Customer Reviews

The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth- Century Italy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the cathedral of Florence is a large fresco of a surprising figure. It was painted in the fifteenth century by Paolo Uccello, as a measure of respect to a Florentine fighter. Oddly, the figure is that of an Englishman, not an Italian, and one who fought for Florence simply because it was paying better than any of the many other sides during his tumultuous times. Sir John Hawkwood died in 1394, and in _The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in Fourteenth-Century Italy_ (Fourth Estate), Frances Stonor Saunders tells what she can of his life. It must have been a tough task to get this history together. Hawkwood was a military leader in a turbulent continent, and "long cultivated an aura of inscrutability." There are two brief letters he wrote in 1394, which happen to be the oldest extant letters in English, but he was, as Saunders admits, a man of few words. This is necessarily an incomplete portrait; we can't tell too much about his relationships with his family nor with those (sometimes on opposing sides) who hired him. Saunders has, however, thoroughly steeped herself in details of the history of an extraordinary time, and delights in laying them out at length. She mentions several times the famous work covering the same period in another fashion, Barbara Tuchman's _A Distant Mirror_, and anyone who enjoyed one will enjoy the other.

Hawkwood was born in Essex in 1320, and by the time he was forty, he was poor and unnoteworthy, and had a criminal record. Perhaps he had no other options than to become a mercenary soldier, a freebooter, and by luck or skill, he became the best there was. He was ready to be hired to the side that had the best offer for him, and to go over to the opposite side if it beat the first offer. He was amoral and greedy. When a pair of friars greeted him with "God give you peace," he snarled back at them, "God take away your alms." In peace, a soldier for hire has no trade. During Hawkwood's thirty year career, "...popes and princes would cringe before his approach, denounce him as the Devil incarnate, and rush to hire him nonetheless." As the head of his White Company, he had a reputation as the ablest military commander of the middle ages. The climax of his ruthlessness and cruelty came in the destruction of the Italian town Cesena in 1377. He happened at the time to be working for Pope Gregory XI. Gregory had been in France, and was returning the papacy to Italy, the subjugation of which was his obsession. Gregory took no steps to distance himself from Hawkwood's slaughter of 8,000 civilians who had given up their weapons because their cardinal told them to. Hawkwood was particularly fortunate in his final battle, where his troops had to retreat back to Padua. His army had been defeated, but he managed the "swift and precipitous flight" of the retreat so adroitly that it won him more fame than his greatest victories. It was greeted as a miracle, but it wasn't his first one. In combat against Verona in 1386, he had confronted the problem of poisoned wells by dipping into them the unicorn's horn he happened to have, and the water was purified.

These are the sorts of detail that Saunders obviously loves, and her book is enriched by digressions that examine the ways of life during this part of the middle ages. One of the players in the political and religious warfare was Saint Catherine of Siena, an anorexic who had frankly disgusting habits of pious degradation, but used them to become the only woman of power described here. Mystically married to Jesus, she was given by him his foreskin to wear as a wedding ring. Among the many engines of war described here was the stone-throwing trebuchet which had a throwing arm of fifty feet; it was called the _cacciapreti_ or "priest breaker". Rotting animal carcasses were often used instead of stones, and pigs were deemed to be of the best aerodynamics. In discussing Hawkwood's marriage, we learn about advice given to wives on the art of catching flies to keep a vermin-free home, and the religious proscriptions on sex for married people, which would have reduced couplings to less than once a week, in the approved male-dominant position only. It is a strange, confusing, and distant time, but the wealth of detail Saunders has given reminds us it was a time of greed, warfare, starvation, religious orthodoxy and controversy, and cleverness without wisdom. As Dickens said, of two other periods, the times were very like our own.

A good introduction to the warring mess of the Italian Warring States era of the 14th Century, Saunders is very much in the tradition of Tuchmann in sweep and historical detail. If you enjoyed "A Distant Mirror" then you shall surely enjoy this read as well. No one can duplicate Tuchmann, but the technique of using a rather obscure historical personage as a counter point to explore the history, social habits, military strategy and artistic acheivments of a particular era, when done well, yeilds a good narrative treasure for the reader. Saunders delivers!

John Hawkwood, an English Freebooter who participated in the great cheveauches which wasted great parts of France migrates to Lombardy and realises the potential of selling his mercenary services to the courts of Milan, Florence, and the Papal League. Even when reading it is virtually impossible to keep track of the alliances, counter alliances, intrigues within enigmas that underly this era, but the end result -- a frothy, earthy bloodfest, is a delight for the reader. This is really a case studies for Machiavelli type of book (Althought the events in the book actually predate Machiavelli by about 50 yrs).

The book is particularly good at describing the schisms in the Church at the time and one is tempted to ask the question how the church held together so well in the face of this schism and needed another 100 yrs plus, before it eventually fractionated into Protestantism.

