The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers: Combat, Welfare and Violence

Author(s): Lorraine White

Source: War in History , January 2002, Vol. 9, No. 1 (January 2002), pp. 1-38
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26014120

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 The Experience of Spain's
Early Modern Soldiers:
Combat, Welfare and Violence
Lorraine White

Between 1500 and 1700, hundreds of thousands of soldiers served in the

armies of the Spanish monarchs. Our knowledge of the conditions of service
of these men is scant and largely limited to those who served in the Army
of Flanders. This article examines the experience of soldiers in the regular
armies and the militias in the Iberian peninsula during this period. With a
focus on combat, physical and spiritual welfare and the culture of violence,
it provides a range of insights into the reality of warfare in mainland Spain.
It examines a number of variables which influenced or arose from that
experience. These include rates of attrition arising from desertion and cas
ualities; the availability, use and effectiveness of weapons and munitions,
along with evidence for ratios of the deployment of artillery; the nature of
medical and spiritual assistance; food and drink; association with women;
and engagement in and subjection to violence. The article provides inci
dental evidence for the use in the peninsula in the mid-seventeenth century
of tactics associated with the Military Revolution, and for the violent interac
tion of soldiers with civilians.

Since the 1970s historians have gone a long way towards reclaiming
military history from traditional military historians. They have widened
the focus from the conventional contemplation of leadership, strategy
and battles to examine armies, the overall conduct of warfare and the
study of warring societies.1 The 'bottom-up' approach of recent studies

1 General works include J. Keegan, The Face of Battle (London, 1976); on medieval
warfare: P. Contamine, Guerre, etat et societe a la fin du moyen age: etudes sur les armees
des rois de France 1337-1494 (Paris, 1972), and his La Guerre au moyen age (Paris,
1980), published in English as War in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1984). On the early
modern period: A. Corvisier, Armees et societes en Europe de 1494 a 1789 (Paris, 1976),
published in English as Armies and Societies in Europe 1494-1789 (Bloomington, IN,
1979); J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450-1620 (London, 1985); M.
S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618-1789 (London, 1988); F.
Tallet, War and Society in Early Modern Europe 1495-1715 (London, 1992); G. Parker,
The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659 (Cambridge, 1972); C. Carlton,
Going to the Wars: The Experience of the British Civil Wars, 1638-1651 (London, 1992);
J.B. Wood, The King's Army: Warfare, Soldiers and Society During the Wars of Religion in
France, 1562-1576 (Cambridge, 1996); J. A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle: The French

War in History 2002 9 (1) 1-38 10.1191/0968344502wh248oa © 2002 Arnold

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2 Lorraine White

uncovers the internal workings of the army in action and examine

warfare in a social context. It explores the conflicting interests, moti
ation and behaviour of soldiers, and the interaction of the military with
the rest of society.2
The 'war and society' approach, however, is not without its critics.
They claim that war drops out of what become simply administrative
studies.3 While this article adopts a 'bottom-up' approach to study the
soldiers of early modern Spain, it gives centre stage to war. Spain - or,
more accurately, the composite Spanish monarchy4 - was one of Euro
pe's greatest military powers in the early modern period, and its armie
were engaged almost continuously in conflicts. Some studies for this
period have been made of Spain's armies and soldiers in certain Euro
pean theatres, yet relatively little is known about the soldiers wh
fought in the peninsula and defended the heart of the Spanish mo
archy.5 Many, though by no means all, were soldiers of the militias o
Castile, civilians who for brief - or not so brief - periods had the
unusual and often terrifying experience of taking up arms and partic
pating in war; others were professional soldiers, both volunteers and
conscripts, attached to the royal armies.6 This article examines th
reality of warfare in peninsular Spain through an analysis of the con
ditions of service of Spanish soldiers. It focuses on their experiences
in combat and on their welfare, notably medical and spiritual care an

