Urban armies also took part in aggressive ventures, and some of them did so with marked success – most famously so in the Swiss lands, where communal troops precede the mercenary armies that would command the battlefields of Europe after 1500. What were these urban armies of the late Middle Ages?
Forming an urban army
Authorities of medieval towns were pragmatic. When putting together an army, they had to balance the needs of their city's inhabitants for food, goods, and services and the need to assign hundreds of men (and occasionally women) to a military engagement that might last several weeks or even months. Local commerce had to continue running, but it was also strategically necessary not to deplete the town of men able to occupy the walls or to replace the fighters already in the field.
Councilmen were also well aware of the limited fighting power of their butchers, bakers, and
