free companies

In the Hundred Years' War, mercenary bodies of mixed nationality under professional captains who were employed by both the French and English. Their captains often became quite powerful and could dominate a region, but they often resorted to pillage during breaks in the fighting and caused widespread devastation. The French eventually recognized the scale of the problem and took measures to stamp out the free companies, but the English continued to employ them, causing great resentment of the English in the French countryside. The free companies were also used elsewhere, as in the Spanish civil wars of the 1360s.