Fourteenth century Italy was a maelstrom of political intrigue,military turmoil, and populated with deceiving and fascinating characters. Frances Stonor Saunders' new book uses Sir John Hawkwood, an English mercenary, as its center to create a world both thrilling and repugnant. To state that this is a book one "cannot put down" is risky, but it is nonetheless true. It is a captivating and well written account! The book moves rapidly through the era yet it does not sacrifice detail and description, but contains enough of both to hold the reader in its grasp. The character of Hawkwood is deftly interwoven into the fabric of medieval Italy. Although he was English he was a survivor. That was no mean feat as Sauders so impressively relates. It is superbly written and recommended most highly.

This is a good book. But I read it along with The Bad Popes (Sutton History Classics) and at times I thought I was rereading the same passages.

For example.

"The cardinals realized that they had to elect an Italian, but the four candidates present were disqualified by circumstances: the cardinals of Milan and Florence came from cities recently at open war with the papacy; the cardinal of Saint Peter's was too old; and Cardinal Orsini was considered too young and ambitious." p 270

"They had come at length to a realization that an Italian would have to be presented as pope--but each of the four Italians present was disqualified by circumstances: The cardinals of Milan and Florence came from cities recently at open war with the Papacy; the cardinal of St. Peter's was too old; Cardinal Orsini was too young and ambitious." p138

and

"But according to his secretary Dietrich von Niem, the absolute power so suddenly thrust upon him turned his brain, transforming him from a short-tempered bureaucrat into a raging tyrant." p272

"According to his secretary, Dietrich von Niem, the absolute power so suddenly thrust upon the man actually turned his brain, transforming him from a short-tempered bureaucrat into a raging tyrant." p140

I am neither a writer nor a historian so I do not know what to make of these similarities in reporting. I welcome your comments.

If you like intrigue, surprises, and being transported into another time and place - and to learn more about isn't taught in history books, this is a good book for you. If you love Italy, the history of the Catholic church, and have a mind for details, this is REALLY a book for you!

I am bewildered at what it must have taken to research and COMPILE the details in this book. Payments for ransom, ledgers of the city of Siena, how many horsemen went into a particular battle. Although Hawkwood is the central character in this book, it was an era - and his life was intertwined into so many people and places important to the era - that the book provides a fascinating travelogue to the mid- to late 1300s. Who knew that one Pope (John XXI) died when a ceiling fell on him? There were more homicides in spring, when competition for paltry food supplies from last year's harvest gave motive - the book is chockablock full of details like this that bring the era alive, even if you don't keep a scorecard to remember who was ruling where, against whom, or married to whom. I even found many of the asides interesting [travel is derived from "travail", meaning "work." Indeed, travel continues to be work today.....]. If you ARE a details junkie, this book is really for you. If you aren't, no worries, it's still a great read.

While obscure to many historians and laymen alike, John Hawkwood was a pivotal fulcrum in Italian politics during the 14th century. As a soldier in the Hundred Years War between France and England, he was unremarkable. After joining a siege of the Papal city of Avignon, and subsequently being hired to wage war in the Italian Peninsula, Hawkwood rose rapidly through the ranks of condottiere ("contractors") by virtue of a singular talent for avaricious power politics and devious strategy.

Saunders uses the engagements Hawkwood was involved to great effect in illustrating the less romantic realities of the Italian Renaissance. She does an excellent job as well in illuminating Hawkwood's likely role as a source of English intelligence on Papal and Italian politics. Stoner has thought-provoking asides on his likely meetings with Geoffrey Chaucer, the revenues and spending patterns of his military company, his relationships with other condottieri, and his love/hate yet strategic relationship with the Florentine commune, which ended by honoring "L'Acuto" with a portrait in its Cathedral.

The prose is easily absorbed, yet detailed and informative. Many interesting tangents are resolved without losing the primary thrust of the narrative, and Stoner's mastery of sources as well as objective assessment of their credibility is obvious.

Stoner's book is a worthy addition to the literature about early Renaissance Italy. (My review should have been four stars, but for some reason, I cannot edit this feature.)

Yes, The Devil's Broker is a thorough history of fourteenth-century's preeminent leader of brigands, outlaws and freebooters, John Hawkwood. It must encompass, therefore, The Hundred Years War, the Treaty of Bretigny, no peace in a devastated France, decades of British Free Companies raiding and ransoming French and Italian municipalities, the Pope and Curia moving back to Rome from Avignon two or three times, and the ruinous papal schism.
------
Here is also a marvelous source on reliquaries, sleeping attire, size of beds, weaponry, battle tactics, camp life, diet, armor, Chaucer, worth of money, indulgences, forced loans, and interdicts, to name a few subjects.
------
The author left this reader confident that she had included all relevant content surrounding the period and Hawkwood. The research is exceptional. If documents do not support connecting events together, the author states as much. Read the notes along with the manuscript to gain more insight. She wrote the entire book with skill so to be readable information, with a small caveat.
------
My minor criticism is that sentences in the early chapters seemed overlong, and both fractured and run-on. I didn't seem to notice the problem later in the book. Perhaps due to outstanding content or I learned how to read at the author's level of writing.