Its catalyst was the brigandage of military companies spawned by the warfare of the last fifteen years. These were the Free Companies who “write sorrow on the bosom of the earth” and were to become the torment of the age. Composed of English, Welsh, and Gascons released after Poitiers by the Black Prince, as soldiers customarily were to avoid further payment, they had acquired in the Prince’s campaigns a taste for the ease and riches of plunder. Along with German mercenaries and Hainault adventurers, they gathered in groups of twenty to fifty around a captain and moved northward to operate in
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Its catalyst was the brigandage of military companies spawned by the warfare of the last fifteen years. These were the Free Companies who “write sorrow on the bosom of the earth” and were to become the torment of the age. Composed of English, Welsh, and Gascons released after Poitiers by the Black Prince, as soldiers customarily were to avoid further payment, they had acquired in the Prince’s campaigns a taste for the ease and riches of plunder. Along with German mercenaries and Hainault adventurers, they gathered in groups of twenty to fifty around a captain and moved northward to operate in the area between the Seine and the Loire and between Paris and the coast.
