mm 



CHAP. VII.] 



DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



197 



armed infantry, and rendered them almost invulnerable, 

 but the principal reason seems to have been the improve- 

 ment in the tactics of the men-at-arms, which necessarily 

 resulted when the mercenaries were organised in bands, 

 and permanently maintained under drill and discipline. 



These bands of free lances, composed of adventurers 

 whose sole occupation was that of war, and who were 

 continually kept under a certain degree of discipline, 

 must have manoeuvred in the field and charged in action, 

 with much greater order and unity of direction, than did 

 the confused and tumultuous mob of feudal knights, 

 who fought in the desultory conflicts of the preceding 

 centuries. 



SECTION II. — MERCENARY COMPANIES. 



Mercenarj'- troops were substituted for the feudal 

 militia, or used as auxiliaries to it, long before the custom 

 arose of employing bands of professional soldiers, who 

 hired out their services to the highest bidder. At first 

 it was usual, as already mentioned, to pay the tenants 

 for services extending beyond the number of days which 

 were fixed as an absolute obligation. 



At a very early period, both in the English, French, 

 German, and Italian armies, the payment of troops for 

 their services was the constant habit. Canute the Great 

 had paid soldiers in his guard in the early part of the 

 eleventh century. Harold II. is also said to have had 

 Danish soldierb in his pay. William the Conqueror's 

 army, with which he conquered England, was a peculiar 

 example of a mercenary army based upon the feudal 

 principle. It consisted of 60,000 men, partly paid by 

 regular pay, partly his own feudal tenants, and partly 

 gathered by the promise of a fair distribution of booty 

 in case of success. After the victory at Hastings, 

 England was parcelled out into fiefs, and a great portion 

 of it granted to the soldiers of his army. He afterwards 

 employed hired troops, as did his son William Rufus. 



In the wars of Henry II. of England and Philip 

 Augustus of France, hired troops formed a considerable 



