Lives, Deeds and Fates of the English Captains Who Fought in the Peninsula from the Early to the Late Fourteenth Century

Historical and Geopolitical Introduction

The massive arrival of English captains and soldiers in the Italian wars of the fourteenth century is one of the most direct and least obvious consequences of the Hundred Years’ War in France. When, in May 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny formally suspended hostilities between the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of England, tens of thousands of men-at-arms who had lived by war for years suddenly found themselves without employment and without pay. Veterans of Crécy and Poitiers, Welsh archers, Gascon captains, English squires, cadets of noble families, illegitimate sons of lords, soldiers of fortune: a generation of professional fighting men who knew nothing else and were capable of nothing else.

From this military crisis, more than a political one, the Great Company was born: an aggregation of mercenary bands of various nationalities that, from the end of 1360, swept across southern France and the Rhône valley, plundering Champagne, Burgundy, and Languedoc, reaching as far as Avignon, where Pope Innocent VI resided. The capture of Pont-Saint-Esprit, twenty-five miles from the papal city, in December 1360, marked the moment when the adventurers discovered they were capable of bringing a pontiff to his knees. To rid themselves of their presence, the papacy, with the collaboration of the Marquis of Montferrat, found a solution typical of its age: paying the company to induce it to move elsewhere and directing it toward other lands.

That “elsewhere” was Italy. Already in the spring of 1361, the company, led by the German Albrecht Sterz and renamed the White Company on account of its mirror-polished armour, crossed the Maritime Alps on the commission of Marquis Giovanni Palaiologos of Montferrat, then at war with the Visconti of Milan. From that moment, and for the following thirty years, the English presence in Italy became a structural feature of the peninsula’s military landscape. The British captains were never a unified faction, nor a royal expeditionary force: they were professionals who changed employers with the seasons, selling their swords to the Visconti as readily as to the pope, to the Pisans as to the Florentines, to the Sienese as to the King of Naples. Yet their style of combat, founded on the dismounted archer and the English lance of three men (the man-at-arms, the squire, and the page or archer), introduced into Italy tactical methods destined to exert a lasting influence on the art of war in the peninsula.

Their operational context was that of a fragmented Italy in which the Visconti, the Roman and Avignonese papacies, the Tuscan republics, the Romagnol lords, the Angevin Kingdom of Naples, and the Piedmontese marquisates fought one another within a system of shifting alliances. It was an age in which war had been almost entirely delegated to foreign military entrepreneurs; in which cities no longer possessed citizen militias capable of holding their own against the companies; in which the practice of the “taglia,” the payment of a sum to induce mercenaries to abandon a territory, was an instrument of active policy. Against this backdrop the English operated, initially within the White Company of Sterz, then divided among the Company of the Star of Anichino di Baumgarten, the Company of St George of Ambrogio Visconti and Giovanni Acuto, the Holy Company, and the Company of the Rose, before being absorbed, finally, into the standing armies of Florence, Venice, the Church, and the Visconti.

The apex of this trajectory is the figure of Giovanni Acuto, John Hawkwood, the only foreign mercenary to whom Florence granted an equestrian fresco in Santa Maria del Fiore. But around him, before and after him, revolves a gallery of lesser and greater captains, whose careers are often surprising: one ends as lord of Romagnol or Piedmontese lands; another dies beheaded by Lazio peasants; another returns to England to become a landowner or a member of Parliament; another is buried in Savona after escorting the body of a Count of Savoy; another falls in battle near Motrone; another disappears into Visconti prisons. The pages that follow reconstruct their stories drawing exclusively on the site condottieridiventura.it, in chronological order of their disappearance and taking into account ties of company, subordination, and, where documented, of blood.

Bertrando Guglielmi: the Solitary Precursor

Even before the great post-Brétigny mercenary wave broke over Italy, an English captain by the Italianised name of Bertrando Guglielmi appears in the Veneto during the wars between Padua and the Scaligeri of Verona. He was of great stature and very robust. In June 1312 he fought alongside the Paduans against the troops of Cangrande della Scala; in May 1314 he took part in the Paduan campaign, under the summer sun, in an army decimated by disease. In June of the same year, however, he defected to the Veronese side on account of delayed pay and moved to the defence of Vicenza. From there he carried out raids into Paduan territory until, surprised at Fontaniva while attempting to ford the Brenta, he was attacked in the woods by Ponzino Ponzoni and mortally wounded by a lance thrust from Paolo Dente. Carried dying to Padua, he died in prison a few days later and was buried with full honours in June 1314. His presence, though isolated in time, shows that the phenomenon of English mercenaries in Italy has roots older than the mass event that followed 1360.

The Generation of the White Company

The true entrance of the English onto the Italian stage coincides with the descent of the White Company in 1361. It is a cohesive generation, shaped by the Hundred Years’ War, which crosses the Alps virtually as a body and fragments only gradually, through defections, alliances, and mutual conflicts.

Andrea di Belmonte / Andrew Belmont

Nicknamed Dubramonte and credited with royal blood on account of his gentlemanly manners, which contrasted sharply with those of the other condottieri, Andrea di Belmonte was the illegitimate son of Henry Beaumont, Earl of Buchan. He had a son, Thomas, who remained in Italy after his father’s death and joined Giovanni Acuto‘s Company of St George with the rank of marshal.

A veteran of the Hundred Years’ War, in 1360 he linked up with Giovanni Acuto at Pont-Saint-Esprit. He entered the Great Company and took part in the expedition against Avignon. Having joined Sterz‘s White Company, he is recorded at Rivarolo Canavese in November 1361 at the signing of the agreement between the adventurers and the Marquis of Montferrat. He distinguished himself by his courtesy: in 1363, during the raids into Tuscany in the service of Pisa, he formed a relationship with a certain monna Tancia of Figline Valdarno, wife of Guido della Foresta, and out of regard for her spared her husband’s lands from devastation. In May 1364 he followed Sterz and Baumgarten in their defection from the Pisans and in the formation of the Company of the Star, receiving 2,000 florins for the separation. At San Miniato he offered himself to the Florentines; instead he passed into the service of the Papal State and the Queen of Naples for 1,200 florins. In October 1364 he returned to the Perugian territory with Giovanni Breccia and Ugo della Zucca, raided toward Lake Trasimeno, and seized Castelnuovo. In November, defeated by Anichino di Baumgarten and Sterz, he was left in a dire situation near the same lake; he capitulated, and obtained from the priors of Perugia ten days of free passage in exchange for a promise not to damage the contado during his march of transfer. In January 1365 he concluded, in the castle of Pissina in the Marsica, an agreement with Gomez Albornoz: 160,000 florins in exchange for five years of peace toward the Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples, and an extended period of service against Baumgarten.

