AN UNSUNG VILLAIN

THE REPUTATION OE A CONDOTTIERE

Stephen Cooper describes how John Hawkwood, a tanner's son
from Essex, hecame a mercenary in late fourteenth-century
Italy, and after his death acquired a reputation as a first-class
general and as a model of chivalry.
I
F YOU CO INTO THE Dl' OMO i n
Florence, you will see a splendid
equestrian portrait of the
Englishman Sir John Hawkwood
(d.l394). It was painted by Paolo
Uccello in 1436 and shows Hawk-
wood as Captain-General of Florence,
the position he held in the early
1390s, at the end of a long life.
Astride a magnificent stallion, he car-
ries a commander's baton in his right
hand and wears an elaborate version
of the plate armour that had once
made the Wliite Company famous. As
Frances Stonor Saunders has vividly
written, his face and neck may be
'cadaverous' btit the image is noble,
and the message is both chivahous
and classical at the same time;
JOHANNES ACUTUS EQUES
BRITANNICUS DUX AETATIS SUAE
CAUTISSIMUS ET REI MILITARIS
PERITISSIMUS HABITUS EST
(lohn Hawkwood the British Knight,
who was regarded as the most
prudent commander of his age, and
the most experienced in military
affairs.)
Yet this fine figure was also one of the
most rtithless mercenaries of his day,
and not always a loyal ser\ant of the
Florentine republic. Before he
entered her service in 1380, he had
fought for all her enemies and extort-
ed thotisands of florins from her
exchequer.
For many years Hawkwood's modus
operandi, when short of cash, was to
demand money with menaces. The
joint letter which he and the Ger-
man Conrad Hechilberg wrote to the
Priors of Siena on August 8th, 1374,
was typical of many:
Magnificent and powerful lords, and
dearest friends. So that your
magnificences shotild not be
Paolo Ucceilo's fresco of Hawkwood in
the Duomo at Florence, 1436, was
commissioned by the city authorities,
and painted forty years after his death.
JANUARY 2006 HlSTOR^ TODAY 19
AN UNSUNG V I L L AI N: THE REPUTATION OF A CONDOTTIERE
surprised... we are letting you
know ... that a large number
of men-at-arms has gathered
outside the boundaries of your
territory ... As a result, if it
pleases your lordships to spend
some amount of money on
this Company, as customarily
ought to be done with men-at-
ami.s, we will refrain from
damaging your territories and
keep them free from harm as
far as we can: but if not, we will
send out pillagers ... to do
whatever they like. Let us know-
without delay what course of
action you propose to take.
Here indeed was ' the pro-
tection racket writ large', thin-
ly disguised in the diplomatic
Latin of the notary.
The ambiguities begin very
early with Sir Joiui Hawkwood,
and they start with the knigiit-
hood. It is not clear how he came hy
this. There were traditions that he
fought at Crcy (1346) and at
Poitiers (1356) and that he gained
his spurs at one or other of these hat-
ties; but there is no hard evidence
God's warrioi's? The Heavenly Militia
by Ridolfo Guariento (1348-54).
that he took part in either, or that he
was ever dtibhed hy Edward III or
the Black Prince. It is just as likely
that he got his companions to make
him a knight, as others are known to
have done.
John Hawkwood was the second
son of a tanner. He was born in Sible
Hedingliam in Essex in about 1320;
and he may (possibly) have heen a
tailor in his youth. He served the
Crown in France, in the first phase of
what later became known as the
Hundreci Years' War; but his service
ended when the Treaty of Brtigny
was signed in 1360. Made redundant
by the peace, he joined the free com-
panies that continued to terrorize
France and was part of a so-called
Great Company that attacked papal
territory near Avignon. He and oth-
ers were persuaded by the Pope to
invade Italy, with a view to
fighting the Visconti, who
ruled Lombardy. Apart from
one brief return to France, he
stayed in Italy for the re.st of
his life. Though no knight-
errant, he was a wanderer, and
he fought for money in almost
every part of that niiicb-divid-
ed peninsula.
