The ''écorcheurs'' (, "flayers") were armed bands who desolated
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
in the reign of
Charles VII, stripping their victims of everything, often to their very clothes.
[Nuttal Encyclopedia at Project Guttenburg. ''Article - Ecorcheurs''](_blank)
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They were mercenaries
A mercenary is a private individual who joins an War, armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rath ...
without employment since the Treaty of Arras which ended disputes between the Armagnacs and Burgundians
The Burgundians were an early Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared east in the middle Rhine region in the third century AD, and were later moved west into the Roman Empire, in Roman Gaul, Gaul. In the first and seco ...
in 1435. Rodrigo de Villandrando was known as the "Emperor of Pillagers" (''empereur des brigands'') and "L'Écorcheur" (the flayer).
History
From the mid-14th century the French royal forces, whether voluntary or ''semoncées'', had become institutionalized. The permanence of conflicts during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) had created career soldiers, paid by the king or nobles. These were not mercenaries, as their vassals and clientelistic ties remained parallel to their economic interest in war.
During times of peace or truce, these unemployed warriors gathered in bands and lived on pillage and ransoms. In the 14th century, after the Peace of Brétigny-Calais (1360), large armies of mercenaries armies were disbanded, on occasion without receiving their pay.
Those who did not have the financial means to go home or wanted to continue their martial lifestyle, which was highly profitable, then formed '' autonomous bands of the road'' which exerted pressure on the regions of France.[Boris Bove, Le temps de la guerre de Cent ans : 1328-1453, (Paris, Belin, coll. « Histoire de France », 2009), Vol1&2 p669.] These were the great companies (not be confused with the grandes companies, which are rather the result of political instability in fifteenth century France and were mercenaries in the strict sense).
See also
*Routiers
Routiers () were mercenary soldiers of the Middle Ages. Their particular distinction from other paid soldiers of the time was that they were organised into bands (''rutta'' or ''routes''). The term is first used in the 12th century but is partic ...
* White Company
*Free company
A free company (sometimes called a great company or, in French, ''grande compagnie'') was an army of mercenaries between the 12th and 14th centuries recruited by private employers during wars. They acted independently of any government, and were ...
References
Mercenary units and formations of the Middle Ages
Military terminology
People of the Hundred Years' War
Military units and formations of the Hundred Years' War
15th-century military history of France
Looting in France
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