In July 1365, having reappeared with Ugo della Zucca in the Peglio valley to claim their pay, he was attacked near San Mariano by the Company of the Star; taking refuge in a castle near Lake Trasimeno, after two days of siege without water or wine, he capitulated. Conducted as a prisoner to Perugia with 1,600 men and the captains Ugo della Zucca, Giovanni Breccia, and a Hungarian captain, he was invited to a banquet: he was offered citizenship with the ownership of a house in the city in exchange for a promise not to bring his forces back into Perugian territory for five years. He remained in the city as a hostage until 1366, when an agreement between Giovanni Acuto and Perugia secured his complete release. In January and February 1367, entrusted with the task of raising troops for the Perugians while his three companions remained as hostages, he defected by joining Acuto‘s and Ambrogio Visconti‘s Company of St George. For his betrayal, the hall in Perugia where the magistrates had decided to restore his freedom was subsequently renamed the “Hall of Bad Counsel.” In March 1367 he took part in the victory at Ponte San Giovanni against the Perugians. In April he passed into the service of Galeazzo and Bernabò Visconti, who granted him a castle in fief in settlement of his pay.

According to Pellini, he rebelled against the Visconti in 1368 and was put to death; according to other sources cited in the entry (Caferro), in 1369 he was still alive and had recrossed the Alps with Ugo della Zucca to fight once again in France.

Ugo della Zucca / Hugh Mortimer

Son of the lord of the castle of Ashby in Leicestershire and a distant relative of Roger Mortimer (who had some years earlier brought about the dethronement of King Edward II of England), Ugo della Zucca‘s real name was Hugh Mortimer de la Zouche.

A companion of Belmonte and Breccia, he was involved in the same sequence of events. In 1364 he served with the Pisans against Giovanni Acuto; in May he defected with Anichino di Baumgarten and Albrecht Sterz and joined the Florentines with 25 lances. In June he entered the Company of the Star alongside Belmonte, Ramsey, Merezal, Breccia, and others. In September, in the service of the Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples, he was surprised at Roccasecca by the local inhabitants in an ambush that inflicted heavy losses on his forces. In October he returned to the Perugian territory with Belmonte and Breccia. In January and February 1365 he formed a new White Company with Nicola Unghero and Belmonte, concluding the Pissina agreement with Gomez Albornoz. In July of the same year he was captured with Belmonte and Breccia near San Mariano by the Company of the Star and conducted as a prisoner to Perugia.

Released in 1366, he was nonetheless unable to leave the city. In February 1367 he was again imprisoned because Belmonte had broken the terms of the agreement by joining the Company of St George. Only in the spring of 1369, once released, did he pass with Giovanni Breccia into the pay of Bernabò Visconti. In the same year, according to the entry, he left Italy with Belmonte to fight once more in France in the Hundred Years’ War. He returned to England in 1381, where, as a major landowner, he was caught up in the Peasants’ Revolt; he was also summoned to sit on a royal commission at Cambridge. He died around 1390.

Giovanni Breccia / John Bryce

Of noble family and a baronet, Giovanni Breccia was one of Acuto‘s closest collaborators in the early phases of his Italian career. He had a natural son captured by the Bolognese in 1376 together with those of Tornaberini, William Gold, and Acuto himself.

In 1364 he served in the White Company under Sterz; suborned by the Florentines, he left the Pisan payroll and linked up with Belmonte and Ugo della Zucca. In October of the same year he carried out several raids near Lake Trasimeno. In November, defeated at Olmo by Anichino di Baumgarten, he took refuge in a castle on the lake where he was forced to surrender. In December 1364 he was among the signatories of the Pissina agreement in the Marsica. In July 1365 he was again defeated by Baumgarten at San Mariano; he surrendered with 1,600 men for lack of water and provisions; conducted to Perugia, he was held as a hostage together with Ugo della Zucca and a Hungarian captain as a guarantee of the agreements. Imprisoned again in 1367 on account of Belmonte‘s defection, he was released in 1369 thanks to the pressure of ambassadors from Bernabò Visconti.

From 1372 he served in Acuto‘s company against the Visconti forces; he then passed to the service of the papacy. In January 1373 he was sent to France, to Avignon, to press the curia and Pope Gregory XI for the settlement of outstanding pay; he returned there in January 1374 with the same mission. Appointed marshal of the Holy Company in June 1375, he took part in the raids into Tuscany. In December of the same year, during the siege of the citadel of Perugia, he was captured by the inhabitants and robbed of all his possessions. Compensated following the negotiated surrender of the papal forces, he was present in May 1376 at the sack of Faenza, where he was seriously wounded in a brawl that broke out among English soldiers over the division of the spoils. Toward the end of 1377 he was imprisoned in Rome with forty horsemen by Gregory XI for a debt of 28,600 florins received but not delivered as ransom for the Abbot of Montmajour. Released, he took refuge in the Sienese territory with Cione della Foscola until his reconciliation with the papal forces. He died around 1380.

Ugolino Ethon / Hugh Acton

Hugh Acton was known in Italy as Ugolino Ethon. A veteran of the Hundred Years’ War, after Brétigny he entered the Great Company and took part in the pressure on Avignon. In November 1361 he is recorded at Rivarolo Canavese at the signing of the agreement between the White Company and the Marquis of Montferrat. In 1364 he served in the company of Ugo della Zucca against Anichino di Baumgarten; in December of the same year he was involved in the Pissina agreement. In 1365 he joined the Company of St George of Ambrogio Visconti and Giovanni Acuto.

