Hawlwood an Unsung Villain

8/12/2019 Hawlwood an Unsung Villain

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AN UNSUNG VILLAINTHE REPUT TION OE CONDOTTIERE

Stephen Coope r describes how Joh n Hawkw ood, tanner s sonfrom Essex, hecame mercenaryinlate fourteenth-centuryItaly, and afterhisdeath acquired reputation as a first-class

general and as model of chivalry.I F YOU CO INTO THE Dl OMO inFlorence,you will see a sp lendideques tr ian por trai t of theEnglishman Sir Jo hn Hawkwood( d . l 3 9 4 ) . It was p a in ted by PaoloUccello in 1436 and shows Hawk-wood as C aptain-General ofFlorence,the position he held in the early1390s, at the end of a long life.Astride a magnificent stallion, he car-riesacommander s baton in his r ighth a n dandwears an elaborate versionof the p la te armour that hadoncemade the Wliite Company famous. AsFrances S tonor Saunders hasvividlywritten, his face andn eck may becadavero us bt it the image is nob le ,and the message is both chivahousand classicalat the same time;

JOHANNES ACUTUS EQUESBRITANNICUS DUX AETATIS SUAECAUTISSIMUS ET REI MILITARISPERITISSIMUS HABITUS EST(lohn Hawkwood the British Kn ight,who was regardedas the mostprudent commanderofhisage, andthe most experienced inmilitaryaffairs.)

Yet this fine figure was also oneof themost rtithless mercenariesof h is day,and not always a loyal se r\a nt of theFlorent ine republ ic . Before hee n t e r e d her service in1380, he hadfought for all her enemies andextort-ed thotisands of florins from herexchequer.

For many years Hawkwood s modusoperandi when shor t of cash , was todem and m oney wi th m enaces .Thejo in t le t ter which he and the Ger-man Conrad Hechilberg wroteto thePriorsof Siena onAugus t 8th, 1374,was typicalofmany:Magnificentandpowerful lords, anddearest friends. So that yourmagnificences shotild not be

Paolo U cceilo s frescoof Hawkwood in


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AN UNSUNG V I L L A I N THE REPUTATION OF A CONDOTTIERE

surprised ... we are letting youknow ... that a large numberof men-at-arms has ga theredoutside the boundaries of yourterritory ... As a result, ifitpleases your lordships to spendsome amount of money onthis Company, as customarilyought to be done with men-at-ami.s, we will refrain fromdamaging your territories andkeep them free from harm asfar asw can: but if not, we willsend out pillagers ... to dowhatever they like. Let us know-without delay what course ofaction you propose to take.

Here indeed was the pro-tection racke t writ large , thin-ly disguised in the d iplom aticLatin of the notary.The ambigui t ies begin veryearly with Sir Joiu i Hawkw ood,and they start with the knigiit-hood. I t is not clear how he came hythis . There were t radi t ions that hefough t at Crcy (1346) and atPoitiers (1356) and that he gainedhis spurs at one or other of these hat-ties; but there is no hard evidence

God s warrioi s? T he Heavenly Militiaby Ridolfo Guariento (1348-54).that he took part in either, or that hewas ever dtibhed hy Edward III orth e B lack Pri nc e. It is ju st as likelythat he got h is companions to makehim a knight, as others are known tohave done .Jo hn Hawkwood was the seco ndson of a tanner. He was born in SibleHedingliam in Essex in about 1320;and he may (possibly) have heen atailor in his you th. He served theCrown in France, in the first phase ofwhat la ter became known as theHundreci Years War; but his serviceended when the Treaty of Brt ignywas signed in 1360. Made red und antby the peace, he joined the free com-panies that cont inued to ter ror izeFrance and was part of a so-calledGreat Company that a t tacked papalter r i tory near Avignon. He and o th-ers were persuaded by the Pope to

