasants, raping women, burning crops, ransoming nobles and even defeating the odd army here and there, collecting vast sums from various signoria to go away and bother the other guy. Then the pope returns to Rome and tries to take charge and more people die and Hawkwood keeps raking it in.
Hawkwood, oddly enough, remains a cipher. We only know him through his actions, his clever maneuverings, his carefully controlled slaughtering and kidnapping and, oh yeah, that one really big massacre at Cesena. He left no writings behind to provide any sort of insight into his character or personality, and mostly he just kept soldiering and ransoming and robbing and threatening and killing because that's what he was good at. Instead we have walk-on parts by the likes of Chaucer, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Catherine of Siena to bring the age to life and illuminate the minds and souls of the players and the landscape they moved through: wealth, poverty, famine, plague, war, not to mention the obscene iniquity of holy mother church, outdoing all others in the atrocity stakes as it gropes for secular power, while its cardinals and prelates are ardent practitioners of the seven deadly sins.
This is a deeply interesting book, written with a cool, clear detachment that occasionally turns acerbic. It is an edifying and sobering piece of history, and if Hawkwood remains an enigma, it may be because we don't yet understand how much of history is carved out by cool, ruthless bastards doing whatever the hell they wanted.
Northern Italy is full of strong, prosperous city states like Milan, Florence and Siena, all of whom hate each other, a situation which Hawkwood coolly and calmly and ruthlessly exploits. Soon he and his men are killing peasants, raping women, burning crops, ransoming nobles and even defeating the odd army here and there, collecting vast sums from various signoria to go away and bother the other guy. Then the pope returns to Rome and tries to take charge and more people die and Hawkwood keeps raking it in.
Hawkwood, oddly enough, remains a cipher. We only know him through his actions, his clever maneuverings, his carefully controlled slaughtering and kidnapping and, oh yeah, that one really big massacre at Cesena. He left no writings behind to provide any sort of insight into his character or personality, and mostly he just kept soldiering and ransoming and robbing and threatening and killing because that's what he was good at. Instead we have walk-on parts by the likes of Chaucer, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Catherine of Siena to bring the age to life and illuminate the minds and souls of the players and the landscape they moved through: wealth, poverty, famine, plague, war, not to mention the obscene iniquity of holy mother church, outdoing all others in the atrocity stakes as it gropes for secular power, while its cardinals and prelates are ardent practitioners of the seven deadly sins.
This is a deeply interesting book, written with a cool, clear detachment that occasionally turns acerbic. It is an edifying and sobering piece of history, and if Hawkwood remains an enigma, it may be because we don't yet understand how much of history is carved out by cool, ruthless bastards doing whatever the hell they wanted.