In October 1365 he signed, alongside forty-two other constables and together with Ambrogio Visconti, Acuto, Thomas Merezal, and Giovanni degli Ubaldini, an agreement with the Florentines by which, in exchange for 6,000 florins, the company undertook not to damage the territories of Florence, Pistoia, Arezzo, Volterra, and San Miniato for four years. In October 1366, reported at Casaglia in the Orvietan territory, he raided the area with 300 horsemen; he was defeated and captured by the papal forces commanded by Ugolino and Francesco da Montemarte. He remained a prisoner at Orvieto for six months despite offering to pay 4,000 florins for his release: the refusal was due to the contrary opinion of Cardinal Egidio Albornoz. Released in 1367 thanks to Acuto‘s intervention, he received 1,000 florins for his upkeep. In 1368 he faced the papal forces in Romagna alongside Giovanni d’Asburgo, sharing a condotta of 20 lances and 7 packhorses with Paino di Partino. He died around 1370.

Thomas Merezal / Thomas Marshal

Also known as Thomas Marshal or Tommaso Mascalz. In 1364 he fought in the White Company for the Pisans; at the end of the conflict he followed Ugo della Zucca and Albrecht Sterz; with Richard Ramsey, Anichino di Baumgarten, and other captains he entered the Company of the Star. In September 1365 he served in the Company of St George of Ambrogio Visconti and Giovanni Acuto with the post of marshal; he raided in the Sienese territory. In October he signed with the Florentines the aforementioned agreement for 6,000 florins, which he also signed on behalf of Ambrogio Visconti, Ugolino Ethon, Giovanni degli Ubaldini, and forty-two other constables.

In October 1366 he joined Acuto in raids into the territories of Gubbio and Orvieto; he was surprised at Casaglia by the papal forces of Ugolino da Montemarte. In June 1368 he again supported Giovanni Acuto against the papal forces; he was defeated near Arezzo after four hours of fighting. He died around 1380.

William Quarton / William Quatreton

William Quarton was a veteran of the Hundred Years’ War and the Great Company, he is recorded at Rivarolo Canavese in November 1361 at the signing of the agreement between the White Company and the Marquis of Montferrat. In 1364 he again served in Sterz‘s White Company; in July he followed Sterz in the agreement with the Florentines. At a later point he left the field to contribute to the formation of the Company of the Star.

In the spring of 1366 he joined Giovanni d’Asburgo and Giovanni Acuto against the Sienese; he compelled that commune to pay the adventurers 10,500 florins for five years of peace; he signed the agreement on Acuto‘s behalf using the latter’s seal (a roebuck with three shells). In the summer of 1372, in the service of Galeazzo Visconti against the Marquis of Montferrat and Count Amedeo of Savoy, he took part in the siege of Asti; he was beaten by Ottone di Brunswick on the river Tanaro; during the fighting, which was broken off by darkness, he was captured together with Ruggero Cane by Giovanni di Vernay. He died around 1380.

Guglielmo Bosone / William Boson

Guillermo Bosson fought in France in the Hundred Years’ War and after Brétigny entered the Great Company. In November 1361 he is recorded at Rivarolo Canavese at the signing of the agreement between the White Company and Marquis Giovanni Palaiologos of Montferrat. In 1364 he served in the White Company under Giovanni Acuto‘s orders; he then followed Sterz into the Company of the Star.

In 1365 he joined the Company of St George of Ambrogio Visconti and Giovanni Acuto. In October of the same year he signed a personal agreement with the Florentines: in exchange for 6,000 florins he undertook not to damage the territory of Florence and that of its allies for five years. In January and February 1366 he fought in Liguria against the Genoese; he remained in the region at the siege of Genoa while Acuto moved to Umbria. In January 1368, in the service of Filippo di Savoia-Acaia for three months, he opposed Prince Giacomo d’Acaia with 600 horsemen and 400 infantry, devastating a vast area of Piedmont; only Pinerolo held out against him. In March of the same year he again served with Acuto under Bernabò Visconti‘s orders. In November 1368 he was hired by Edward Despenser to counter the Visconti militias. In February 1369 he once more joined Acuto against the Perugians.

In 1372 he joined Acuto in the pay of Bernabò Visconti; subsequently, in September, together with Giovanni Breccia, Richard Ramsey, and William Gold, he served in Acuto‘s company for the Papal State against the Visconti. In 1382 he obtained a loan of 400 florins from Acuto: he did not honour the agreed repayment terms. Years later (1386), Acuto still had occasion to complain about the failure to repay this sum. He died around 1390. He is remembered for having fought a duel with Azzo da Castelbarco and Giovanni Ordelaffi, pupils of the Friulian master Fiore dei Liberi.

Giovanni Acuto, Warlord of Italy

The trajectory of John Hawkwood, known in Italy as Giovanni Acuto, spans the entire story of the English mercenaries in the peninsula; it gives that story its defining character, which the entry reconstructs across decades of campaigns. A native of Sible Hedingham near Colchester in Essex, he was the youngest son of a prosperous tanner. His father, Gilbert, who died in 1340, left him an inheritance of 25 pounds in personal property. No information is given about his mother or siblings; it is certain, however, that at the outset of his career he learned the trade of arms from an uncle. In May 1377, in his role as son-in-law of Bernabò Visconti, he married Donnina, the natural daughter of the lord of Milan, in a ceremony held in Milan before the lord of Milan, his wife Regina della Scala, and their children. Donnina brought as her dowry half of Gazzuolo on the Oglio, together with vast estates in the Milanese territory worth 12,000 florins. The entry further records a natural son, Thomas, who would himself take to soldiering and was captured by the Bolognese in May 1376 along with other sons of English captains. The site additionally mentions, without names, a first English wife and other children, all taken hostage by the Visconti in October 1372. On that occasion the treasurer of the lord of Milan, Massolo della Strada, contacted him without success, seeking to persuade him to withdraw his decision to change employer in exchange for the release of his family. Acuto remained faithful to the papal forces, who described him as “an athlete of God and a faithful Christian knight.” Among the relatives he acquired through his marriage to Donnina were, in addition to his father-in-law Bernabò, his brother-in-law Carlo, lord of Cremona; among the indirect connections figures the German condottiere Corrado Prospero (Konrad Prassberg), his son-in-law. Also companions-in-arms in this circle of family connections were the German Lucio Lando (Lutz von Landau) and the Frenchman Bernardo della Sala (Bernardon de la Sale), likewise husbands of natural daughters of Bernabò.

