White Company

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The White Company (Italian: Compagnia Bianca del Falco) was a European free company active during the 14th century. Initially known as the Great Company of English and Germans, it was later commonly referred to as the English Company (Italian: Compagnia degli Inglesi; Latin: Societas Angliciis). The company arrived in Italy in 1361, led first by the German mercenary Albert Sterz and later by the Englishman John Hawkwood, under whom it gained its greatest notoriety. The White Company operated as a structured military organization, maintaining an administrative staff of chancellors, notaries, and treasurers, and entering into legally binding contracts known as condotte with the city-states and the papacy that employed it. Despite this organizational structure, the company was also characterized by widespread pillaging, extortion, and violence. It is credited with introducing to Italy the practice of dismounting men-at-arms in battle, a tactic already established in the Hundred Years' War...

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