Shadow Agents of Renaissance War

This volume engages with a range of important debates including: the relationship between war and state formation; the 'military revolution' or transformation of early modern military force; the nature of human and non-human agency; gender and war; civilian protection and expulsion; and espionage and diplomacy.

Stephen Bowd is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh and the author of studies of the Bresciano, among other works on Renaissance Italy. He has recently published Renaissance Mass Murder: Civilians and Soldiers during the Italian Wars (2018). Sarah Cockram is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Glasgow. Sarah specializes in gender history and historical animal studies, and her recent publications include work on animal emotion, companion animal health, and care of exotics. John Gagné is Senior Lecturer in History and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Centre at the University of Sydney. Much of his research focuses on cultural problems in the history of premodern war, especially the Italian Wars of the early sixteenth century. He is the author most recently of Milan Undone (2021).

Acknowledgements, 1. Introduction: War and Agency,(Stephen Bowd, Sarah Cockram, and John Gagné), 'Introduction', 2. The Unwilling Agents of War,(Neil Murphy), 'Refugees, Forced Migration and Henry VIII's Conquest of France, 1544-46',(Victoria Bartels), 'Prisoners for War: Convicts, Slaves, and the Culture of Forced Labour in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany',(Sarah Cockram), 'A Horse is a Feeling Animal: Interspecies Interaction and Animal Agency in Renaissance Warfare', 3. The Organizers and Suppliers of War,(William Caferro), 'Shadow Bureaucrats and Bureaucracy in Trecento Florence',(John Gagné), 'Heralds and the Representational Culture of War, 1350-1600',(Cristiano Zanetti), 'The Diverse Agencies of Renaissance Engineers in the Shadow of War',(Catherine Fletcher), 'Agents of Firearms Supply in Sixteenth-century Italy: Rethinking the Contractor State',(Ioanna Iordanou), 'The Invisible Trade: Commoners and Convicts as Early Modern Venice's Spies', 4. Women and Agency in War,(Stephen Bowd), 'Gender, War, and the State: The Military Management of Alda Pio Gambara during the Italian Wars',(Brian Sandberg), 'Delivering Arms: Noblewomen, Artillery, and the Gendering of Violence during the French Wars of Religion',(Gerry Milligan), 'Useless Mouths in Early Modern Italian Literature: Gian Giorgio Trissino and Lucrezia Marinella', Index.