Mercenary companies during the Hundred Years' War, during times of peace, grouped together in Grand Companies or Rovers, and lived on the surrounding country.
Full plate armour, with beak-in -iron, of a knight of the Great Companies, bearing the coat of arms of Bertrand du Guesclin.
Coat of arms of Du Guesclin
Full plate armour, with beak-en -fer, of a knight of the Great Companies, bearing the coat of arms of Bertrand du Guesclin.
Campaigns in France
The Great Companies were troops of adventurers who were paid by princes in times of war, and who lived on plunder and ransoms in times of peace or truce. They desolated France in the 14th century, under the reigns of John II and Charles V. They were recruited among foreigners of all nationalities and especially Germans whom Edward III of England, King of England, had dismissed after the treaty of Brétigny, in 1360.
Angered by their depredations, the peasants defeated them in several encounters and dispersed them for some time.
The constable Bertrand du Guesclin was employed to take these companies to Spain to rid the kingdom of France; there they supported against Peter the Cruel the cause of Henri de Transtamare, his brother.
Famous road bosses:
* Arnaud de Cervole, known as the Archpriest.
* Bétucat d'Albret
* Bernard de la Salle
* Hugh Calveley
* Robert Knolles
* John Creswell
Late-Venus
The Tard-Venus are mercenaries demobilized after the Treaty of Brétigny of May 8, 1360. Under the orders of Petit Meschin and Seguin de Badefol, they raged from Burgundy to Languedoc. In 1361, they defeated the Count of La Marche (Jacques de Bourbon), sent against them.
White Company
The Compagnie Blanche was formed after the Peace of Brétigny on May 8, 1360 under the orders of John Hawkwood.
Flayers
Other hordes of demobilized mercenaries will devastate France in the 15th century:the skinners.
Elsewhere
Large companies are not exclusively French. We can cite the Catalan Company of the Almogavres, mercenary soldiers in the service of the Crown of Aragon-Catalonia, mostly Catalan and Aragonese, which had emerged in the Iberian Peninsula during the wars against the Saracens, between the 13th and the 15th century, and who went to help the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II Palaiologus against the Turks.