Abstract The purpose of this essay is to analyze the phenomenon of wealthy communities that hire soldiers to fight its wars, one that is not so confined to the past, as we"d like to believe. Modern day companies offering similar services like Executive Outcomes which guards important economic and diamond mining interests in South Africa or the lure of U.S. Armed Forces" bonus money and paid education primarily targeting recruits on the lower steps of the American economic ladder reminds us that materially all wealthy societies ?not just the mercantile Italian cities - will eventually seek to outsource and pay someone else to do the dirty business of killing.
From the Paper "?The priests and other citizens of Italy being unused to military service,? laments Niccolo Machiavelli over the martial decline of his people in his famous treatise The Prince, "they started to hire outsiders as soldiers" (82). It was perhaps impossible for him and other Renaissance commentators to fully comprehend the social and economic reasons why the medieval Italians began to hire foreign mercenaries to fight."
Abstract The Welshman Fluellen in "Henry V" by Shakespeare is an interesting and quite quixotic individual. The paper explains that he speaks boldly of many things, yet at times he is quite incomprehensible. Both his language and his references are puzzling, even though the intensity of his speech is quite clear in the written text. This paper shows that once his language is understood, however, Fluellen is shown to be a human representation of the unification of the British peoples. He also demonstrates the proper manner in which a vassal may disagree with his sovereign.
From the Paper "A further bit of obscurity is the "disciplines of war" (3.2.59, 3.2.72, etc.) and "law of arms" (4.7.2) to which Fluellen refers. He makes reference in 3.2.81 to "disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans" (emphasis mine) then goes on to urge Gower to "examine the wars of Pompey the Great" (4.1.69). No real explanation is given to these "disciplines". Campbell states that this is really "a quarrel raging in [Queen] Elizabeth's day but not in Henry V's" (302). It is curious that Fluellen is espousing the viewpoint of that the ancient warriors (Agamemnon, Alexander, Mark Antony, et al) are the greater examples of how warfare should be conducted, while noting that historically Henry used a most unorthodox defense against the French cavalry."