invade Italy, with a view tofighting the Visconti, whoruled Lom bardy. Apar t f romone brief return to France, hestayed in Italy for the re.st ofhis l ife. Though no knighterrant, he was a wanderer, a ndhe fought for money in almosevery part of that niiicb-divided peninsula.Like many mercenary captains, Hawkwood acquired an icknam e - L A cu to ( thekeen one) . He fought manybattles and won many victories- while suffering some defeats- and ro s e to he co mm ande rof the White Company in the1360s before atta inin g thepos i t ion of commander- inchief of the Florentine forcesin the 1390s.Th oug h he fough t fopr inces , republ ics and theChurch, he a lso cont inued toeng age in free lan ce activity. He wacontroversially involved in atrocitiesat Faenza and Cesena in the 1370sHe acquired es ta tes in the Romagnaand a cas t le a t Montecchio Vesponin Tuscany, which has now heen partially re sto re d. In his late fiftifs he

marr ied an i l leg i t imate daughter ofBernabo Visconti and had three children by her; but at the end of his lifeit is clear that he wanted to return toEngland. He d ied in F lorence in1394 before he could realize thiambit ion; but h is body was (probably) brought back here soon afterwards , a t the reques t of Richard I IHis son was naturalized as anEn glish ma n by He nry IV, an d warecorded as living in Essex in 1464.Th e circum stances of Hawkwood

death were as impor tant as those ohis l i fe for h is suhsequent reputation. He died in his bed, having beenho not i red by the F lore nt ines withci t izenship and a pen s ion , and h ifuneral was particularly magn ificentBy way of con trast , m any c apta ins oHawkwood s castle at M ontecchio.


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AN UNSUNG V I L L A I N THE REPUTATION OF A CO NDOTTIERE

tlie Great Companies in Francecame to a bad end . some were killedby their own men. while others wereexecuted for treason. This was alsothe fate of some condottieri in Italy,notably Albert Sterz, first comman-der of the White Company (behead-ed in Perugia in 1366) and the great'Carmagnola' {despatched in similarfashion in St Mark's Square inVenice in 1432).

Yet Hawkwood's remarkablecareer has not always attracted theattention it desen'es. He soon ceasedto have any connection with thefighting in France, and so distancedhimself from most of his peers inEngland, His arrival in Italy was anovelty for the Italians but, by andtarge, they became more interestedin their own heroes - for exampleAlberico da Barbiano (d. 1409), firstin dschool of home-grown merce-naries. Humanistic biographies ofseveral of these Italians were writtenin the fifteenth century - of 'Brac-cio',Sforza, Colleoni, 'Pippo Spano'and 'Piccinino'; but there was nobook about Hawkwood for nearly400 years after his death, in Englishor Italian. In the 1990s, the formerC'hichele Professor of Medieval His-tory at Oxford, George Holmes,described Sir Joh n as a 'great u nsun gvillain .

Villain or not, he is no longerunsung. 2001 saw the publication ofVolume I of Kenneth Fowler'sMedieval M ercenaries,which ex plainsthe background to Hawkwood'scareer in France, while Volume IIpromises to deal with Italy. Balestrac-ci's study l.e Armi. I Cavalli, L'(howaspublished in 2003, while 2004 sawthe publication of Fowler's article int h e n e w Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography. Most recently the re isFrances S tonor Saun ders 'HaxokwoodDiaholical Englishman - publ ished inthe USA as The Dexl sBroker.Sir Jo hnfeatured prominently in TerryJones's books, Chaucer s Knight andWho Murdered Chaucer ?; a n d a l s o i nhis TV series, Medieval Lives.Therehave been several fictional accountswritten in the last thirty years, inFngland, Italy and America, whilethe 600th anniversary of his death in1994 was celebrated in MontecchioW'sponi and nearby CastiglionFiorentino. An internet search for'Sir John Hawkwood' currently yields

ri k w>

Hawkwood with papal troop.s outside An arm ed horseman troni AnibrogioFloren ce in 1375: the sam e year he briefly Lore nzetti's fresco, the Allegory ofentere d into an agreem ent with the city. Bad Governm ent (1338 ^0), from theand was its captain-gen eral in the 1390s. , Palazzo Pubb lico in Siena.


