Interesting approach to the life of the legendary condottiero John Hawkwood, presenting him as a figure flitting in and out of the larger story of 14th Century Italy, with its myriad intrigues, wars and general miseries.

The author writes with flair, deploying colourful metaphors to paint images of a horrible time in history.

The book reminded me of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. Saunders herself makes reference to it (and several other books, I think), to make sure the comparison escapes no one:

Every transaction in the fourteenth century, from marriage to the hiring of mercenaries, was obsessively notarised. From these well-preserved legal and contractual records it is possible to reconstruct almost entirely Hawkwood's every move. But the endless pages of lifeless repetition which characterise this paper or parchment trail offer only a partial glimpse - a very "distant mirror" - into Hawkwood's life and career. He appears as an enigma, through a glass darkly.

Goodness!

Wow; it's pretty grim living in the 15th Century, perhaps particularly in pre-unification Italy when every city-state is forming and then breaking alliances with every other city-state, and hiring mercenaries to do their slaughtering for them. That is, until the said mercenaries turn the tables on their employers and are hired by the enemy who is able to pay them a bit more than you do.. Meanwhile, each time, it is the civilian population who suffers the most as the way each little war begins is by the enemy soldiers pillaging the countryside and burning everything in their path.

This book is about one John Hawkwood, (Giovanni Acuto to the Italians who cannot pronounce his name) an Essex boy who stays on in Europe after the Anglo-French wars and makes a name and a fortune for himself by hiring himself and his company of mercenaries to the highest bidder. His is not an honourable trade but remarkably, by the end of his life he is honoured in Florence even if at earlier times he sent his company to lay siege to the Florentines. As Obelix would say: "These Romans/Florentines/Italians generally are crazy". Quite.

The book is very readable if slightly repetitive, and gives a good overview of well-known Renaissance players, e.g. the Pope and the powerful Visconti of Milan among others.

A fantastic book, completely engrossing. Using Hawkwood as her vehicle, the author invites you into the merciless world of 14th C. Italian politics, dealing the intrigues, personalities and scandals of the day with vivid storytelling. The book could easily have descended into a repetitive confusion (Hawkwood's life, as with his client states, was one of endless battling, extortion, ransoming, changes of allegiance, then more battling, more ransoming). Thankfully though, with her eye for the interesting detail and clear prose, this author has taken this tricky and messy period of history and produced a first class read.

Hawkwood is one of those books that contains so much information, by the time you get to the end you’ve forgotten the beginning. It’s amazing how the author has discovered so many historical threads from over six hundred years ago. Of course, a quick look at the bibliography reveals a tremendous amount of research. John Hawkwood was one of the most successful mercenaries of his time and lived to the ripe old age of 74, apparently dying in his bed. He became the leader of great Companies of unemployed mercenaries who preferred not to return back to England during the Hundred Years War, most notably the famous White Company that grew so large it was truly the size of a small army. What surprised me the most was that the freelance Companies were much more of a fixture in Italy than in France. They were employed by first one city then the other, only taking sides with the best paymaster. Even the pope found their services useful:

The bribe that had first propelled the White Company into Italy had been paid by the pope. Indeed, while Innocent VI continued to denounce the mercenaries as devils in human shape, he was their chief employer. To protect the papal patrimony in Italy, much of which had been usurped by petty princes, the Avignon popes were constrained to conduct frequent wars.

Of course, once the mercenaries found out how profitable their sojourn into Italy was, they were impossible to dislodge. Apparently no matter how much protection money they demanded, the beleaguered Italians found the means to pay them. Florence, especially, made use of their services to excess; toward the end of the century, they offered Hawkwood a wonderful palace, a pension, and even dowries for his three daughters. Throughout his decades in Italy, Hawkwood was the go-to man whenever some duke or count or pope or city had a quarrel with somebody else. The destruction perpetrated upon the helpless population was terrible to read about. But as far as the Companies were concerned, it was strictly business—and a profitable one too. (Alas, money slipped through Hawkwood's fingers like water, and by the end of his life he was impoverished.) Anyway, I wonder if Italy suffered more than France as a result of the Hundred Years War. This comprehensive volume is not the kind of book you would generally read for entertainment, but for informational value it is exceptional.

fascinating. review to follow

Interesting because the connection to Chaucer, but not really the biography it claims on the back cover. Also it seems to lose steam.