An apprentice with a London tailor after his father’s death, Acuto soon left England to enlist as an archer under Edward III. Between 1343 and 1356 he fought in Brittany, took part in the battle of Crécy in August 1346, attracted the attention of the Black Prince, was probably knighted by the king of England himself after Poitiers, and obtained command of 250 archers. In 1359, during a truce, he devastated Gascony, stormed Pau, and raided Béarn. In October 1360, after Brétigny, he entered the Great Company with other adventurers; in mid-December, under the command of Walter Lesley, he stormed Pont-Saint-Esprit, twenty-five miles from Avignon. In March 1361 the adventurers withdrew upon payment of 100,000 florins, of which 30,000 were provided by the papal forces and the rest by the Marquis of Montferrat. Acuto, having received 10,000 florins as his share, decided to move to Italy in order to oppose Bernabò Visconti in the service of Giovanni di Montferrat.

In Piedmont, from May 1361 to April 1363, he was involved in the raids of the White Company across the Canavese, Ivrea, Asti, and Tortona; in November 1362, together with Sterz, Roberto Canolles, and others, he surprised Count Amedeo of Savoy at Lanzo Torinese, obtaining a ransom of 180,000 florins. In June 1363 he entered the service of the Pisans against Florence; after the sack of Pietrabuona he pursued the survivors to Serravalle Pistoiese and devastated the Val di Nievole. In 1364 he prosecuted the war against Florence; after being granted double pay, he clashed with the Florentines of Galeotto Malatesta in the battle of Cascina (July 1364): he suffered a heavy defeat. Subsequently at Pisa he supported the coup of Doge Giovanni dell’Agnello in exchange for 30,000 florins: he became guardian of the latter’s second son, Francesco, who would take the nickname Acuto.

In 1365 he took part in the disastrous defeat at San Mariano against the Company of the Star, managing to escape and reorganise the company. In October 1365 he signed with Ambrogio Visconti the great agreement with Florence. Over the following two years he conducted campaigns in Umbria, Tuscany, Lazio, and the Marches, alternating victories and defeats: the most significant was the battle of Ponte San Giovanni in March 1367, in which he defeated the Perugians in three hours of fighting. In May 1370, allied with the Pisan exiles, he attempted a coup de main on the city which failed and ended with the hanging of Visconti prisoners. In the following years he fought along the Emilian, Lombard, and Romagnol routes.

In May 1373 he defeated the Visconti forces at Montichiari on the banks of the Chiese, a battle that ended with the capture of Francesco d’Este, Francesco da Sassuolo, and Gabriotto da Canossa. In June 1374, at the conclusion of a truce, he organised the Holy Company with 1,500 horsemen and 500 English archers, in which numerous captains were present including Breccia, Gold, Tornaberini, Ramsey, Puer, and Beston. He swept into Tuscany. His raids extorted a total of 215,000 to 220,000 florins from the Florentines, Pisans, Lucchese, Sienese, Aretines, and Pistoians. At Prato, in July, he was reached by three messengers sent by Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa, Saint Catherine of Siena, among them her confessor Fra Raimondo di Capua, bearing a letter inviting him to depart for the crusade in the Holy Land; Acuto received the messengers graciously but ignored their appeals.

Between 1376 and 1377 he was caught up in the bloodiest events of the War of the Eight Saints: the sack of Faenza in May 1376, where he came upon two constables quarrelling over the capture of a young nun and with a Solomonic judgment decreed the prize “half each!,” having the woman cut in two; he was also present at the sack of Cesena in February 1377. He entered the city through the Porta del Soccorso while the Bretons were leaving the citadel, prompting the killing of 5,000 people. After receiving from Cardinal Noellet the fiefs of Castrocaro Terme, Bagnacavallo, Cotignola, Conselice, and Massa Lombarda, he built a fortress at Cotignola using some land ceded by the father of Muzio Attendolo Sforza. In May 1377 he changed sides and passed into the service of the Florentines.

In the years that followed he became the most powerful military captain in Italy: lord of Castrocaro Terme, Bagnacavallo, Cotignola, Conselice, Bertinoro, Faenza, Massa Lombarda, half of Gazzuolo, Montecchio Vesponi, Migliarina, Badia a Ruoti, and Caraglio in Piedmont; for a time also of the abbey of Sant’Alberto in the Val di Nizza near Pavia. He received from England a decree of absolution for crimes committed during the Hundred Years’ War; in 1373 the pope granted his illegitimate son an ecclesiastical benefice in the church of St Paul in London. The entry follows him through to March 1394, the year of his death. Florence dedicated to him the fresco by Paolo Uccello in the Cathedral, today the symbol of posthumous recognition granted to a mercenary who had become a civic hero.

One note in the entry deserves to be recorded: the villa “I Tatti,” today the celebrated home of Bernard Berenson, stands on the site of the castle of Vincigliata, which Giovanni Acuto had burned in 1364. The property was purchased and rebuilt in its time by John Temple-Leader, another figure who serves as a bridge, centuries later, between England and Tuscany.

Independent Captains and Shorter Careers

Edward Despenser

Lord of Alba and Mondovì. His Italian story is closely bound up with the marriage, in June 1368 in Milan, between Lionel of Clarence (third son of King Edward III of England) and Violante (Valentina) Visconti. Lionel died in mid-October; his English followers suspected poisoning; they refused to return to Bernabò Visconti the dowry brought by his niece.

Edward Despenser gathered bands of English, Gascon, and Breton soldiers already in the service of the Marquis of Saluzzo and of Filippo di Savoia-Acaia (among them William Boson); backed by Marquis Giovanni of Montferrat, he refused to return the dotal lands to Galeazzo Visconti. In February 1369 he defeated the Visconti forces commanded by Giovanni Caimi and Jacopo dal Verme at Castagnito, capturing both condottieri. In October he ceded the lands in his possession (Alba and Mondovì) to the Marquis of Montferrat for 26,000 florins on loan, perhaps only a nominal transaction, obliging himself to serve the marquis against the Visconti. In 1370 he passed into the pay of the Florentines, facing the Visconti with limited success. He is depicted in a fresco by Andrea da Firenze in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, portrayed with the Order of the Garter.

In 1372 he left Italy and returned to France in the service of Pope Urban V; in 1373 he again fought in the Hundred Years’ War. He died around 1375. His Italian experience is recorded in a brief diary by one of his soldiers, John Carrington.