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The battle of San Romano, 1432, a minorencounter in which the Florentines routedthe Sienese, painted by Uccello in tbe1450s. Mercenary captain Niccol daTolentino, leader of tbe Florentines, isshown on his white horse, und er tbebanner of the Knot of Solomon.

wood Road iu S ib le Hedingham, aswell as a Strada Aguta in Bagnacaval-lo in the Romagna. Hawkwood 'stower at Cotignola and his castle atMoiitecchio Vesponi botii sui'vive.But a l though Hawkwood s tar tedhis adult Hfe as an obscure Englishmercenary , and beca me a legend inhis own time for brutality, he alsoacqu i r ed a pos thumot i s r epu ta t ionfor nobility. The explanation for thisparadox lies in the idealized imagesof him created and cultivated in thecentury after his death, both in Flo-rence and in England; and in thegrowth of the idea that he desei ved aplace in some hall of fame for mili-tary heroes.

Paolo Uccello 's portrait of Hawk-wood was com miss ione d and com-pleted forty-two years after its sub-ject 's death, though it was modelledon an earlier fresco. As we have seen,Uccello shows us the face of a tiredold man, but the image is nonethe-less impressive. According to Vasari,Uccel lo was pass ionate ly in teres tedboth in animals and perspective, andthis shows. Th e hor se is won derf ul,thotigh its s trange gait arotised con-

- still rises above us ^vith great power.On e would never know that Sir Jo hnonce ran the palioun de r t he walls ofF lorence, to show Pisan contemptfor the Florentines,The I ta l ians of tbe Renaissancehad many patr io t isms , but tbey a l lrefer red back to ancient Rome, andFlorence in particular l iked to com-pare itself to the Roman Republic. I thas even been suggested that Uccel-lo 's por trai t reflects a vogue forPlutarch's Lifeoxe Roman generalFabius Cunctator ( the Delayer) whohad opposed Hannibal in the

Sec on d Pu nic W ar; bui ilu- ( lassicaltnediu m does not explain themessage. Why did the F lorent ineshonour tb is Engl ishman in the1430s , when there mus t have bee nfew alive then who remembered himpersonally?Hawkwood 's name s t i l l meantsomething to men who were interest-ed in chivalry. There was no chivalricbiography of bim, as there was of theBlack Pr ince and of Ber t rand d t iGuesclin; but, at the time of SirJohn's death, the Marquis of Saluzzopraised him in extravagant terms: en

lale nefu cent ans dnmnl plus vaillancapitain ne plus sage de lui. (Tl ierewas no captain more valiant and wisethan he in I taly in the last hundredyears ) . Moreover , Saluzzo createdtwo special seats for her oe s in th emythical palace which he inventedfor Dame For tune - one for duGuesclin, and the otlier for Hawk-wood.

In Florence itself the key to Hawk-wood 's con t inu ing fame was arenewed apprecia t ion of h is par t insaving the city from Visconti tyranny.Milan posed a d ire threa t toFlor enc e in the 139()s . an d a gainbetwee n 1420 and 1450. In Sir Jo hn 'stime the 1st Duke of Milan, GianGaleazzo Viscont i , had uni ted Lom-hardy. by the s imple expedient o lk idnap ping and (probably) murde r-ing b is uncle , Bernabo. Thereaf ter


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he pursued a pol icy of expans ionand took over many smaller cities inTuscany and Umbria . F lorence fe l tobliged to respond, and in 1390-92the re was ope n war. It was now, whenbe was a lmos t cer ta in ly a septuage-nar ian , tbat Hawkwood wasemployed by F lorence as her com-mander- in-cbief , and he ma de agood job of it. In 1390-91 be invadedI .ombardy a t the head of a largeforce , and advance d to with in tenmiles of Milan . When compel led toretreat , he brought the bulk of h ismen safely bome, across a f loodedAdige. Later in the same year, after abrilliant campaign in defence of Flo-rence, be a t tacked and defeated theM i lanese com ma nder J acop o da lVerme, forcing Gian Galeazzo to suefor peace. Contemporary Florentinesreg ard ed tbe conflict witb the Vis-

