Quote:
Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym
There were exceptions. IIRC the condottieri of the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries were almost always Italians themselves, but still known as mercenaries. For Germany, Fritz Redlich in his "The German Military Enterpriser and his Work Force" talks about the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries, but does look at the antecedents of mercenary use in the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries. All the employees of the above were German.
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And both Italy and Germany were divided into many small polities at the time. They did not become unified counties with national governments until the nineteenth century.