Army, 1610-1715 (Cambridge, 1997); and see R. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare 1500
1700 (London, 1999). On the eighteenth century: C. Duffy, The Military Experience in
the Age of Reason (London, 1987).
2 The motivation and loyalty of soldiers in early modern Spain is explored in a
companion paper, 'Spain's Early Modern Soldiers: Origins, Motivation and Loyalty',
War and Society XIX.
3 See e.g. M. Bennett, 'The Development of Battle Tactics in the Hundred Years War
in A. Curry and M. Hughes, eds, Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years
War (Woodbridge, 1994), at p. 1.
4 On the Spanish and other composite monarchies, see J. H. Elliott, 'A Europe of
Composite Monarchies', Past and Present CXXXVII (1992), pp. 48-71.
5 Most notably Parker, Army of Flanders. For Spain's sailors, see P. E. Perez-Mallalna,
Los hombres del oceano: vida cotidiana de los tripulantes de las flotas de Indias, siglo XVI
(Seville, 1992), published in English as Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies
Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore, 1998). On the army of America, see J.
Marchena Fernandez, Oficiales y soldados en le Ejercito de America (Seville, 1983), and
his 'El ejercito de America: el componente humano', Revista de Historia MHilar XXV
(1981), pp. 119-54. Some insights into conditions experienced by soldiers in the war
of Portuguese independence, 1640-68, can be found in F. Cortes Cortes, Militares y
guerra en una tierra de frontera: Extremadura a mediados del s. XVII (Merida, 1991); F.
Cortes Cortes, 'Guerra en Extremadura: 1640-1668', Revista de Estudios Extremenos
XXXVIII (1982), pp. 37-122; A. Rodriguez Sanchez, 'Guerra, miseria y corruption
en Extremadura, 1640-1668', in Estudios dedicados a Carlos Callejo Serrano (Caceres,
1979); L. White, 'War and Government in a Castilian Province: Extremadura 1640
1668' (PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 1985).
6 On the militias, see J. Contreras Gay, Problematica militar en el interior de la peninsula
durante el siglo XVII: el modelo de Granada como organization militar de un municipio
(Madrid, 1980). On recruitment, I. A. A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsbur
Spain, 1560-1620 (London, 1976), ch. 4; R. F. MacKay, The Limits of Royal Authority:
Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth-Century Castile (Cambridge, 1999).

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 3

physical comfort. It concludes with an examination of soldiers and

violence.

Though the Spanish peninsula experienced a number of wars, revolts

and enemy attacks in the course of the sixteenth century - two offens
ives to annex the neighbouring kingdoms of Navarre (in 1512) and
Portugal (in 1580) to the Spanish monarchy; four revolts that had the
potential to seriously undermine or even destroy royal power: the Ger
manias revolt in Valencia (1519-22), the Comuneros revolt in Castile
(1521-22), the morisco revolt in Granada (1568-70), and the revolt of
Aragon (1591); French invasions of Navarre and Rosellon (1503, 1512,
1521, 1542, 1543, 1579, 1589, 1592 and 1597), 'side-shows' as one mili
tary historian has described them;7 overt war with France (1547-49),
merely part of the regular 'bickering' between Spain and France along
their shared frontier;8 and attacks by English naval forces on Cadiz in
1587 and 1596, and on La Coruna (as well as Peniche in Portugal) in
1589 - they were of short duration, and their impact was largely restric
ted to areas where the conflicts took place. In contrast, the pensinsular
wars and revolts of the seventeenth century were more prolonged, and
had far-reaching effects over and above the actual loss of territory: war
with France (1635-59 - which resulted in the loss of Rosellon and
Cerdana - 1674, 1684 and 1688-97); two major revolts: that of Cat
alonia (1640-52), which had French backing, and that of Portugal
(1640-68), which culminated in its independence. In addition, coastal
attacks by corsairs and pirates (including the English attack on Cadiz
in 1625) were unrelenting.
Most of the soldiers recruited in the peninsula were shipped over
seas, however, to fight in Spain's imperial armies in north Africa, the
New World and, above all, in Europe - in Italy, Flanders, Germany
and other theatres of war. Unless professional troops were retained in
the mainland or shipped to Spain, the defence of the peninsula was
left largely to the companies of part-time militias which were estab
lished, languished and then were re-established several times in the
course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.9 After the start of
war with France in 1635, these part-time militias were re-formed once

7 C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1987), p. 14.
While referring to the operations of the first half of the century, his description also
fits those of the second half.
8 Op. cit.
9 See Thompson, War and Government, pp. 121-45.

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4 Lorraine White

again and, two years later, organized into provincial tercios.10 From this
time, because of the continual need to send reinforcements to the
European war fronts, the militias came to form the backbone of penin
sula defence, especially on the western front. On marching to their
designated destination the militias were incorporated into the royal
armies (and royal pay), and subject to the control of the army com
mander until he gave them leave to withdraw and return home.11
What, then, was the experience of the soldiers who served in the
peninsula in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The description
by a sixteenth-century Spanish historian gives us some idea of the gen
eral conditions under which soldiers served: 'to fight each day, with
enemies, with the cold, heat, hunger, lack of supplies and equipment;
everywhere new harm, continuous deaths, until we see the enemy . . .'12
On top of these everyday conditions came the reality of battle. In Don
Quixote Cervantes provided a short description that hints at the noise
of batde, where 'close by there pealed the harsh thunder of dreadful
artillery; further off countless musket shots rang out; almost at hand
resounded the shouts of the combatants'.13 Without doubt, for soldi
ers, and above all for raw recruits, battle provoked fear and alarm,
and this in itself is enough to explain the high incidence of desertion
prevalent in early modern Spain and elsewhere.
A fighting force was naturally expected to suffer losses in its ranks
as a result of going into battle. Some evidence of the rate of attrition
for an active military force is provided by a muster taken in Zubiburu
in the Basque region at the end of the 1637 campaigning season
against the French.14 The soldiers recorded in this muster were from
the three tercios of the adjacent provinces of the Basque region
(Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya and Alava), the tercio of nearby Navarre, compa
nies of the permanent garrisons of Guipuzcoa, several Castilian tercios,15
infantry from the mountain passes of Irun and a body of Walloon
infantry. Only 61 per cent of the original force of 7719 soldiers
(including 516 officers) remained. Twenty-four men were absent with