Gian Galeazzo Visconti (I351-I402), thefirst duke of Milan, and Hawkwood'schief enemy during his final years inFlorence; sketch by Pisanello.

employed on a s emi -pe rmanen tbasis) played an essential part . Afamous skirmish, later dignified asthe 'Bat t le of San Romano ' in thepain t ing by Uccel lo , took p lace in1432, wben the Visconti instigatedan a t tack on F lorent ine ter r i tory bythe S ienese . Tbe invaders a t tackedfortifications at Montop oli in the Vald 'Arno, which had or ig inal ly beencons truc ted by Hawkwood; but theywere defeated by Niccolo da Tolenti-no . Wben the great Cosimo de Medi-ci returned to Florence from exile in1434, he pursued an ant i -Milaneseforeign policy, until tbe Visconti era

Soldiers from Lucca assault theFlorentine castle of Pietrabuona in 1362.

cont i as a jus t war and th ou gh t thatHawkwood had saved tbem fromabso rption by a superstate . Followinghis death in 1394, they voted to hon-our h im with a marble tomb in theD uomo.Gian Galeazzo Visconti died pre-maturely in 1401 and the s tate hebad created fell apart. The threat toFlorence receded, but was soonrene we d by bis you nge r son FilippoMaria, who rtiled as third dukebetw een 1412 an d 1447. A struggleensue d between a resurg ent M ilanand the Venetian Republic, in whichFlorence was tbe ally of Venice. She

came to an end witb Filippo Maria 'sdeatb .Coluccio Salu ta t i , F lorent inechan cel lo r between 1875 and 1406,predicted that Hawkwood would win'e ternal and inext i t iguishable fame'if be defe ated (iian G aleazzo. AsSaluta t i 's s ticcessor Leon ardo Bruniconfirmed in bis History of the Floren-tinePeople, this prediction came true.But it was in the visual arts that thef i f teentb-century F lorent ines t ru lyimm ortal ized S ir Jo hn . This was tbeage of Donatel lo , Gbiber t i , FraAnglico and Masaccio. In the 1430sBrunel lescbi ' s Dome was near ingcompletion and tbe civic avitboritieswere anxious that their cathedralshould house the finest works of art.So it was that Paolo Uccello was

Ro ma no. A few years la ter An dre adel Cas tagno pain te d a ser ies of' I l lus t r ious Men of F lorent ine Or i-g in ' , including several mercenarycaptains . Among these was Niccoloda Tolent ino . Cas tagno ' s eques tr ianpo rtra it of Niccolo is s ti ll in theDuomo today, where it hangs next toHawkwood's .No portrait of Hawkwood was everpain ted in England; but a t radi t ionsurvived her e too tha t Sir Jo hn was amodel of chivalry. Tbe starting pointfor tbis was Froissart's ( .hronicles,where tbe Bascot o Mauleon callsHawkwood 'a fine Englisb knight'. Inbis Prologue, Froissart (1337-C.1404)declared that he wanted to preserve the bono t i r ab le en te rp r i s es , nob leadventures and deeds of arms whicbtook place during the wars waged byFrance and England ' . Froissar t ' saudience tbougbt wel l of men who

displayed martial prowess and werebrave and true to tbeir friends; it didnot much matter wbich lord or causethey served. This being the case, wecan see bow Hawkwood's noble rep-uta t ion was earn ed, and survived,despite the fact that he never servedtbe Englisb crown in a militarycapacity after 1360, and d espi te hisinvolvement in events - like the mas-sacre at Cesena in 1377 - whichwould nowadays render him liable toindic tme nt as an In ternat ion al warcriminal. /Viter all, tbe Black Prince'sinvolvement in a s imilar atrocity atLim oges in 1370 doe s not seem tohave dented b is reputat ion .