Like many mercenary cap-
tains, Hawkwood acquired a
nickname - L'Acuto (the
keen one). He fought many
battles and won many victories
- while suffering some defeats
- and rose to he commander
of the White Company in the
1360s before attaining the
position of commander-in-
chief of the Florentine forces
in the 1390s.
Though he fought for
princes, republics and the
Church, he also continued to
engage in 'freelance' activity. He was
controversially involved in atrocities
at Faenza and Cesena in the 1370s.
He acquired estates in the Romagna
and a castle at Montecchio Vesponi
in Tuscany, which has now heen par-
tially restored. In his late fiftifs he
married an illegitimate daughter of
Bernabo Visconti and had three chil-
dren by her; but at the end of his life
it is clear that he wanted to return to
England. He died in Florence in
1394 before he could realize this
ambition; but his body was (proba-
bly) brought back here soon after-
wards, at the request of Richard II.
His son was naturalized as an
Englishman by Henry IV, and was
recorded as living in Essex in 1464.
The circumstances of Hawkwood's
death were as important as those of
his life for his suhsequent reputa-
tion. He died in his bed, having been
honotired by the Florentines with
citizenship and a pension, and his
funeral was particularly magnificent.
By way of contrast, many captains of
Hawkwood's castle at Montecchio.
I II
AN UNSUNG V I L L AI N: THE REPUTATION OF A CONDOTTIERE
tlie Great Companies in France
came to a bad end. some were killed
by their own men. while others were
executed for treason. This was also
the 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 similar
fashion in St Mark's Square in
Venice in 1432).
Yet Hawkwood's remarkable
career has not always attracted the
attention it desen'es. He soon ceased
to have any connection with the
fighting in France, and so distanced
himself from most of his peers in
England, His arrival in Italy was a
novelty for the Italians but, by and
targe, they became more interested
in their own heroes - for example
Alberico da Barbiano (d. 1409), first
in d school of home-grown merce-
naries. Humanistic biographies of
several of these Italians were written
in the fifteenth century - of 'Brac-
cio', Sforza, Colleoni, 'Pippo Spano'
and 'Piccinino'; but there was no
book about Hawkwood for nearly
400 years after his death, in English
or Italian. In the 1990s, the former
C'hichele Professor of Medieval His-
tory at Oxford, George Holmes,
described Sir John as a 'great unsung
villain".
Villain or not, he is no longer
unsung. 2001 saw the publication of
Volume I of Kenneth Fowler's
Medieval Mercenaries, which explains
the background to Hawkwood's
career in France, while Volume II
promises to deal with Italy. Balestrac-
ci's study l.e Armi. I Cavalli, L'(howas
published in 2003, while 2004 saw
the publication of Fowler's article in
t he new Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. Most recently there is
Frances Stonor Saunders' Haxokwood,
Diaholical Englishman - published in
the USA as The Dexl's Broker. Sir John
featured prominently in Terry
Jones's books, Chaucer's Knight and
Who Murdered Chaucer"?; and also in
his TV series, Medieval Lives. There
have been several fictional accounts
written in the last thirty years, in
Fngland, Italy and America, while
the 600th anniversary of his death in
1994 was celebrated in Montecchio
W'sponi and nearby Castiglion
Fiorentino. An internet search for
'Sir John Hawkwood' currently yields
over 18,000 results. There is a Hawk-
wood memorial chapel and a Hawk-
J^ri^^^k
, w>
Hawkwood with papal troop.s outside An armed horseman troni Anibrogio
Florence in 1375: the same year he briefly Lorenzetti's fresco, the Allegory of
entered into an agreement with the city. Bad Government (1338^0), from the
and was its captain-general in the 1390s. , Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.
