City Leagues, Mercenary Companies, and Regional Recruitment in Late Medieval Tuscany

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the anti-mercenary city-leagues, or taglie, of Renaissance Tuscany. Anti-mercenary leagues were coalitions of cities tied together for protection against foreign companies of French, English, German, and Hungarian mercenaries. While these leagues flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century (1347–96) among the cities of Tuscany, taglie often failed militarily or collapsed after only a few months. Earlier scholarship has blamed these failures on military competition among Italian cities and an incipient culture of deception. By examining diplomatic correspondence, legal statutes and texts, and army musters, this article shows instead how the taglie were in fact corporate associations (societas) that provided not only military protection, but financial co-ordination, social control, and a common ideology of urban autonomy.