Richard Musard, “the Black Squire”

Natural son of Lord Malcolm Musard, lord of Aiguebelle. Richard Musard married a Piedmontese noblewoman. Known as “the black squire,” his trajectory differs from that of all the other English captains of his generation: he chose to bind himself permanently to Count Amedeo VI of Savoy, “the Green Count,” with whom he built a relationship of personal friendship.

A fighter in the Hundred Years’ War, after Brétigny he entered the Great Company. In mid-December 1360, under the command of Walter Lesley, he joined Acuto and Sterz in the capture of Pont-Saint-Esprit. In February 1361 Pope Innocent VI sent to him, as to Acuto and Lesley, a letter seeking peace. Having arrived in Italy with the White Company, he soon left the adventurers to enter the service of Amedeo VI, whose friend he became and by whom he was enfeoffed with certain lands. He fought against the Marquises of Saluzzo and Montferrat. In September 1361 he took part in the siege of Carignano; during this period he was frequently used by the Green Count as an ambassador to the companies of fortune active in Savoyard territory.

In April 1364 Count Amedeo created a chivalric order of fourteen members whose emblem was a collar inscribed three times with the word FERT; Richard Musard was invited to join it. In 1365 he departed from Venice to join Amedeo of Savoy in an expedition against Bulgarians and Turks in support of Emperor John V Palaiologos of Constantinople, a cousin of the Green Count. After numerous engagements he entered Gallipoli. In June 1368 he was in Milan for the wedding of Lionel of Clarence and Violante Visconti; on that occasion he managed to prevent a duel between Amedeo of Savoy and Filippo di Savoia-Acaia. In February 1371 he was tasked with inspecting the Savoyard fortifications in Piedmont. In the summer of 1372 he relieved Ottone di Brunswick in Asti and defeated the Visconti forces on the river Adverse. In August 1373 he was appointed captain of Piedmont and declared war on the Marquis of Saluzzo. In March 1374 he is recorded at Turin as lieutenant of the Piedmontese territories; at Rivoli he renewed the truce with the Marquis of Saluzzo.

In 1382 he accompanied the Count of Savoy on his expedition to the Kingdom of Naples in support of Louis I of Anjou and against Charles of Durazzo. In March 1383 he was present at the death of Amedeo VI; together with Gaspare di Montmajour and other loyal companions he was tasked with conveying the body to Liguria for subsequent burial in the family tomb located in the Abbey of Altacomba (Hautecombre) in French Savoy. The following month, immediately after landing at Savona, Richard Musard died: he was buried in the church of the Knights of St John. His is one of the few Italian stories of an Englishman who chose a single master: he served him for two decades and outlived him by only a month.

The Generation of the Holy Company and the Florentine Captains

From 1374 onwards, with the formation of the Holy Company and subsequently the Company of the Rose, and with Acuto‘s passage into the permanent pay of Florence, a second generation of English captains emerged, active until the 1390s.

Giovanni Tornaberini / John Thornbury

An Englishman from Shropshire, lord of Castrocaro Terme, Meldola, and Bertinoro. The entry indicates no father, mother, siblings, or wife; it mentions only a natural son, Philip, to whom Gregory XI granted an ecclesiastical benefice in February 1375 in the church of Lincoln, previously promised to the reformed church of John Wycliff. The entry also refers to another natural son captured by the Bolognese in May 1375.

A fighter in the Hundred Years’ War under John of Gaunt, he left France in 1369; in August of the same year he served for the Perugians in Acuto‘s company, besieged Urban V in Viterbo, and seized Montalto di Castro. In October 1371 he was in the service of the Papal State with 76 lances, 17 mounted archers with pages, and 39 archers without page, at a monthly stipend of 200 ducats. In 1372 he was enrolled in Acuto‘s company with the post of marshal. In 1373 he opposed the Visconti in the same capacity; the pope promised him the castle of Montalto in the Marches.

In June 1374 he was at Ferrara with Acuto in preparation for a raid into Tuscany. The company marched in three columns: Acuto in the centre, Giovanni Tornaberini and William Gold at the head of the wings. In July he halted in the Pisan territory and was awarded 2,500 florins payable in annual instalments of 500 florins over five years; he also obtained Lucchese citizenship. In September he entered the territory of Città di Castello in an attempt to relieve the papal forces besieged in the citadel of Perugia. In February 1375 the Papal State, in arrears on his pay, awarded him Meldola; in the summer of 1377 he obtained Castrocaro Terme; in 1379, again in exchange for credits owed to him, he obtained Bertinoro in pledge, which he relinquished in the same year. In May 1375 he was sent ahead to Bologna, which had rebelled against the papal forces; the English were defeated. Together with a son he was captured on that occasion along with Filippo Puer, William Gold, and the natural sons of Acuto and Breccia.

In February 1378 he was stationed at San Quirico with Acuto and Breccia. In April, in the pay of the Scaligeri against Milan, he is recorded at Verona; in May he was captured by English soldiers in Visconti service. He was released after paying a ransom, having expressed a wish to return to England and having requested asylum from the Gonzaga of Mantua. In October and December 1378 he served as castellan of Cesena, besieged by the Malatesta; in January 1379, having concluded that there was no hope of relief from the Antipope Clement VII, he negotiated a surrender with the Bishop of Bologna, Filippo Carafa. In April of the same year he was appointed captain of war of a league of Tuscan communes created to fight the minor companies; he received 250 florins for his appointment.

In April 1380 he obtained from King Richard II of England absolution for crimes committed in France. Having returned to his country, he joined the entourage of John of Gaunt and followed him to Castile in 1382. After that date he settled definitively in England as a landowner and member of Parliament. He died around 1390. He is, together with Edward Despenser, one of the few Englishmen who returned home after long Italian service to end his days in peace.

William Gold / Guglielmo Cogno / Cocco Inglese (Cocco meaning cook)

From Castle Hedingham in Essex, the same birthplace as John Hawkwood. William Gold had a concubine named Janet, captured years earlier in France, who fled the camp at Monzambano in July 1378 with three servants and two mounts. He also had two sons: Bertram, who remained in Italy and stayed in Venice even after his father’s death, and another son likewise named William, who formed a brotherhood-in-arms with John Thornbury (Giovanni Tornaberini), fought in the service of the Serenissima with great success, and died in Venice in 1398. The nickname “Cocco” most likely derives from his having begun his career as a cook.