10 The tercio was a Spanish military unit comprising, in the royal armies, anything from
3000 (around the beginning of the sixteenth century) to 1000 (more common by
the seventeenth century) men. There is no suitable English translation, though
'regiment' is the term generally employed. On the formation of the provincial tercios
see A(rchivo) G(eneral de) S(imancas), G(uerra) A(ntigua), leg(ajo) 1195, n(o)
f(olio), 'Papel sobre la formacion de los tercios provinciales que empieza en el ano
de 1637
11 See White, 'War and Government', pp. 251-60.
12 D. Hurtado de Mendoza, Comentarios de la Guerra de Granada, M(emorial) H(istorico)
E(spanol) xlix (Madrid, 1948), p. 2, speaking of the war in Granada (1568-70). On
the characteristics of the 1640-68 war against Portugal, see White, 'War and
Government', pp. 295-301, 'The Army in Action'.
13 M. de Cervantes, Don Quixote (Harmondsworth, 1950), pt 2, ch. 34, p. 698.
14 The exact location of Zubiburu is unknown, but it now probably lies in French
territory. The muster is in AGS GA leg. 1184, n.f., 'Relation de los offigiales y
soldados q parefieron y se hicieron buenos en la muestra q se paso en 9 de octubre
de 1637
15 These were listed as the 'old' tercios of Castile and three more Castilian tercios.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 5

permission (as they were considered unfit for service); 1264 had
deserted.

An analysis of those who deserted provides some interesting infor

mation: none of the deserters was an officer, and while the rate of
desertion among the entire force was 16 per cent, the four local tercios
suffered a much higher rate of desertion - 32 per cent.16 Among these
four tercios, the one with the highest rate was that of the province of
Guipuzcoa - very close to where the muster was passed - with 54 per
cent, followed by the tercio of neighbouring Vizcaya (with 59 per cent).
This suggests that a higher rate of attrition through desertion could
be expected from forces composed of soldiers enlisted from the
regions closest to the theatre of war, as has been noted elsewhere.17
Why was the rate of desertion so high? One reason was that the daily
wage of 1 real paid to a common soldier - and from which his food
other than the daily munition bread ration, and the shot and gun
powder he used, were deducted - was far lower than that paid even
to an agricultural day labourer. In Caceres in seventeenth-century
Extremadura, for example, a day labourer could earn three times the
soldier's daily wage plus three quarts of wine for each day he worked;
in nearby Coria a wheat harvester could earn between four and a half
or five times a soldier's pay, with food.18 Even pioneers hired tempor
arily by the army earnt three times as much as a common soldier, and
received the same daily munition bread ration.19 It was not just that
the pay was, in don Quixote's opinion, 'wretched', but that it 'comes
either late or never'.20 It was no wonder, then, that to the conscripted -
and often unpaid, hungry and destitute - soldier, the lure of higher
wages and food or drink, even though the employment was only sea
sonal, was too great to resist. For this reason the highest rates of deser
tion generally coincided with the months of greatest agricultural
activity - those in which sowing and harvesting took place. During the
Luso-Spanish war of 1640-68, when summer arrived the militiamen of
the garrisons of Extremadura deserted, almost to a man, to participate

16 The rate falls to 28.5% if we include the companies of the permanent garrisons of
Guipuzcoa, which were probably composed of Castilians, not locals.
17 J. Maneru Lopez and C. Camara Fernandez, 'El reclutamiento militar en Castilla a
finales del siglo XVI: analisis de companfas de soldados levantadas en tierras de
Burgos, Avila, Soria, Alava, La Rioja, Navarra, Segovia y Caceres', La Organization
Militar en los Siglos XV y XVI, Actas de las II Jornadas Nacionales de Historia Militar
(Malaga 1993) (hereafter Actas), pp. 179-89: 'It should be emphasized that the high
number of deserters is related to the proximity of their place of origin' (p. 187); see
too Thompson, War and Government, p. 103, and G. Parker, 'The Soldier', in R.
Villari, ed., Baroque Personae (Chicago, 1995) p. 36, citing a commander of the
Spanish Army of Flanders in 1630: 'troops native to the country where the war is
fought disband very rapidly . .
18 See I. Teston Nunez, 'La mentalidad del hombre extremeno en el siglo XVII'
(doctoral thesis, 4 vols, Universidad de Extremadura, Caceres, 1982) II, p. 455.
19 In 1657 the commander of the Army of Extremadura offered to pay three reales a
day to the pioneers needed to help for 8 days in the siege of Olivenca. (A)rchivo
(M)unicipal de (M)erida, (Libro de) Acuerdos 1657, fos. 363-v.
20 Cervantes, Don Quixote, pt 1, ch. 38, p. 342.