On the highbrow end of the Nightstand History for Dads spectrum. Engaging writing, but really bogged down about halfway through. Was John Hawkwood enough of a historic figure to carry a whole book? Perhaps not, as we get a bit lost in internecine prerenaissance Italian politics and don't find our way back until quite late.

Continuing my reading of the beginning of the renaissance, this book reports the changing allegiances of a so called crusader, really one of thousands mercenaries who had no war or living to pursue. His name was John Hawkwood. The time of his rampages in Italy coincide with the huge power of Milan, Joanna 1 of Naples, and great beginning art in Florence. The papacy started the policy of hired "guns", but was very week due to a split between Rome and Avignon, Italian and French control of the church, and the popularity of Luther's new ideas confronting the corruption of the church. What a terrible era for the poor, and bartered women and men in the power- brokage of marriage alliances.

Long before Italian organised crime had become...er organised; a bunch of 14th Century Essex boys were pillaging, extorting, kidnapping, raping, murdering and betraying their way through the Italian City States with a vengeance. The most successful or them was "Sir" John Hawkwood, son of an Essex Yeoman whose meteoric rise as a Mercenary in the labyrinthine world of Italian politics led him to wealth, castles, royal in-laws, a state funeral in Florence and a big assed fresco in the Duomo that can be be seen there still today. Stonor Saunders fantastically detailed biography of the Lance for hire "son of Belial" is an amazing portrait of 14th Century life. If you thought medieval wars were tidy things fought in open fields by willing combatants, think again. When Chaucer wrote about Knights "ridding out", he meant on raids - that is plundering and terrifying the civilian population, often burning crops and poisoning wells. Then as now, War by softening up the civilian population was common. Nonetheless an aspiring foot soldier could make his fortune through war after the huge social changes created by the Black Death in Europe. Not only were the spoils of war for the victors but the laws of chivalry expected high value captives to be ransomed back to their families. After Edward III's successful campaigns against the French at Crecy and Poitiers, many soldiers simply decided to not go home and sought fortune as the so called Free Companies, rampaging across Europe, holding the Pope to ransom in Avignon, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. The most fortunate soldiers found there way to Italy where warring city states and papal intrigues (the Papacy split at the end of the 14th C) provided amply coin for foreign Lances.
Since relatively little source material from Hawkwood himself remains, Stonor Saunders builds up a comprehensive picture of his contemporaries, the political scheming of the era, religious martyrdom, the philosophies of the age and daily life. She has a background in the Arts so she makes quite a lot of reference to the artistic output of the age and the birth of the Renaissance - think Orson Wells on the top that Ferris Wheel in The Third Man.
If that's not enough, here's some other things you will find in this book: the hallucinogenic effects of starvation and medieval bread, political poisonings, Chaucer's secret diplomatic mission in Italy, self-abusing extreme religious aestheticism, death, a civilian massacre of 8,000 people, the Black Death, feasting as display of wealth, what happens when lightening hits a field of armoured men, the cannonised nun who was also a spy, more death, and the identifying insignia of medieval prostitutes in the Italian city states. All the key ingredients of a good Friday night out.
It a remarkable portrait of the paradoxes of the age, the realities of chivalry and the zeitgeist of a historical turning point.

The story of Sir John Hawkwood, 14th century English knight and mercenary, who as the head of the White Company, became a force to be reckoned with in Italy. The politics of the time can be confusing but Hawkwood always seems to come out on top.

very lively romp through the politics of late medieval Europe.