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believes is modelled on Havvkwt>od)would have been recognized by thepoet s a udi enc e as a new type ofshabby m ercen ary; b t i t th is seemsunhistorical. The better view is thatthe Engl ish rem em bered S ir Jo hn asnothing of the kind, but as a f inespecimen of Engl ish knighth ood, inhis later years he was certainlyapproved of at court, for he acted asan English ambassador in I taly onseveral occasions: why else did theKing ask for the return of his bodywhen he died?

Literacy increased substantially inthe later Middle Ages, and a f ierceEnglish patriotism emerged; but thefavourite reading -ma tier was still theknightly ep ic . Th e classic text wasMaloiy s orted Arthur, completed in1469 and printed by Caxton in 1485.In his preface, Caxton referred tothe n ine recognized wor th ies orchampions of chivalry: the Mac-cabees from Biblical t imes; Hector,Ale xan der aiul Juliu s Caesar fromthe classical period; and Arthur.Charlemagne and Godfrey de Bouil-lon f rom the Chr is t ian era . Caxtondid uot i idd Hawkw ood s na me tothis list, but he did name him as oneof a se lect group of knights men-t ioned in h is t rans la t ion of RamonLu l l s Book of the Order of Chivalry. In alam ent for E nglan d s los t g lor ies ,Caxton put Hawkwood on a pedestalwith Sir Jo hn Ch ando s , S ir Rober tKnowles and Sir Walter Manny.

Why did Caxion b racket thesefour together? Unl ike Hawkwood,the o ther three had become closecompanions of Edward I I I and theBlack Prince, and they had achievedfame an d fortu ne in Fra nce , as ser-vants of the crown. Jo hn Cha ndoswas one of the founder knights ofthe Order of the Garter, and C-onsta-hle of English Gascony for the BlackPrince. Robert Knowles early careerwas somewhat irregular, l ike Hawk-woo d s; bu t laler on h e fough t forthe Black Prince in Spain and hetook part in official chevauches inEranc e in 1370 an d 1380. WalterManny was a household knight whodistinguished himself boLh by landand by sea, and was also a Knight ofthe Garter. There were as many con-tras ts as compar isons to be madebetween the careers of these men

Florence, with its Baptistery prominentlyvisible, in 1352; detail of a Madonnadella Misericordia by an anonymousartist.and Hawkwood s .Yet Cax ton po inted up the similar-ities, to shame the men of his ownday out of their slothftil ways. By the1470s, when h e s tar ted h is p r in t in gbusiness in London, it was over fiftyyears since He nry V s victory at Agin-cour t and over a hundred s ince thetr ium phs of Edward I II . E nglan d sarmies had suffered crushing defeatsat the hands of the Erench, a tEormigny in Normandy (1450) , andat Castillon in Gascony (1451). Theancient Erench connection had l)eendamaged irretrievably. In its placehad come civil strife, and a disgrace-ful vulnerability to Eren ch invasionand piracy. Matirice Keen hasdescribed an almost post-colonial sit-uation, with settlers expelled, sol-diers return ing to a life of unemploy-ment and crime, and a nation whosepride had been deeply hurt. It was inth is context that Caxton made h isappeal to the achievements of a pre-vio t is gen erat i on . Jo hn Hawkwoodmay not have served the nat ionalcause in quite th e sam e way asKnowles , Chandos and Manny, buthis was still a story of military successach iev ed in a fore ign field by aknight who had remained English athear t . Haw kwood s nam e could nowbe used as a rallying cry in England,just as his image had been used as asymbol of patriotic endeavour in Elo-rence.

There were later writers who alsothought that Hawkwood deserved aplace in some hall of fame, hut their


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\ V 1 cH W K W O O D I N P R O F I L E

Hawkwood according to Paolo Giovio,whoseHistories of His OumTimes forms amajor source for the Italian wars of thUperiod (1546).

lOAMNGS AVCVTHVS BRITANNVS.

L

Hawkwood according to Tobias Stimmer(1539-84), 1582. Stimmer was a painterwho concentrated on religious andpolitical prints after 1570.