In 1340 he served under Acuto‘s command with command of 15 lances. At Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1360 he left the city with a concubine. In May 1364 he was in Sterz‘s White Company: under Baumgarten‘s orders he took part in the attack against the Porta di San Gallo in Florence, distinguishing himself together with Everardo della Campana in breaching the walls; that same evening he was knighted by Baumgarten. He remained at Acuto‘s side after Sterz‘s defection. In January 1365 at Pissina he signed the six-month contract for service to the Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples against Anichino di Baumgarten.

In September 1371, together with Breccia, Bosone, and Ramsey, he was engaged in Acuto‘s company against the Visconti. In June 1374 at Ferrara he joined the Holy Company; he was assigned the task of riding with his men at the head of the right wing. In July he was awarded, as was Tornaberini, 2,500 florins payable in five annual instalments. In December 1374 he shut himself inside the citadel of Perugia with Bernardo della Sala and the Abbot of Montmajour, where he was besieged by the inhabitants; he left the fortress with his possessions thanks to the negotiated surrender of January 1376. In May 1375 at Bologna he was captured by the inhabitants together with Giovanni Tornaberini and Filippo Puer along with the natural sons of the principal captains; he would be released some months later.

In June 1378, at the camp of Custoza with Acuto against the Scaligeri, his conduct proved far from exemplary, owing to the distraction caused by his passion for his concubine and to raids in the Mantuan territory: he was reprimanded by Acuto and threatened with death. In July the woman fled the camp with the servants; William Gold asked the Marquis of Mantua, Ludovico Gonzaga, to have her arrested, going so far as to promise to pass into his service with 500 lances. How the matter ended is unknown. In January 1380 he was in Venice to counter the Genoese, Hungarians, and Carraresi; he took part in the siege of Chioggia and the subsequent battle of Brondolo alongside Carlo Zeno; in July he was awarded a life pension of 500 florins a year and Venetian citizenship. He settled in that city, where after his death his son Bertram remained. He died around 1385.

Richard Ramsey / Riccardo Inglese

Also known as Riccardo di Ramuse. In 1382 Richard Ramsey married in Florence an Englishwoman named Isabel and, with the permission of the commune, was able to purchase certain properties in the contado.

In 1364 Richard Ramsey served in Sterz‘s White Company for the Pisans; he followed Sterz in his defection and in the formation of the Company of the Star, and ultimately in the agreement with the Florentines against Pisa; in September, once the contract had expired, he offered to return to Florentine pay. In January 1370 he was hired by the Florentines together with Everardo and Lucio Lando against Giovanni Acuto. In September 1372, for the Papal State against Milan, he instead served in Acuto‘s company with Breccia, Bosone, and William Gold. In June 1375 he reached Ferrara for the formation of the Holy Company; in July, after the agreement with the Pisans, he was at Calci with the task, together with John Foy, Robert Seaver, and William Tilly, of distributing to the soldiers the 40,000 ducats advanced by the Florentines. In November, together with Tornaberini, he pressed the Sienese for payment of his credits; in December he supported Acuto in the attempt to relieve the citadel of Perugia.

In April 1379, urged on by the Antipope Clement VII, he headed with Giovanni degli Ubaldini and Acuto into the Marches; in May he threatened Siena with Acuto and Lucio Lando, demanding sums owed to him by the Papal State for the War of the Eight Saints. In March 1380 he faced, under Acuto‘s orders, Alberico da Barbiano‘s Company of St George; in May he passed into the service of Orvieto, then of Queen Giovanna d’Angiò of Naples against Charles of Durazzo. In April 1381 he was hired by the Florentines with 112 lances and 54 archers at an annual salary of 1,614 florins: all on Acuto‘s recommendation. In 1382 he was hired together with Boldrino da Panicale by the Perugians for twelve days to oppose local exiles. He was reconfirmed.

In January 1383, together with Acuto and Giovanni degli Ubaldini, he raided through the Perugian territory, received 15,000 florins, devastated the Val d’Arbia and the Val di Chiana; in April he was again with Acuto in the Sienese territory. In June, having obtained 15,000 florins from Prefect Giovanni di Vico and Clement VII, he defeated Guido d’Asciano and Niccolò Malatesta between San Lorenzo Nuovo and Lake Bolsena. In July, encamped near Cortona, he formed the Company of the Rose together with Acuto and Ubaldini; in August he ravaged the Perugian territory. In May 1384, with the Company of the Rose, he threatened all the Tuscan communes: the Sienese paid 7,000 florins, the Pisans 9,000, the Lucchese 4,000. Richard Ramsey in particular obtained from the latter the restitution of 2,080 florins representing a credit of his against Alderigo Castracani. His wife Isabel lodged at Acuto‘s castle of Montecchio Vesponi; in October she attempted to join him. The Florentine authorities denied her passage owing to the presence in Tuscany of Enguerrand de Coucy.

In January and February 1385 he was stationed in the Bolognese territory with Guido da Correggio, Giovanni Ordelaffi, and Giovanni degli Ubaldini; besieged in Barbiano, he abandoned the castle at night, moved south toward Cesena, seized 300 head of cattle, and took refuge in the Montefeltro. In July he was engaged by the Perugians at an annual provision of 150 florins. In June 1388 he linked up in the Cortona contado with the companies of John Beltoft and Acuto. He died around 1390.

Filippo Puer / Philip Power

He served in Giovanni Acuto‘s companies. In June 1375 he was at Ferrara for the formation of the Holy Company, alongside Breccia, Tornaberini, Gold, and Ramsey. He fought the Florentines in the War of the Eight Saints in the service of the Papal State. In May 1376 he was sent by Acuto to Bologna, which had rebelled against the papal forces, together with Tornaberini and Gold (100 horsemen); the Bolognese defeated the English vanguard and captured him together with William Gold and the natural sons of Acuto, Breccia, and Tornaberini. Ransomed for 220 ducats by Salvuccio Bentivoglio, he was subsequently freed through negotiations with Acuto: Bentivoglio never recovered the sum he had paid. In August 1376 he was approached by the Florentines, together with John Berwick and John Gifford, to defect from the papal camp in exchange for a promise of 24 florins per lance rather than the customary 22; he deserted with Berwick in command of 215 lances and 92 archers. In 1377 he is recorded as responsible for a condotta comprising 102 lances and 39 English archers. He died around 1380.

