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<blockquote data-quote="FieserMoep" data-source="post: 7301652" data-attributes="member: 6919650">Uhm, you got a few things wrong here, I wonder - where do you study? (Not implying anything, just wondering because of the differentiation you made regarding the languages)Especially in late medieval times many Knights were in fact mercenaries. And they were quite proud of that. We have a plethora of vitaes that show the live of Knights in leading positions of mercenary armies and gathered quite the glory and wealth and valued personal honor very high.&nbsp; Given their equipment that was tremendously better than that of &quot;common&quot; armsmen we also have historical accounts of how effective they were in a time when traditional knighthood eroded.&nbsp; As for the distinction of Knight and Ritter, those are just the same words in different languages. If anything at all we could argue that due to the influence of the french language the term chevalier had a better connotation in english or german speaking regions.As for Robber barons, pretty much any feudal medieval european society had them from the early middle ages to the end, that was not a germanic problem as the term &quot;Raubritter&quot; may imply.As for medieval mercenaries: Their reputation was their capital. If they robbed the land dry, chances were rather slim for them to get hired. This later became a major issue due to the extreme escalation in the Thirty Years' War yet, in the transitional time frame not so much. Also keep in mind that many mercenaries had extremely good reputations, both regarding their skill and loyalty. The swiss guard is a prime example of this.So the term mercenary can and has covered a broad spectrum of people, if you want to refer to the bottom line, you may instead use an outright derogative term like dogs of war for such a universally bad image of mercenaries does not do them justice in the slightest.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FieserMoep, post: 7301652, member: 6919650"] Uhm, you got a few things wrong here, I wonder - where do you study? (Not implying anything, just wondering because of the differentiation you made regarding the languages) Especially in late medieval times many Knights were in fact mercenaries. And they were quite proud of that. We have a plethora of vitaes that show the live of Knights in leading positions of mercenary armies and gathered quite the glory and wealth and valued personal honor very high. Given their equipment that was tremendously better than that of "common" armsmen we also have historical accounts of how effective they were in a time when traditional knighthood eroded. As for the distinction of Knight and Ritter, those are just the same words in different languages. If anything at all we could argue that due to the influence of the french language the term chevalier had a better connotation in english or german speaking regions. As for Robber barons, pretty much any feudal medieval european society had them from the early middle ages to the end, that was not a germanic problem as the term "Raubritter" may imply. As for medieval mercenaries: Their reputation was their capital. If they robbed the land dry, chances were rather slim for them to get hired. This later became a major issue due to the extreme escalation in the Thirty Years' War yet, in the transitional time frame not so much. Also keep in mind that many mercenaries had extremely good reputations, both regarding their skill and loyalty. The swiss guard is a prime example of this. So the term mercenary can and has covered a broad spectrum of people, if you want to refer to the bottom line, you may instead use an outright derogative term like dogs of war for such a universally bad image of mercenaries does not do them justice in the slightest. [/QUOTE]

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