JANUARY 2006 HISTORYTODAV 21
The battle of San Romano, 1432, a minor
encounter in which the Florentines routed
the Sienese, painted by Uccello in tbe
1450s. Mercenary captain Niccol da
Tolentino, leader of tbe Florentines, is
shown on his white horse, under tbe
banner of the Knot of Solomon.
wood Road iu Sible Hedingham, as
well as a Strada Aguta in Bagnacaval-
lo in the Romagna. Hawkwood's
tower at Cotignola and his castle at
Moiitecchio Vesponi botii sui'vive.
But although Hawkwood started
his adult Hfe as an obscure English
mercenary, and became a legend in
his own time for brutality, he also
acquired a posthumotis reputation
for nobility. The explanation for this
paradox lies in the idealized images
of him created and cultivated in the
century after his death, both in Flo-
rence and in England; and in the
growth of the idea that he desei"ved a
place in some hall of fame for mili-
tary heroes.
Paolo Uccello's portrait of Hawk-
wood was commissioned and com-
pleted forty-two years after its sub-
ject's death, though it was modelled
on an earlier fresco. As we have seen,
Uccello shows us the face of a tired
old man, but the image is nonethe-
less impressive. According to Vasari,
Uccello was passionately interested
both in animals and perspective, and
this shows. The horse is wonderful,
thotigh its strange gait arotised con-
troversy from the beginning; and the
sarcophagus - thotigh intended to
be seen from a much lower position
- still rises above us ^vith great power.
One would never know that Sir John
once ran the palio under the walls of
Florence, to show Pisan contempt
for the Florentines,
The Italians of tbe Renaissance
had many patriotisms, but tbey all
referred back to ancient Rome, and
Florence in particular liked to com-
pare itself to the Roman Republic. It
has even been suggested that Uccel-
lo's portrait reflects a vogue for
Plutarch's Lifeoxe Roman general
Fabius Cunctator (the Delayer) who
had opposed Hannibal in the
Second Punic War; bui ilu- ( lassical
tnedium does not explain the
message. Why did the Florentines
honour tbis Englishman in the
1430s, when there must have been
few alive then who remembered him
personally?
Hawkwood's name still meant
something to men who were interest-
ed in chivalry. There was no chivalric
biography of bim, as there was of the
Black Prince and of Bertrand dti
Guesclin; but, at the time of Sir
John' s death, the Marquis of Saluzzo
praised him in extravagant terms: 'en
Ylale ne fu cent ans dnmnl plus vaillant
capitain ne plus sage de lui.' (Tliere
was no captain more valiant and wise
than he in Italy in the last hundred
years). Moreover, Saluzzo created
two special seats for heroes in the
mythical palace which he invented
for Dame Fortune - one for du
Guesclin, and the otlier for Hawk-
wood.
In Florence itself the key to Hawk-
wood's continuing fame was a
renewed appreciation of his part in
saving the city from Visconti tyranny.
Milan posed a dire threat to
Florence in the 139()s. and again
between 1420 and 1450. In Sir John' s
time the 1st Duke of Milan, Gian
Galeazzo Visconti, had united Lom-
hardy. by the simple expedient ol'
kidnapping and (probably) murder-
ing bis uncle, Bernabo. Thereafter
A statue of condottiere Bartolomeo
CoUeoni (1400-75) erected in Venice
after bis deatb: by Andrea del Verocchio.
22 HISTORY TODAY JANUARY 2006
AN UNSUNG V I L L AI N: THE REPUTATION OF A CONDOTTIERE
he pursued a policy of expansion
and took over many smaller cities in
Tuscany and Umbria. Florence felt
obliged to respond, and in 1390-92
there was open war. It was now, when
be was almost certainly a septuage-
narian, tbat Hawkwood was
employed by Florence as her com-
mander-in-cbief, and he made a
good job of it. In 1390-91 be invaded
I.ombardy at the head of a large
force, and advanced to within ten
miles of Milan. When compelled to
retreat, he brought the bulk of his
men safely bome, across a flooded
Adige. Later in the same year, after a
brilliant campaign in defence of Flo-
rence, be attacked and defeated the
Milanese commander Jacopo dal
Verme, forcing Gian Galeazzo to sue
for peace. Contemporary Florentines
regarded tbe conflict witb the Vis-
Gian Galeazzo Visconti (I351-I402), the
first duke of Milan, and Hawkwood's
chief enemy during his final years in
Florence; sketch by Pisanello.
