condottieri, companies, and mercenaries 191legitimate successor, Martin V (r. 1417–31). The partici-
pants in this council adopted in 1417 the decrees Haec
sanctaand Frequens,which asserted a council’s ultimate
authority over a pope. Popes were now to summon
councils frequently to maintain good practice and to
proceed with the reform of the church. At the Council of
BASELbetween 1431 and 1449, the proponents of concil-
iarism were in open conflict with the pope and his sup-
porters. Some advocated the idea of the near infallibility
of councils. Not only were such meetings, when fully
attended and properly carried out, were not only compe-
tent in times of schism or crisis, but their decisions were
also to prevail over those of a particular pope. The
papacy finally managed to mute these ideas in the 1450s,
but they have long remained influential within the
Catholic Church and unpopular with the papacy.
See also AVIGNON AND THE AVIGNONESE PAPACY;
EUGENIUSIV, POPE;PIUSII, POPE.
Further reading:Antony Black, Monarchy and Com-
munity: Political Ideas in the Later Conciliar Controversy,
1430–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1970); J. H. Burns and Thomas M. Izbicki, eds., Concil-
iarism and Papalism(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997); Christopher M. D. Crowder, Unity, Heresy,
and Reform, 1378–1460: The Conciliar Response to the
Great Schism(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977); Brian
Tierney, Foundations of Conciliar Theory: The Contribution
of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955); “Andre”
Vauchez, “Conciliarism,”EMA,1.348–49.
Concordia discordantium canonum SeeLAW, CANON
AND ECCLESIASTICAL;GRATIAN.
concupiscence In the Middle Ages concupiscence was
considered any desire toward a sensual object contrary to
the control to be exercised by reason. It was a natural
consequence of original sin. In the Middle Ages those
reflecting on ethics insisted that this sin was not the mere
existence of desire, but a desire that became a habitual
disorder that no longer submitted to the authority of the
higher powers of the soul such as informed reason. For
Thomas AQUINAS, concupiscence could be applied to all
desires of the sensual appetites, but this idea was later
usually defined as sexual desire.
See alsoCHASTITY; VIRTUES AND VICES.
Further reading:James A. Brundage, Law, Sex and
Christian Society in Medieval Europe(Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1987).
condottieri, companies, and mercenaries The
companies or great companies were bands of mercenaries
led by a captain or condottierein Italian. Appearing first
in Europe after the year 1000, they were composed of
numerous nationalities and participated in nearly every
war up to and after 1500.ITALY
In the 14th century, such bands became widespread in
ITA LY, where communal and lords of cities needed armed
troops and were unable to recruit and train from within
urban population and resources available. In the 14th
century, however, alongside mercenaries, there were still
feudal and citizen armies.
These mercenary forces became real corporations led
by private individuals, who hired themselves out to
towns or lords of towns. They were formed by a leader,
often a younger son of a local feudal family who gath-
ered around himself men of varied origins, generally
poor and determined to make their way in the world by
the profession of arms. They served whoever offered
most compensation. Their captain was called the condot-
tiere,as the one who dealt with the contractual employ-
ment or condotta of the company. Germans, English,
Swiss, Bretons, and Gascons soon came into Italy. Many
mercenary soldiers, mostly foreigners, entered Italy to
serve with the emperors Henry VII (r. 1308–13) and
Louis IV of Bavaria (r. 1314–47) and remained there, to
become the first mercenary companies. Toward the end
of the 14th century, primarily Italian companies came
into being. These mercenary militias eventually formed
standing armies for the European monarchical states,
thus making rulers independent of the military support
of their subjects and vassals. In Italy the companies
caused disturbance and instability by fiscal exactions and
terror. The condottieriquickly aspired to play an ever
greater role in the political life of the various states and
some, such as Francesco Sforza (d. 1466), made them-
selves rulers of cities and states.FRANCE
In 1360, the conclusion of the peace of Brétigny-Calais
between the king of FRANCE, John II (r. 1350–64), and
the king of England, EDWARDIII, had as a consequence a
massive number of unemployed soldiers. Some grouped
together under the orders of captains to continue the
marauding war for their own benefit. From 1360 to
1362, they successively attacked Champagne, the Bar-
rois, and BURGUNDY; they then reached the Rhone Valley,
ravaging the region of LYONand Forez. They soon spread
through the rest of the kingdom. A quasi-permanent
state of war in France kept armies in the pay of the
Crown, so the companies eventually found enough
employment to deter them from devastating the country-
side to survive. One major employer, the pope, could not
afford a more or less standing army, so that employment
was irregular and more frequently in Italy. In monarchi-
cal France mercenary captains were unable to seize con-
trol of whole towns or regions and become princes in
their own right.