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6 Lorraine White

first in the harvest of neighbouring Andalusia and then in that of the

province; in autumn they again deserted and returned to their homes
to carry out sowing.21
Another reason was the risk of death, injury or illness. It is quite
difficult to find data on the numbers who died or were injured or fell
ill. The information we possess often contains little or no detail t
allow average casualty rates to be calculated. In addition, figures ar
usually exaggerated - when stating the size of enemy forces and their
casualities - or minimized - when giving the number of domest
troops and casualities. Nevertheless, some rough calculations can b
made. In the battle of Montijo in Extremadura in May 1644, for
example, according to the Spanish accounts, of a total Spanish forc
of some 5700 soldiers (4000 infantry and 1700 cavalry), a little under
8 per cent (433, including 276 infantry soldiers from the lower rank
and 100 cavalrymen) died on the day of battle. The sick and wounded
constituted 7 per cent (375), divided equally between the infantry and
cavalry forces. The Spanish casualty rate was therefore around 15 per
cent. Among the estimated 8600 Portuguese soldiers there was a much
higher mortality rate of 3060 (over 35 per cent), and among the 586
prisoners were 170 badly wounded men.22 Reports of the Portuguese
commander reverse the figures: of a total force of 9100 (7000 infantry
and 2100 cavalry) the Spanish lost more than 2600 men - a casualt
rate of 28.6 per cent (2,000 dead, according to his second report, giv
ing a mortality rate of 22 per cent). From his own army of 7100 (600
infantry and 1100 cavalry), he claimed casualties were 300 killed o
captured (4.2 per cent) and 400 wounded (5.6 per cent).23 In view

21 L. White, 'Actitudes civiles hacia la guerra en Extremadura (1640-1668)', Revista de

Estudios Extremenos XLIII (1987), p. 495. Corvisier, in his Armies and Societies, p. 172,
also states that desertion rates were higher in summer.
22 Figures from which calculations have been made can be found in 'Relation
verdadero de lo que sucedio el veinte y seis de mayo, pasado, en el reencuentro que
tuvieron las armas de SM con las del rebelde portugues en la campana de Montijo',
in S. Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas de Don Serafin Estebanez Calderon, B(iblioteca
de) A(utores) E(spanoles) LXXIX (vol. II), p. 89; B(iblioteca) N(acional de)
M(adrid), MS 2376, fos. 18v-28v. Though the size of the Portuguese army is given as
7600-8600, the document gives a precise figure of 3060 'buried'. My calculation is
based on the higher estimate of 8600. If accurate, the high Portuguese mortality rat
may have been due to the mass killing of troops defending the artillery and baggage
train in the middle of their battle formation, which occurred before their
commander counter-attacked. Another contemporary account cites figures of 2500
for the Portuguese (1000 infantry, 1200 cavalry and 300 dragoons) and 2500 for the
Spanish armies (1200 infantry - later 3100 - and 1300 cavalry), with at least 3080
dead on both sides, of which about 300 were Spanish. 'Relacion de la vittoria que
tubieron las armas de su Magestad ... en 26 de mayo . . BNM MS H.8,
reproduced in Cortes Cortes, 'Guerra en Extremadura', esp. pp. 88 and 92.
23 P. M. Laranjo Coelho, ed., Cartas dos governadores da provtncia do Alentejo a El-Rei D.
Jodo TV e a El-Rei D. Afonso VI (3 vols, Lisbon, 1940) II, pp. 38-40, letters dated 27
and 29 May 1644. The official Portuguese historian of the war, the Count of Ericeira
puts the size of the Spanish army at 8500 (6000 infantry and 2500 cavalry) and the
Portuguese at a little over 7000 (6000 infantry and just over 1000 cavalry), with
Portuguese losses of 900 dead and captured (12.9%) and more than 3000 Spanish
killed (35% - the same rate calculated for Portuguese deaths from Spanish sources).
L. de Meneses (Conde da Ericeira), Hist&ria de Portugal Restaurado (4 vols, Porto,
1945-6) II, pp. 60-8.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 7

their greater precision and the closer correlation of the Spanish

accounts to casualty rates given elsewhere, it is possible that these
accounts are less exaggerated than those of the Portuguese com
mander. Whatever the actual figure, mortality rates doubdess rose as
some of the wounded died days, weeks or even months after the battle.
The Zubiburu muster of 7719 soldiers contains similar figures for those
killed: almost 9 per cent (672) of soldiers had been killed and 13.5
per cent (1042) were in hospital, wounded or ill. The casualty rate was
therefore 22 per cent - not far off the 25 per cent casualty rate noted
for the infamous battle of Malplaquet in 1709, which was considered
to have been very heavy.24
A longer-term assessment of casualty rates is possible in the case of
35 militiamen sent from the Extremaduran town of Trujillo to the Cat
alan war front in 1640, where it appears they served for two cam
paigning seasons. A little under half (48 per cent, 16 men) of them
died whilst serving; just over one third (34 per cent, 12 men) returned
home; the remaining seven (20 per cent) stayed on to join the royal
army.25 This death rate over two years is similar to the suggested aver
age of one death for every four or five soldiers who enlisted each year
in Baroque Europe.26 These latter rates convert into a mortality rate
of 200-250 per 1000, compared to 40 per 1000 calculated for the total
population of Europe.27 Such figures indicate that mortality among
soldiers may have been between five to six and a half times higher
than the average for the rest of the population.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the risk of death or
injury from firearms or cannon rose as the use of hand-held guns
(notably arquebuses and muskets) and field artillery spread through
out Europe.28 Spanish cavalry as well as infantry in the peninsula used
firearms. Cavalrymen carried carbines and pistols - sometimes two of
the latter - while some arquebusiers (known as dragoons) were given
horses to improve their mobility, though they still dismounted to fire.29

