The Business of War in Europe. 1000–1600 75some neighboring border fortress or the like. The relationship was
conceived simply as an emergency service.
A short-term contractual relationship, however, carried relatively
high costs. Each time an agreed period of service expired, the soldiers
faced a critical transition. If new employment could not be found, they
had a choice between plundering for a living or shifting to some more
peaceable occupation. Whether to disperse or remain leagued to
gether as a single body of men was a related and no less critical
decision. Obviously, to remain successful a captain had to find new
contracts. Frequent shifts of employers and a careful husbanding of
the condottiere’s salable resources—horses, men, arms, and armor—
was a necessary implication of short-term contracts.
Friction and distrust between employer and employed was built into
such a relationship, for both parties constantly had to look ahead to a
time when their contractual relationship would come to an end. The
free market in organized violence meant that today’s employee might
become tomorrow’s enemy. Consciousness of this possibility meant
that solidarity of sentiment between mercenary troops and the au
thorities who paid them was not, initially, very great.
But this fragility was uncomfortable to both sides, and by degrees,
as the perennial succession of military emergencies became apparent
to city magistrates and taxpayers, the advantages of making longer-
term contracts became obvious. By the early decades of the fifteenth
century, accordingly, long-term associations between a particular
captain and a given city became normal. Lifetime service to a single
employer became usual, though such ties were only the result of
repeated renewals of contracts, each of which might run for two to five
years.
Regular employment of the same captain went hand in hand with
stabilization and standardization of the personnel under his command.
Long-term professional soldiers were arranged into units of fifty or a
hundred “lances.” A “lance” originally meant an armored knight and
the following he brought with him into the field. But commercializa
tion soon required standardization of personnel and equipment,
making each lance into a combat team of three to six men, armed
differently but mutually supportive in battle and linked by close per
sonal relations. Regular muster and review then allowed magistrates to
verify the physical reality of what they were paying for. Reciprocally,
terms of service achieved contractual definition. In this way a regular
standing army of known size and capability emerged in the better-
governed cities of Italy during the first half of the fifteenth century.