1360–1362: Great Companies, Rolleboise, and Brignais

The truce from Brétigny has a perverse effect: thousands of fighters find themselves unpaid. Structured bands, called Great Companies, live off the country, occupy places, extort roads, and paralyze the economy. War becomes permanent insecurity.

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🧨 Mercenaries and “Cold War”

Often English or Gascon, these groups claim England or Navarre depending on opportunity. They serve rivalries: Edward III can let mercenaries act under Navarrese colors, which nourishes popular hostility toward “English” and also discredits Charles II of Navarre, perceived as complicit.

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🏰 Rolleboise: Hold a Place, Control a Valley

Captains seize fortresses in their own names. The keep of Rolleboise becomes a celebrated example: controlling a place means controlling a circulation axis and thus levying tolls, ransoms, and tribute. The companies also establish themselves on major routes, notably the Saône and Rhône valleys, a north-south commercial corridor reinforced by papal presence in Avignon.

One attempts to buy them: they often cash in without leaving. One attempts to employ them elsewhere: they return. One attempts to oppose them: the strategy fails.

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⚔️ April 6, 1362: Brignais, Military Disaster

On April 6, 1362, royal troops are beaten at Brignais. The defeat illustrates the limits of an army dependent on fragile recruitment: mercenary contingents can leave the battlefield, and victory turns to collapse.

The episode also costs politically: one must pay ransoms to free captured figures, like William of Melun.

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🧠 To Remember

• The truce creates a security crisis: the companies replace war with armed banditry.
• Brignais shows impotence against “private” forces.