24 G. Parker, 'The Soldier', p. 51; J. Black, European Warfare 1660-1815 (London, 1994),
pp. 111-12.
25 A(rchivo) M(unicipal de) T(rujillo), 1-3-93-1, Acuerdos, fo. 133v. Soldiers from the
neighbouring town of Merida who were sent to Catalonia at the same time returned
home at the end of Apr. 1642. AMM Acuerdos 1642, fos. 37-v.
26 Parker, 'The Soldier', pp. 48 and 52. He also gives a casualty figure of 62% in 3
months of action in 1628 in a troop of Scottish soldiers. Thompson, War and
Government, p. 103, suggests an annual replacement rate of 20-30% for Spain's
armies in the sixteenth century, adding that most wastage was from desertion, not
death.

27 F. Braudel, The Mediterrean and the Mediterranean World in the Tims of Philip 11 (2 vols,
London, 1972-73) i, p. 413.
28 On the spread of firearms and field artillery, see e.g. Tallet, War and Society, and
Hale, War and Society.
29 AMM Acuerdos 1645, fo. 42; BNM MS 2374, fos. 623—4, recounting how a French
cavalryman fighting for the Portuguese fired two pistols. According to the Real
Academia Espanola's Diccionario de Autoridades (facsimile edn, 3 vols, Madrid, 1990),
the carbine is 'similar to the shotgun [escopeta] or arquebus, but a litde more than
one yard [vara] in length'. A reference to the Portuguese capture of Villanueva del
Fresno in 1643 indicates that 20% of the Portuguese cavalry force of 2000 were
dragoons.

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8 Lorraine White

It was anticipated that over a third (almost 37 per cent) of the 205
cavalrymen of the army of the Duke of Alba being mobilized in
Extremadura to annex Portugal in 1580 would carry arquebuses; th
rest of the cavalry was to carry javelins (lanzas) - successors to th e jinetes
(genitors) of medieval times.30 A plan to form an army in Aragon in
the late 1570s envisaged that no less than 69 per cent of the total
proposed force of 32724 men would be armed with arquebuses, with
a further 12 per cent armed with crossbows; only 19 per cent were to
be armed with pikes and lances.31 In the mid-seventeenth century th
militias of Spain were armed with arquebuses, muskets and pikes. The
proportion of firearms to pikes, at least by the early 1640s, ranged from
three to one to three to two (similar to the ideal ratio for Spanish
armies in 1600) - higher, apparently, than that achieved in the French
army at that time.32
However, the risk of being killed or injured, though increased by
the use of firearms, was apparently not as great as one might expect.
First, in the peninsula during this period the use of cannon, especially
light field artillery, which could be devasting for infantry forces,33 wa
still quite limited. Nevertheless, cannon were not always so deadly for
those protected by fortifications. In the short (but successful) siege in
autumn 1642 of the castle at Ciudad Rodrigo, the Portuguese besiegers
fired ten rounds from their cannon, but killed only four of the
defenders.34 Few Castilian towns in the seventeenth century could
afford to equip their militias as well as Jerez de la Frontera and Seville
which possessed six cannon each.35 Where the size of the army and it

