destruction and reconstruction was the _condottiere_, who becomes
important about 1300. In Italy, where the _condottieri_ chiefly
flourished, they were in demand owing to the want of feudal cavalry, and
the inability of burgher infantry to undertake wars of aggression. The
"free companies" (who served in great numbers in France and Spain as
well as in Italy) were "military societies very much like trade-gilds,"
which (so to speak) were hawked from place to place by their managing
directors, and hired temporarily by princes who needed their services.
Unlike the older hirelings, they were permanently organized, and thus,
with their experience and discipline, became the best troops in
existence. But the carrying on of war "in the spirit of a handicraft"
led to bloodless battles, indecisive campaigns, and other unsatisfactory
results, and the reign of the _condottieri_ proper was over by 1400,
subsequent free companies being raised on a more strictly national
basis. With all their defects, however, they were the pioneers of modern
organization. In the inextricable tangle of old and new methods which
constitutes the military system of the 15th century, it is possible to
discern three marked tendencies. One is the result of a purely military
conception of the now special art of war, and its exposition as an art
by men who devote their whole career to it. The second is the idea of a
national army, resulting from many social, economical and political
causes. The third is the tendency towards minuter organization and
subdivision within the army. Whereas the individual feudatories had
disliked the close supervision of a minor commander, and their army had
in consequence remained always a loosely-knit unit, the men who made war
into an art belonged to small bands or corps, and naturally began their
organization from the lower units. Herein, therefore, was the germ of
the regimental system of the present day.