00:00Welcome to the European Middle Ages.
00:02It's not the worst place you could possibly end up in,
00:06but odds are that you'd be a simple peasant tied to your land in serfdom.
00:12You'd perform manual labour day in and day out on your lord's farm,
00:16scraping by through agriculture and animal husbandry.
00:20You'd generally be one bad harvest away from starving,
00:24and your prospects for social advancement are minimal.
00:27But you do have a choice.
00:30Rather than the plough, you can take up the sword to become a witcher,
00:35or, more realistically, a mercenary.
00:37If you happened to be a good hunter,
00:40you were likely to have picked up many of the weapons skills you'd need to be a mercenary.
00:45Now you just needed someone willing to pay you to use those skills on other people.
00:51Luckily for you, medieval Europe had an abundant supply of lords and rulers
00:57willing to pay for violence.
00:59There was always someone pushing his inheritance claim, or duking it out for prestige.
01:06At any given time, there were around six wars happening somewhere in Europe,
01:11so if you happened to be close nearby, you could readily join in on the action.
01:17You could try setting out on your own, but in a world without magic and fantasy monsters to slay,
01:24there was generally little a lone man could do.
01:27You had much better odds of success if you joined a mercenary band.
01:32Having connections to someone already serving in one was always useful.
01:37But in the worst case, you'd have to scout around or stumble upon a mercenary captain.
01:43They often had strict quotas of men to fill, so if you could prove you could handle a weapon,
01:49you may very well get a spot.
01:51Getting hired, of course, was just the beginning.
01:55For a start, you'd generally be expected to bring your own equipment.
01:59Even if you had signed up as a simple archer or spearman, you might still have to fork over half
02:05a year's wage
02:06to procure your weapon and some padded garments.
02:09Though if you were lucky, the mercenary band might cover those for you as an advance.
02:15But now that you were in, you'd get to embark on your first campaign relatively quickly.
02:21You might have to assemble at a particular location, especially if your campaign involved sailing overseas,
02:27like any one of England's numerous assaults on mainland France during the Hundred Years' War.
02:34Unlike weapons and armour, travelling expenses were something you'd likely be reimbursed for,
02:40including feed for your horse if you had one.
02:43Once your mercenary band had assembled, you'd set off on your first campaign,
02:48and you'd get to experience the full breadth of your new career.
02:52There'd be plenty of travelling, which was something rarely afforded to people in an age when serfdom still tied many
03:00peasants to their land.
03:01You could sometimes travel thousands of miles, like our friends the Scandinavians,
03:07who famously reached as far as Byzantium to serve in the Emperor's Guard.
03:11But mostly, your day-to-day life would be surprisingly boring.
03:15You'd march, set up camp, guard the camp, and then pack it up.
03:20Things might get more interesting if you stayed in a town or city, especially for a longer period of time.
03:27You might make useful connections with merchants and artisans,
03:31but in general, the locals were much more likely to treat you with suspicion,
03:35even if you were, in theory, fighting for their defence.
03:38Of course, mercenaries were far from the only medieval profession to be distrusted despite being useful.
03:47Executioners, undertakers, and rat-catchers were just as likely to face social stigma and exclusion,
03:54much like the witches in their own world.
03:58Unlike them, however, people's suspicions of you weren't entirely undeserved.
04:03You see, mercenary companies weren't always as disciplined and well-behaved as your clearly written contract might suggest.
04:12Like many things in life and fiction, the core problem was money.
04:18Mercenary companies were expensive to hire,
04:21and the medieval lords who hired them frequently had money troubles of their own and had to borrow from lenders.
04:28So, it was not at all uncommon for the wages you were promised to arrive late,
04:35sometimes months or even years behind schedule.
04:39Obviously, you and your fellow brothers-in-arms still had to eat during that time,
04:43and you might have private debts of yours to settle too.
04:47So, it should come as no surprise that some mercenaries opted for alternative sources of revenue when their wages were
04:55withheld.
04:56This usually meant taking food and resources from locals, either promising to pay them later or not promising anything at
05:04all.
05:05Even when your wages did arrive, there were plenty of deductions you might have to bear.
05:10And, of course, your captain could always skim a bit off the top when you weren't looking.
05:15So, much more likely than not, you'd be looking for any opportunity you could to make extra cash on the
05:23side while you were mercenary-ing your way across Europe.
05:27And, this is where we get to the fun part, which is the actual fighting.
05:31You might have been marching for weeks before finally encountering an enemy, and nine times out of ten they'd be
05:38hiding behind the fortified walls of a castle.
05:41Thus, rather than engaging in field combat, which was far rarer than popular media would have you believe,
05:48you'd mostly spend your time besieging castles or walled cities.
05:53While waiting for the besieged army to starve, your biggest enemy were diseases, especially dysentery,
06:01which claimed the lives of more soldiers than all battles combined.
06:06If you were lucky enough to avoid any disease outbreak in your camp, you'd likely survive seeing the enemy surrender.
06:14Usually, this would be a negotiated settlement, so there'd be no indiscriminate pillaging, though you could still help yourself to
06:23whatever the fleeing residents left behind.
06:26If, however, the defenders were foolish enough to hold out to the bitter end, the rules changed considerably, as did
06:34your prospects of profit.
06:36In such a scenario, everything was up for grabs, though, of course, there were still rules you had to follow.
06:43For a start, you had to give a share of your pillaged earnings to your captain and to the lord
06:50who had hired your company, anywhere between a tenth and a half overall.
06:55As for what was actually valuable to loot, you had, of course, gold and silver, jewellery, weapons and armour, but,
07:04perhaps most of all, prisoners.
07:06If you managed to capture a knight or noble alive, you could make a substantial sum off of their ransom.
07:14In fact, capturing a feudal lord or king might even be enough to end your war entirely, as was the
07:21case of John II of France.
07:23He was captured by the English in 1356 during the Hundred Years' War and was ransomed for about ten tons
07:31of gold, a peace treaty and a third of western France.
07:36However, if the war you fought in was over, that might actually not be good news for you.
07:42Unless your company had another war conveniently nearby, which it could join, you would suddenly be left out of work,
07:50and if you were still owed money, you might not even have turned a profit yet.
07:55It is at this point that many unpaid mercenary bands turned to banditry to survive, continuing on with their pillaging
08:03as if their war had never ended.
08:05In some cases, where local political authority was weak, your mercenary band might even usurp the crown of whichever lordship
08:14it was in.
08:16That is famously how Francesco Sforza became Duke of Milan, and how the Catalan Company came to rule Athens.
08:25Of course, that was the exception.
08:27For most mercenaries, the more realistic ambition was to simply survive long enough to get paid and go home.
08:33Your family would probably be happy to see you, especially if you didn't return empty-handed, and if you had
08:41fought honorably, you might even have earned a reputation.
08:46Just like in fiction, happy endings weren't impossible, but of course it was hard and dirty work, no matter how
08:53you look at it.
08:54Well friends, if you enjoyed this brief medieval tour, please check out the wonderful folks over at CD Projekt Red
09:02and The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Remastered.
09:06It's even more fun than risking your life for a feudal lord's ambitions.
09:10Don't forget to subscribe and stay tuned for the next contractually combative episode of SideQuest.
09:21Why did the mercenary refuse to work after sunset?
09:25He hated the night shift.
09:27He hated the night shift.
09:27He hated the night shift.
09:27He loved the night shift.
09:28He loved the night shift.
09:28He loved the night shift.
09:28Let's go.