30 Coleccion de documentos ineditos para la histona de Espana (hereafter CODOIN) (113 vols,
Madrid, 1845-95) xxxii, pp. 27-30, 'Copia de relacion del numero de gente que se
ha de encaminar al ejercito de SM, y cuando se entiende podra estar junta, fecha en
Guadalupe a 1 de abril de 1580'. On the genitors and their tactics, see C. Oman, A
History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (2 vols, London, 1991) II, p. 180.
31 J. M. Sanchez Molledo, 'La organization militar en el Reino de Aragon durante el
siglo XVI', in Adas, p. 51. The total army size given is 31653, but the actual arms
totals amount to 32724, the figure I have used in these calculations.
32 See AMT 1-3-94-1, Acuerdos 1644, fo. 94v; AMM Acuerdos 1641, fo. 62; op. tit., 1643,
fo. 102v. On the proportions of arms in the sixteenth century, including an ideal
ratio in the French army of 1 to 1, see Hale, War and Society, p. 52. G. Parker, ed.,
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare: The Triumph of the West (Cambridge, 1995),
p. 154, calculates a ratio of 3 to 1 in 1601. For the French army, see Lynn, Giant, pp.
469-72 and fig. 14.1 on p. 476, revealing that the ratio of 3 to 1 for firearms to pike
was not reached until about 1680; it was 2 to 1 in the 1650s.
33 In 1646 the commander of Portugal's army wrote: 'the soldiers were not as firm as
they should have been, in spite of this they were waiting for the shot from the seven
cannon, which was what they killed our men with . . .'. Laranjo Coelho, Cartas dos
govemadores n, p. 109. These field guns, however, were not as light as the three
pounder gun employed by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. M. Roberts, The Military
Revolution, 1560-1660 (Belfast, 1956), p. 8.
34 Cartas de algimos PP. de la Compania de fesus (hereafter fesuit Letters), MHE, XIII-XIX
(Madrid, 1961—65) xix, p. 336. It was sufficient, however, to persuade the 400
defenders to capitulate, even though they had enough food and munitions to last for
several more days.
35 On Jerez de la Frontera, which spent almost 3000 ductas on arming its 16 militia
companies and buying 6 cannon, see Thompson, War and Government, p. 140; on
Seville and its cannon in 1643, see AGS GA leg. 1465, n.f., consulta 2 Dec. 1643.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 9

artillery train is specified it is possible to calculate the ratio of cannon

to soldiers. Initial plans for the army being formed in 1580 under the
Duke of Alba on Portugal's border were for a total force of 17100 and
12 cannon (a ratio of 0.70 cannon per 1000 men).36 The 14000-strong
royal army that entered Aragon after the 1591 revolt took an unusually
large artillery train comprising 25 cannon (a ratio of 1.79 cannon per
1000 men), though it proved unnecessary to fire them.37 The high
ratio of cannon to men in the latter example was not repeated in the
wars of the seventeenth century, though occasional rises were in evi
dence. In the war against Portugal between 1640 and 1668, field artil
lery was rarely used because of the dearth of battles and major sieges
until the end of the 1650s. In part this resulted from the desire of both
sides to avoid major confrontations: the Portuguese could not risk the
destruction of their armies, their sole defence, while the Castilians
were reluctant to risk their honour and reputation by exposing their
armies to possible defeat by so-called rebels.38 There was also a major
logistical problem: a serious shortage of carts and draft animals to
transport the artillery trains.39
Cannon were employed, nevertheless, though less often in the field
than for defence purposes in forts and strongholds, where they were
were used extensively. In the only battle between the two main armies
in the 1640s - that of Montijo in May 1644 - the Portuguese had six
cannon in an army of 8600 (a ratio of 0.70 cannon per thousand men);
the Spanish possessed only four cannon in their army of 5700 (giving
the same ratio). The Spanish opened fire with two small 10 lb cannon
positioned in front of their main battle line. The Portuguese placed
their cannon in pairs in three batteries, but fired only a few times.40
In 1642 a Spanish force of 2300 (1500 infantry, 800 cavalry) that
marched to Elvas, the headquarters of the Portuguese army, took only

86 M. Parrilla Hermida, 'La anexion de Portugal en 1580. El hospital de campana',

Asclepio XXVIII (1976), p. 275. The army eventually grew to about 37000.
Thompson, War and Government, p. 30. L. Cabrera de Cordoba, Historia de Felipe II (3
vols, Madrid, 1998) n, p. 935, states that, on the eve of the invasion, there were 25
siege and field cannon.
37 Sanchez Molledo, 'Organizacion militar', pp. 54—5.
38 Both sides were acutely aware of the impact of a defeat on their international
standing. The Portuguese feared above all that their main army would be destroyed
in battle, and that the country would then be left at the mercy of an invading
Spanish army.
39 As M. van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge,
1977), p. 12, pointed out, an artillery train comprising 6 half-cannon required about
250 horses - that is, about 42 horses per gun. A half-cannon weighed some 4000 lbs;
its shot weighed 24-36 lbs. G. Gush, Renaissance Armies 1480-1650 (Cambridge,
1982), p. 18.
40 As was pointed out earlier, there are conflicting accounts of the size of the two
armies. A Spanish account in BNM MS 2376, fos. 18v-28v credits the Portuguese
army with 7600 or 8600 men; the report of the Portuguese commander in Laranjo
Coelho, Cartas dos govemadores I, 38-40 gives figures of 7100 (producing a ratio of
0.85 cannon) for his army and 9100 for the Spanish army (giving a ratio of 0.44).
Estebanez Calderon, Obras compktas, p. 87 states the Spanish had just 2 cannon, but
another account on p. 134 gives a figure of 4.

