From Battlelines to Bloodlines. The Social Fabric of Mercenaries Serving the Duchy of Milan.

Margherita Criveller, University of Milan
Federico Bianchi, University of Milan
Raffaele Vacca, University of Milan
Flaminio Squazzoni, University of Milan

This study examines the mechanisms that intertwine kinship and contracting in the warfare market of Renaissance Italy, focusing on mercenaries who served the Duchy of Milan between 1370 and 1575. It asks whether marriage alliances among mercenaries reflect social selection—whereby affinal ties form between mercenaries already serving the Duchy—or social influence—whereby affinal ties increase the likelihood of subsequent service. The analysis relies on an original dataset from the digital archive condottieridiventura.it, including 283 mercenaries who served the Duchy and 1,138 time-stamped affinal ties. First, we build a whole-network in which nodes are mercenary families and an undirected edge exists if at least one recorded marriage links two families. Second, we construct ego-networks, where each ego is a mercenary who served the Duchy at least once and alters are mercenaries connected through an affinal tie. Methodologically, we combine these network representations with discrete-time event models. For each mercenary, t0 indicates the year of the first contract, t-1 the period before, and t1 the period after. We estimate two discrete-time hazard models: (i) social influence is tested by whether affinal ties formed at t-1 predict the timing of the first contract; (ii) social selection is tested by whether serving the Duchy increases the likelihood of forming new affinal ties in subsequent years (t > t0). Results reveal a clear core–periphery structure: social influence is strongest among peripheral mercenaries seeking access, whereas selection is concentrated in the core, where marriage alliances consolidate incumbent coalitions. The study shows that marriage alliances were a central mechanism of relational contracting, enabling elite families to coordinate, secure positions, and reproduce advantage in Renaissance Italy.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 39. Nationalist Projects, Transnational Solidarities, Colonial Legacies