Hawkwood according to EnglishmanThomas Patch (1725-82) who paintedItalian scenes and caricatures for toursts(1777).

ima ge of him was often disto rted .The b ishop and h is tor ian PaoloGiovio (1483-1552) called him' f ierces t warr ior and extraordinarydelayer ' {accerrimus bellator et cuncta-to regregious ;hu t he was com plete lywro ng in saying that Sir Jo hn onlyarrived in Italy in 1.S68.Likewise, th ewoodcut Giovio tised for his illustra-tion of Hawkw ood was cru de andugly. There is nothing even distinc-tively military about this portrait, andit has li t t le in common with theUccel lo , except for the F lorent inecap. A m ore skilful w ood cut wasmade by the Swiss Tobias Stimmer in1582, thotigh Stimmer s til l alteredHawkwood's face so as to make himyoung and handsome.

Caxton's patriotic view of Sir Johnwas the forerunner of many la terEnglish accounts, some of them wild-ly inac cura te . Hawkwood was men-t ioned by Lelaud in Henry VIII ' st ime, and Gam den in Jam es I 's . Theidea that he was once a tailorhecame popular. WTien the travellerSkippon visited Florence in 1663 hedescr ibed Uccel lo ' s por t ra i t as thato f J oh n Sharp 'an E ng l i s hman , w howas a taylor in England, but here . . .was prefer re d to a com ma nd iu thearmy' . The Merchant Tailors boasted

was a revival of interest among theFellows of the Society of Antiquaries.Some of them thought that Hawk-wood was a 'British worthy' - a termused in the hall of fame at Stowe.Phi l ip Morant ment ioned h im in h isHistory and Antiquities of the County ofEssex {1763-68); and in 1771 theEngl ish expatr ia te Thomas Patchmade an engraving, based onUccello 's portrait . In 1776 a paper,e n t i t l e d Mem oirs of Sir John Hawkivood,was read to the S ociety hy Jo hnNichols . He praised S ir Jo hn as oneof the greatest soldiers of his age,and boldly asserted that he was 'agent leman ' and 'no mere mercenarysoldier ' .In the middle of the n ineteenthcentury Samtie l Smiles ment ionedHawkwood in SelfHelp (1859). Hawk-wood appears there in a sect ion ontailors , as ' the hiave Sir Jo hn who sogready distinguished himself at Poic-tiers [s ic] and was knighted byEdward III for valour . Un likeNichols ' Memoirs , Smiles ' Self-Helpwas a htige poptilar success. In 1889J ohn Temple -Leader and G ius eppeMarcot t i publ ished Sir John Hciwk-xuood (L Acuto) Story of a Condottiere.The se two were un de r no i l lusionsahout Hawkwood, but thought that ,

remained the s tandard English workon Hawkwood for over a h imdredyears , and can now be read on thein ternet .Sir Jo hn H awkwood could neith erread no r write, as is clear from theterms of a condotta of 138 5, whichhad to be read out to h im, andsigned on his behalf and he wasnever known as a patron of the arts ,tuilike his fifteenth-centur)' succe.ssorFeder igo da Moutefel t ro of Urbiuo.T he re is grea t irony in the fact tha this reputation was preserved for pos-terity by Uccello, the great Renais-sance artis t , and by me n of letterslike Gaxton, Nichols , Smiles andTemple-Leader . Hawkwood wil lalways remain an enigma, for we willalways see him th rou gh the im agesothers have created.FOR FURTHER READING :Kenneth Fowler.Sir John Howkwood(Oxfo rdDictionary of National Biography); Maurice Keen hivalry(Yale, 1984);England intheLater Middleg s 2ndedn.Routledge. 2003); Frances S tonorSaunders, Howkwood,Diabolical Englishman {Faber Faber, 2004):Joh n Temp le-Leader Giusep peMarcot t i .Sir John Hawkwood(L'Acuto)Story of a ondottiere(T. Fisher Unwin,1889);www,condot t ier id iventura;www.deremil i tar i ,orgSee page 55 for related articles on this subject In


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Hawlwood an Unsung Villain