John Berwick

Described as a “brave soldier,” in 1376 he fought for the papal forces against the Florentines in the War of the Eight Saints. In August of the same year he was approached by the Florentines, together with Filippo Puer and John Gifford, to defect; he passed into their service together with Puer in command of 215 lances and 92 mounted archers. He would remain in Florentine service for eight years. In March 1379 in the Val di Pesa, at the head of 70 horsemen, he confronted Alberico da Barbiano‘s company: he fought the adversaries and was wounded in the face above the eyes. In the course of the engagement Giovanni da Barbiano was captured on one side, while on the Florentine side Everardo Lando was wounded. In March 1380, under Everardo Lando‘s orders with 26 lances, he was gravely wounded in a clash with the Company of St George. In January 1381 he countered, again with 35 lances, the Company of St George which had united with that of the Uncino of Villanuccio da Villafranca. In April, on Acuto‘s recommendation, his condotta was renewed by the Florentines. He remained in their service until 1384. He died around 1390.

The Holy Company at the Height of Its Expansion

Alongside the principal captains, the late-fourteenth-century raids involved other English condottieri of secondary rank, whose figures emerge above all as commanders of small contingents.

Giannichino Bottigler

Also called Giannichino Boutilère. In January 1373 he linked up with Giovanni degli Obizzi to raid through Tuscany and penetrate into the Lucchese territory; the approach of Count Amedeo of Savoy and Enguerrand de Coucy forced him to transfer to the Lunigiana. In June 1386 he is recorded between Sansepolcro and Città di Castello for the muster of his company.

In 1387 he served under John Beltoft for the Roman Papal State against the Avignonese Antipope. After Beltoft‘s defeat on the river Paglia he abandoned the papal camp together with Giovanni Guernoch, Giannichino Trichil, Giovanni da Liverpool, and Riccardo Gus; for 7,800 florins he transferred to the service of the Florentines under Acuto‘s orders. In the spring of 1389 he again joined Acuto against the militias of the Antipope Clement VII and the Angevins, who were pressing for the reconquest of the Kingdom of Naples. In that city he attempted to relieve the defenders of Castel Capuano from the siege laid by the adversaries. In May he departed from Campania with Acuto. In May 1392 he took part in a great tournament in Florence; he distinguished himself there alongside Corrado Prospero and received as a prize a silver circlet containing a pearl lion worth 100 florins. In June 1396, in the service of Lucca with 100 lances against the Pisans and Sienese, he confronted the company of Giovanni da Barbiano, which was devastating the Lucchese territory; in July he attacked Barbiano at Castiglioncello del Trinoro together with other condottieri. He was captured. In November 1396 he opposed the Pisans commanded by Paolo Savelli near Motrone; he was defeated and mortally wounded in this engagement.

Giovanni da Liverpool / John Liverpool

John Liverpool served in the pay of the Florentines for eight consecutive years on contracts of four and six months that were continually renewed. In June 1386 he was between Sansepolcro and Città di Castello for the company muster. In 1387, in the pay of Urban VI against the Antipope Clement VII, he opposed the adversaries under John Beltoft‘s command. In June, after the defeat on the Paglia, he abandoned the papal camp together with Bottigler, Guernoch, Trichil, and Gus, and for 7,800 florins returned to the service of Florence under Acuto‘s orders. In December 1388 he was in the Perugian territory with Acuto. In the spring of 1389 in the Kingdom of Naples he supported Acuto‘s attempts to relieve Castel Capuano from the siege. In May he departed from Campania with Acuto and Bottigler; on the march, the route touched Aversa, Rome, and Orvieto. In 1394 he obtained a condotta of 60 lances from the Florentines. He died around 1395.

John Beltoft / Giovanni Beltoft

Of the parish of Betton in the diocese of Lincoln. Described as “one of the most sought-after condottieri in Italy” and as “Anglicum magnum Capitaneum,” he fought in the Hundred Years’ War; his presence in Italy in the pay of the Florentines with 50 lances is recorded in March 1380. In January 1382, at the head of 65 lances, he followed Acuto against Alberico da Barbiano‘s Company of St George and that of the Uncino of Villanuccio da Villafranca. In July and August 1384 he was sent with Ugo di Monforte to the relief of the Sienese; he was soon recalled because of the arrival in Tuscany of Enguerrand de Coucy.

In 1385, in the service of Pope Urban VI against the militias of the Antipope Clement VII, he was defeated near Viterbo by Bernardo della Sala and Rinaldo Orsini. In July he penetrated into the Bolognese territory with the companies of Giovanni Acuto and Giovanni degli Ubaldini: the Bolognese were forced to pay the adventurers 30,000 florins. In August, united with Boldrino da Panicale and Taddeo Pepoli, he accepted 2,000 florins to spare the Perugian territory; he then raided into the Sienese territory, obtaining together with other condottieri 15,000 florins. In September he reappeared in the Perugian territory with the same company. In November he was engaged together with Pepoli and Everardo della Campana by the Florentines, Bolognese, and Sienese (300 lances) to fight the minor companies. In January 1386 he was dismissed by the Florentines; he joined Ubaldini and Acuto to transfer to Romagna; he devastated the Montefeltro and threatened Fano, obtaining 5,000 ducats. He was subsequently recorded as a condottiere in the service of the Visconti and the Papal State with a condotta of 200 lances.

In 1387 he was stationed in the Sienese territory; he again served for the papal forces with Cardinal Tommaso Orsini at the expense of Francesco di Vico; he besieged the prefect in Viterbo. In June, with Ugolino da Montemarte and Simonetto da Castel di Piero, he was beaten by Rinaldo Orsini: in the engagement among his men 30 corporals were captured along with many other prisoners. He resumed the initiative by attacking Torre Alfina and breaking the castle’s aqueduct. In July he besieged in Orvieto the supporters of Clement VII. In August and September, with 200 lances, he escorted Pope Urban VI from Todi to Narni; he threatened to abandon the assignment on account of the pontiff’s heavy indebtedness to him; he obtained a life annuity of 300 silver marks; at the same time he concluded a secret agreement with the Florentines. At Fratte Rosa in the Pesaro area, together with Acuto and the Petrucci, he ambushed Carlo Malatesta. In October, while escorting a supply convoy, he was surprised at the bridge of San Luminato on the river Paglia by Bernardo della Sala and Giovanni da Cremona; he managed to escape to Viterbo with the loss of 20 horsemen.