employed on a semi-permanent
basis) played an essential part. A
famous skirmish, later dignified as
the 'Battle of San Romano' in the
painting by Uccello, took place in
1432, wben the Visconti instigated
an attack on Florentine territory by
the Sienese. Tbe invaders attacked
fortifications at Montopoli in the Val
d' Arno, which had originally been
constructed by Hawkwood; but they
were defeated by Niccolo da Tolenti-
no. Wben the great Cosimo de Medi-
ci returned to Florence from exile in
1434, he pursued an anti-Milanese
foreign policy, until tbe Visconti era
Soldiers from Lucca assault the
Florentine castle of Pietrabuona in 1362.
conti as a just war and thought that
Hawkwood had saved tbem from
absorption by a superstate. Following
his death in 1394, they voted to hon-
our him with a marble tomb in the
Duomo.
Gian Galeazzo Visconti died pre-
maturely in 1401 and the state he
bad created fell apart. The threat to
Florence receded, but was soon
renewed by bis younger son Filippo
Maria, who rtiled as third duke
between 1412 and 1447. A struggle
ensued between a resurgent Milan
and the Venetian Republic, in which
Florence was tbe ally of Venice. She
participated in many of the battles
between the two Northern powers, in
which Italian condottieii (now
came to an end witb Filippo Maria's
deatb.
Coluccio Salutati, Florentine
chancellor between 1875 and 1406,
predicted that Hawkwood would win
'eternal and inextitiguishable fame'
if be defeated (iian Galeazzo. As
Salutati's sticcessor Leonardo Bruni
confirmed in bis History of the Floren-
tine People, this prediction came true.
But it was in the visual arts that the
fifteentb-century Florentines truly
immortalized Sir John. This was tbe
age of Donatello, Gbiberti, Fra
Anglico and Masaccio. In the 1430s
Brunellescbi's Dome was nearing
completion and tbe civic avitborities
were anxious that their cathedral
should house the finest works of art.
So it was that Paolo Uccello was
employed to paint Hawkwood, just as
he was commissioned to paint Nicco-
lo da Tolentino in the Battle of San
Romano. A few years later Andrea
del Castagno painted a series of
'Illustrious Men of Florentine Ori-
gin' , including several mercenary
captains. Among these was Niccolo
da Tolentino. Castagno's equestrian
portrait of Niccolo is still in the
Duomo today, where it hangs next to
Hawkwood's.
No portrait of Hawkwood was ever
painted in England; but a tradition
survived here too that Sir John was a
model of chivalry. Tbe starting point
for tbis was Froissart's ('.hronicles,
where tbe Bascot o Mauleon calls
Hawkwood 'a fine Englisb knight'. In
bis Prologue, Froissart (1337-C.1404)
declared that he wanted to preserve
"the bonotirable enterprises, noble
adventures and deeds of arms whicb
took place during the wars waged by
France and England' . Froissart's
audience tbougbt well of men who
displayed martial prowess and were
brave and true to tbeir friends; it did
not much matter wbich lord or cause
they served. This being the case, we
can see bow Hawkwood's noble rep-
utation was earned, and survived,
despite the fact that he never served
tbe Englisb crown in a military
capacity after 1360, and despite his
involvement in events - like the mas-
sacre at Cesena in 1377 - which
would nowadays render him liable to
indictment as an International war
criminal. /Viter all, tbe Black Prince's
involvement in a similar atrocity at
Limoges in 1370 does not seem to
have dented bis reputation.