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10 Lorraine White

two small cannon (a ratio of 0.87 per 1000 men) that 'served no pur
pose', as a contemporary remarked.41 The Spanish army of 15800 sold
iers that laid siege (unsuccessfully) to the Portuguese town of Elvas in
1644 possessed ten cannon and two mortars (trabucos) (excluding the
latter, a ratio of 0.63 cannon per 1000 men). Elvas itself was defended
by more than 50 cannon.42 In 1646, during the successful relief of
the Portuguese siege of Telena, near Badajoz, the Castilian relief army
possessed eight cannon in a force of 7700 (a ratio of 1.04 per 1000
men). The Portuguese with 16 cannon and 10500 soldiers (1.52 pe
1000 men) clearly failed to make use of their advantage in both men
and artillery.43 The 11000-strong Portuguese army that laid siege to
Badajoz in 1657 possessed seven cannon, giving a ratio of 0.64 cannon
per 1000 men.44 Even in the 1660s, when the size of both armies and
artillery trains increased significantly, the ratio of cannon to men was
little different. In 1663, for example, the Spanish army of 16000 at the
battle of Ameixial had 18 cannon - 1.1 cannon per 1000 men. At
Estremoz in 1665 the Portuguese had 20 cannon in their relief army of
25000 - 0.80 cannon per 1000 men.45 Though these mid-seventeenth
century artillery ratios on Spain's main war front in the west seem mod
est, they were nonetheless similar to those calculated for the French
army of the same period, which ranged from 0.75 to 1.36 per 1000
46
men.

A second reason the risk of death or injury from art

arms was not as great as one would expect was the lim
gunpowder and shot which restricted their deployme
1643 the 1500-strong garrison in the Castilian village
forced to capitulate to the Portuguese besiegers be
out of cannonballs, and the town of Encinasola feared that it would
be the next to be besieged as it had only two days' supply of gun
powder.47 It is clear that armies and soldiers were continually under
supplied with gunpowder. In 1580 the Duke of Alba was provided with
3500 quintales (about 161000 kilos) of gunpowder, but thought that

41 Jesuit Letters xvi, pp. 281-2.

42 Op. cit., xvii, pp. 508-9. For a list of the artillery of the Spanish army that marched
on Elvas in late 1644, including 'four trabucos for bombs', see Cortes Cortes, Militares
y guerra, p. 7. In contrast to the Jesuit Letters, Cortes gives a total army size of 14861
and 12 cannon (excluding 4 mortars), which produces a ratio of 0.8 cannon per
1000 men. Unfortunately, he does not give his source.
48 BNM MS 2377, fos. 231-32v, 'Verdadera ralacion . . Once again there is a
discrepancy in numbers: see the 7 cannon reported by the Portuguese commander
in the same source as in n. 23 above.
44 Op. cit., MS 2385, fos. 1-13.
45 That same year, 1665, the Portuguese took 14 cannon on campaign to Galicia.
Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, pp. 136, 148, and 177.
46 Lynn, Giant, pp. 508-9. The ratios given are 0.95 at Rocroi in 1643, 1.36 at Enzheim
in 1674, 0.89 at Neerwinden in 1693, and 0.75 at Malplaquet in 1709 where, it has
already been noted, there was a 25% casualty rate.
47 Jesuit Letters xvii, pp. 239 and 243. Before capitulating, the Neapolitan commander
of Valverde had been forced to manufacture cannonballs by melting down all the
available metal in the town.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 11

this amount would meet less than two thirds of his needs.48 On the
same war front almost 80 years later, the main Portuguese army in the
Alentejo region was supplied with only 100 quintales (barely 4600 kilos)
in 1641.49 When the commander of the Army of Extremadura
requested 3000 quintales (about 138000 kilos) of gunpowder for the
1659 campaign, the central Junta of War for Spain revealed that total
supplies for defence in the peninsula (that is, for the navy and coastal
and frontier garrisons plus the three major war fronts in Catalonia,
Extremadura and Galicia), were only 1427 quintales (65646 kilos) - less
than half of what was required in Extremadura alone.50
Supplies of gunpowder and especially shot available to individual
soldiers were also limited. Spanish soldiers armed with small arms car
ried a flask of gunpowder, small flasks of measured gunpowder charges
{frasquillas, probably on a bandolier), and a pouch containing lead
shot.51 Even with the normal issue of gunpowder - one pound weight
each - and a generous supply of lead shot - 20 bullets each (compared
to 15 in the French army circa 1690) - well-trained soldiers who dis
charged their weapons continuously and managed to fire the
maximum one or two rounds per minute (discounting the average of
one in six misfires, one in four when conditions deteriorated) - would
have exhausted their supply of shot in ten to 20 minutes.52 This
occurred at Montijo in 1644. After opening the battle with artillery,
arquebus and musket fire, the Spanish infantry then closed in with
pikes and swords.53 However, even if they were well trained and did
not waste gunpowder when charging their weapons, it is doubtful if
soldiers and gunners in the peninsula ever possessed adequate supplies
of munitions to reach even these moderate bursts of firepower. There
is evidence to suggest that throughout the 1640-68 war, though mil
itiamen in the regular and auxiliary companies were each issued with
the standard one pound weight of gunpowder, and while some may