In 1388, with the lord of Foligno Ugolino Trinci, he expelled the Company of the Bretons from Cannara. In May and June, with Rinaldo Orsini, he invaded Tuscany with 3,000 horsemen and devastated the Sienese territory, causing damage estimated at 100,000 florins; he obtained 9,000 florins in cash as a first instalment of a total levy of 10,350 florins, together with gifts worth 300 florins, a charger, two pack mules, and ten bolts of velvet. He moved into the Pisan and Lucchese territories from which he extracted further levies. He returned to Umbria with 1,500 horsemen and demanded from the papal forces 30,000 florins in outstanding pay; he attacked at Umbertide 800 Bolognese horsemen of Pandolfo Malatesta and captured 300 of them; he joined Everardo della Campana and ravaged the lands of Bartolomeo da Pietramala and Pandolfo Malatesta. In August he refused the pay offered by the Florentines (500 florins monthly for three years), preferring to serve the Papal State with 1,000 horsemen. He escorted Pope Urban VI from Todi to Narni; at odds with the pontiff, he accepted the terms proposed by the Florentines in order to defend Montepulciano from the Sienese. In retaliation the papal forces imprisoned in Perugia the Florentine ambassador Vieri Cavicciuli, who had persuaded him to defect.

In November 1388, with Corrado Lando, he forced Bernardo della Sala to abandon Cannara. In March 1389, with Everardo della Campana (2,500 horsemen), he confronted Pandolfo Malatesta at Umbertide; put to flight, he lost 50 horsemen, 200 infantry, all the baggage train, and among his men 20 horses were killed. In the autumn he sacked the Pisan territory; he withdrew only after receiving 13,000 florins. In May 1390 he was hired for a year by the Florentines with 600 lances at a monthly stipend of 500 florins: the adversaries were Milan and Siena. In September he was appointed captain of war; he raided the Val d’Elsa, burned Talamone, occupied Monte Piccini and the rocca delle Due Torri. In May 1391 he repulsed the Sienese engaged in the siege of the Due Torri (80 horsemen and 200 infantry captured). In December 1391, entrusted with escorting with 200 lances and 500 infantry a convoy of 500 mules loaded with grain and merchandise (worth 15,000 florins), he was attacked at Cascina by 2,000 horsemen of Jacopo dal Verme and Jacopo d’Appiano: he fled without offering resistance, while Ugo di Monforte fought and was captured. For the cowardice he demonstrated on that occasion he was dismissed by the Florentines.

In July and August 1392, together with Azzo da Castello, he defended Perugia against an attack by 6,000 horsemen led by Biordo dei Michelotti, Ceccolo Broglia, Brandolino Brandolini, Giovanni da Barbiano, and the exiles; the adventurers were paid 6,000 florins. He headed toward Rome and halted with a few men in the castle of La Villa, twenty miles from the capital: he did not know that the fortress belonged to a brother of Cardinal Tommaso Orsini. Surprised by the peasants, he was captured and beheaded. He would shortly be avenged by Paolo Orsini who, having seized the castle, had it demolished to its foundations. His is the most ironic and brutal death of any English captain, owing to the obscurity of the place and the identity of his killers, simple peasants.

After the Holy Company: Brief Final Notes on the Collective Trajectory

Compared with the dozens of German, Italian, Hungarian, Breton, and Gascon names that traverse the same period, the English presence in Italy displays a peculiar density in the three decades from 1361 to 1390, declining in the two decades that followed. The nineteen entries recovered from condottieridiventura.it trace a coherent map: few family ties, many company relationships, and the titanic figure of Giovanni Acuto who served as an aggregating node for almost all the others. The range of types among the English active in Italy is varied: younger sons of prosperous men (Acuto), illegitimate sons of lords (Belmonte, Musard), relatives of great families in decline (Ugo della Zucca, kinsman of the Mortimer who dethroned Edward II), nobles of high rank (Despenser), professionals with no known pedigree (Quarton, Merezal, Berwick, Puer, Beltoft, Liverpool, Bottigler).

The deaths reflect the possibilities of the trade. Some, like Acuto and Tornaberini, died in peace in their fiefs: the former in Florence in 1394, lord of a small Romagnol and Piedmontese domain; the latter in England in 1390 after serving as a member of Parliament. William Gold died in Venice, a citizen and pensioner of the Serenissima. Richard Musard at Savona, after a life devoted entirely to the Savoyard cause. Berwick, Puer, Quarton, Merezal, and Breccia died around the end of the 1370s or the early 1380s in circumstances the entries do not further specify. Bottigler fell in battle at Motrone in 1396. That of John Beltoft, beheaded by peasants in Lazio in 1392, is the most ironic and brutal end: a captain “among the most sought-after in Italy” dispatched by unknown countrymen.

The blood relationships documented in the entries are very few and almost all indirect: the father-in-law and son-in-law bond between Bernabò Visconti and Giovanni Acuto (and the parallel connection among Acuto, Lucio Lando, and Bernardo della Sala as husbands of natural daughters of the same lord), the paternal bond between Giovanni and Thomas Acuto, between Belmonte and Thomas Belmont, between William Gold and his son Bertram (as well as the other son William), between Tornaberini and Philip. A dense web of natural sons, wives, and concubines, poorly documented, runs through the more stable companies.

The geopolitical weight of the English interlude in Italy is considerable and makes itself felt through the introduction of new combat techniques (the dismounted archer, the three-man lance, the systematic use of raids in support of negotiation), the formation of a company market with standardised prices and clauses (the “taglia,” the non-aggression payment, honorary citizenship), and the transformation of gains derived from pillage and raiding into the purchase of landed properties in Romagna, the Marches, the Veneto, Tuscany, and Piedmont (Caraglio, in Acuto‘s possession until 1393). On the symbolic plane, the Florentine canonisation of Giovanni Acuto in the cycle of Paolo Uccello in the Florentine cathedral marks the point at which a mercantile republic, by nature hostile to armed foreigners, consented to absorb an English mercenary as a founding father of its own military security. It is the recognition, after the fact, that the history of Italian arms in the fourteenth century cannot be written without the history of the English who were among its greatest protagonists.