Terry Jones bas argued that
Cbaucer' s Knight (a character be
JANUARY 2006 HISTORY Ton.w 23
AN UNSUNG V I L L AI N: THE REPUTATION OF A CONDOTTIERE
believes is modelled on Havvkwt>od)
would have been recognized by the
poet' s audience as a new type of
'shabby mercenary;' btit this seems
unhistorical. The better view is that
the English remembered Sir John as
nothing of the kind, but as a fine
specimen of English knighthood, in
his later years he was certainly
approved of at court, for he acted as
an English ambassador in Italy on
several occasions: why else did the
King ask for the return of his body
when he died?
Literacy increased substantially in
the later Middle Ages, and a fierce
English patriotism emerged; but the
favourite reading-matier was still 'the
knightly epic' . The classic text was
Maloiy's Morte d'Arthur, completed in
1469 and printed by Caxton in 1485.
In his preface, Caxton referred to
the nine recognized ' worthies' or
champions of chivalry: the Mac-
cabees from Biblical times; Hector,
Alexander aiul Julius Caesar from
the classical period; and Arthur.
Charlemagne and Godfrey de Bouil-
lon from the Christian era. Caxton
did uot iidd Hawkwood's name to
this list, but he did name him as one
of a select group of knights men-
tioned in his translation of Ramon
Lull' s Book of the Order of Chivalry. In a
lament for England's lost glories,
Caxton put Hawkwood on a pedestal
with Sir John Chandos, Sir Robert
Knowles and Sir Walter Manny.
Florentine Mercenaries line up to collect
their pay.
Why did Caxion bracket these
four together? Unlike Hawkwood,
the other three had become close
companions of Edward III and the
Black Prince, and they had achieved
fame and fortune in France, as ser-
vants of the crown. John Chandos
was one of the founder knights of
the Order of the Garter, and C-onsta-
hle of English Gascony for the Black
Prince. Robert Knowles' early career
was somewhat irregular, like Hawk-
wood's; but laler on he fought for
the Black Prince in Spain and he
took part in 'official' chevauches in
Erance in 1370 and 1380. Walter
Manny was a household knight who
distinguished himself boLh by land
and by sea, and was also a Knight of
the Garter. There were as many con-
trasts as comparisons to be made
between the careers of these men
Florence, with its Baptistery prominently
visible, in 1352; detail of a Madonna
della Misericordia by an anonymous
artist.
and Hawkwood's.
Yet Caxton pointed up the similar-
ities, to shame the men of his own
day out of their slothftil ways. By the
1470s, when he started his printing
business in London, it was over fifty
years since Henry V's victory at Agin-
court and over a hundred since the
triumphs of Edward III. England' s
armies had suffered crushing defeats
at the hands of the Erench, at
Eormigny in Normandy (1450), and
at Castillon in Gascony (1451). The
ancient Erench connection had l)een
damaged irretrievably. In its place
had come civil strife, and a disgrace-
ful vulnerability to Erench invasion
and piracy. Matirice Keen has
described an almost post-colonial sit-
uation, with settlers expelled, sol-
diers returning to a life of unemploy-
ment and crime, and a nation whose
pride had been deeply hurt. It was in
this context that Caxton made his
appeal to the achievements of a pre-
viotis generation. John Hawkwood
may not have served the national
cause in quite the same way as
Knowles, Chandos and Manny, but
his was still a story of military success
achieved in a foreign field by a
knight who had remained English at
heart. Hawkwood's name could now
be used as a rallying cry in England,
just as his image had been used as a
symbol of patriotic endeavour in Elo-
rence.
There were later writers who also
thought that Hawkwood deserved a
place in some hall of fame, hut their
24 HISTORY TOD.W JANUARY 2006
\
V 1 r c
H A W K W O O D I N P R O F I L E
H awkwood according to P aolo Giovio,
whose Histories of His Oum Times forms a
major source for the Italian wars of thU
period (1546).
lOAMNGS AVCVTHVS BRITANNVS.
L
H awkwood according to Tobias Stimmer
(1539-84), 1582. Stimmer was a painter
who concentrated on religious and
political prints after 1570.
H awkwood according to E nglishman
Thomas P atch (1725-82) who painted
Italian scenes and caricatures for toursts
(1777).
image of him was often distorted.
