Mercenaries

Mercenaries fought for pay in the armies of European rulers and city-states. The White Company entered Italy in 1361 under Albert Sterz and later gained notoriety under John Hawkwood, contracting its services to city-states and the papacy while also plundering and extorting them.

In 1486 Maximilian began raising German Landsknechts, whose formations combined pikemen with other infantry. They helped capture the French king Francis I at Pavia in 1525, but unpaid imperial troops, including Landsknechts, also sacked Rome in 1527.