The bishop and historian P aolo
Giovio (1483-1552) called him
'fiercest warrior and extraordinary
delayer' {accerrimus bellator et cuncta-
tor egregious) ; hut he was completely
wrong in saying that Sir John only
arrived in Italy in 1.S68. L ikewise, the
woodcut Giovio tised for his illustra-
tion of H awkwood was crude and
ugly. There is nothing even distinc-
tively military about this portrait, and
it has little in common with the
Uccello, except for the F lorentine
cap. A more skilful woodcut was
made by the Swiss Tobias Stimmer in
1582, thotigh Stimmer still altered
H awkwood's face so as to make him
young and handsome.
Caxton's patriotic view of Sir John
was the forerunner of many later
E nglish accounts, some of them wild-
ly inaccurate. H awkwood was men-
tioned by L elaud in H enry VIII's
time, and Gamden in James I's. The
idea that he was once a tailor
hecame popular. WTien the traveller
Skippon visited F lorence in 1663 he
described Uccello's portrait as that
of John Sharp 'an E nglishman, who
was a taylor in E ngland, but here. . .
was preferred to a command iu the
army'. The Merchant Tailors boasted
of H awkwood in the L ord Mavor's
Show of 1680.
In the eighteenth century there
was a revival of interest among the
F ellows of the Society of A ntiquaries.
Some of them thought that H awk-
wood was a 'British worthy' - a term
used in the hall of fame at Stowe.
P hilip Morant mentioned him in his
History and Antiquities of the County of
Essex {1763-68); and in 1771 the
E nglish expatriate Thomas P atch
made an engraving, based on
Uccello's portrait. In 1776 a paper,
entitled Memoirs of Sir John Hawkivood,
was read to the Society hy John
Nichols. H e praised Sir John as one
of the greatest soldiers of his age,
and boldly asserted that he was 'a
gentleman' and ' no mere mercenary
soldier'.
In the middle of the nineteenth
century Samtiel Smiles mentioned
H awkwood in SelfHelp (1859). H awk-
wood appears there in a section on
tailors, as ' the hiave Sir John who so
gready distinguished himself at P oic-
tiers [sic] and was knighted by
E dward III for valour". Unlike
Nichols' Memoirs, Smiles' Self-Help
was a htige poptilar success. In 1889
John Temple-L eader and Giuseppe
Marcotti published Sir John Hciwk-
xuood (L'Acuto) Story of a Condottiere.
These two were under no illusions
ahout H awkwood, but thought that,
if his profession was scarcely hon-
ourable, he had at least done his
duty by the F lorentines. This
remained the standard E nglish work
on H awkwood for over a himdred
years, and can now be read on the
internet.
Sir John H awkwood could neither
read nor write, as is clear from the
terms of a condotta of 1385, which
had to be read out to him, and
signed on his behalf, and he was
never known as a patron of the arts,
tuilike his fifteenth-centur)' succe.ssor
F ederigo da Moutefeltro of Urbiuo.
There is great irony in the fact that
his reputation was preserved for pos-
terity by Uccello, the great R enais-
sance artist, and by men of letters
like Gaxton, Nichols, Smiles and
Temple-L eader. H awkwood will
always remain an enigma, for we will
always see him through the images
others have created.
FOR FURTHER READING:
Kenneth Fowler. Sir John Howkwood (Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography); Maurice Keen
Chivalry (Yale, 1984); England in the Later Middle
Ages (2nd edn. Routledge. 2003); Frances Stonor
Saunders, Howkwood, Diabolical Englishman {Faber
& Faber, 2004):John Temple-Leader & Giuseppe
Marcotti. Sir John Hawkwood (L'Acuto) Story of a
Condottiere (T. Fisher Unwin, 1889);
www,condottieridiventura;www.deremilitari,org
See page 55 for related articles on this subject In
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Stephen Cooper is a lawyer.
JANUARY 2006 H ISID R VTO P A V 25
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