48 Thompson, War and Government, p. 248. He requested another 2000 quintales. One
quintal-was equivalent to 100 Castilian pounds in weight.
49 J. Verfssimo Serrao, Historia de Portugal v (Povoa de Varzim, 1980), p. 29.
50 AGS GA leg. 19S4, n.f., consulta 26 Apr. 1659.
51 AGS GA leg. 1208, n.f., letter 10 Dec. 1637; F. Cortes Cortes, El real ejercito de
Extremadura en la guerra de la restauracion de Portugal (1640-1668 (Caceres, 1985), 76;
O. Valtuena Borque, Reales ejfrcitos: andlisis social del pensamiento militar de Cervantes
(Madrid, 1997), p. 25. Though Valtuena states that each soldier carried 2 flasks, the
archival evidence suggests they were only supplied with 1. The number of small
flasks is not specified, but they were commonly known as the 'twelve apostles'. A.
Manzano Lahoz, 'La uniformidad y las banderas', in Historia de la infanteria espafiola
(2 vols, Madrid, 1993-94) i, p. 369. While R. Quatrefages, Los tercios espanoles (1567
77) (Madrid, 1977), p. 74, states that Spanish soldiers made their own shot using
individual moulds, evidence for peninsular practices in the seventeenth century
indicates that as a rule they did not.
52 BNM Ms 430, fo. 580v: 'they ordered . . . that each soldier should be given one
pound of gunpowder ..The figure of 20 shot per soldier is from Valtuena
Borque, Reales ejercitos, p. 25; for France, Lynn, Giant, p. 461. On the rate of fire, see
B. S. Hall, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe (Baltimore, 1997), p. 149. On
the estimated rate of misfires, see below.
53 Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, pp. 33-4.

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12 Lorraine White

have received as many as 20 shot each, most were issued with a much
smaller number - just four or six bullets each.54 Clearly this place
severe restrictions on the deployment of small arms. Some soldier
were issued with even fewer shot. When militia soldiers of Seville were
issued with muskets - a mere ten per company! - to patrol the streets
and avert a possible uprising by Portuguese residents, they were given
just two bullets each.55 Additional supplies may, it is true, have been
held in reserve for the soldiers. At the 1644 battle of Montijo, each
squadron of Castilian infantry had gunpowder, shot and match in the
rearguard.56 It is unlikely, however, that soldiers could access them in
the heat of a land battle, unlike those on board Spain's galleys, who
could rush to recharge their flasks from barrels of gunpowder and
obtain shot and cord placed on every fifth oarsman's bench.57
Shortages in the peninsula, however, were not just limited to
munitions. Arms were generally in short supply in the peninsula. Sur
veys carried out in 1588 revealed dire shortages of serviceable modern
arms (above all handguns) across Castile, especially in the interior
regions and, within these, in rural areas.58 In the 1630s and 1640s, with
the constant supply of arms to the peninsula's eastern war fronts, the
militia companies of Castile's towns and villages were left virtually
unarmed.59 Significantly, 'unarmed' meant that though soldiers might

54 The figure of 4 shot per soldier is calculated from the proposed allocation of 25 lb
of shot to each of the captains of Coria's militia companies, which each comprised
100 men, and an estimate of 16 shot per pound, at 1 oz per shot (the typical weight
of an arquebus ball). AyC 7, Acuerdos 1647-49, n.f. Op. cit. 7-3, Acuerdos, fo. 304v,
specifying the distribution of 1 lb, or failing that half a pound, and 20 or 6 shot to
each man. At 6 shot per pound of gunpower, each shot would have consumed 2.67
ounces; at 6 shot per half pound, consumption would have fallen to 1.33 ounces
each; at 20 shot per pound each would have consumed 0.8 ounces. The latter figure
is closer to a 1742 test where the musket was charged with 'about half the ball's
weight [i.e. one ounce] in powder: Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 136. Muskets, it
should be remembered, required larger charges of gunpowder to fire their heavier
shot. Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 118, indicates that musketeers at Edgehill in 1642
had a dozen or so rounds of ammunition each.
55 F. Morales Padron, Memorias de Sevilla (1600-1678): noticias sobre el siglo XVII
(Cordoba, 1981), pp. 102-3. Besides the 10 muskets, each captain was to be issued
with 20 shot and 1.5 lb of gunpowder, suggested consumption of 1.2 oz each.
56 Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, p. 88, noting that each of the 7 Spanish infan
squadrons who fought had a supply of gunpowder, shot, and cord in their
rearguard. See too Jesuit Letters xvn, p. 339, where soldiers on a cross-border raid
into Portugal in 1643 carried additional supplies of munitions.
57 Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, p. 88. In 4 hours the soldier-autobiographer
Miguel de Castro used up 4 flasks of gunpowder. M. de Castro, Vida del soldado
(Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 57.
58 I. A. A. Thompson, 'Milicia, sociedad y estado en la Espana moderna', in La guerr
en la historia (Salamanca, 1999), pp. 123-4.
59 See e.g. AMT 1-3-87, fos. 125-6, 12 Dec. 1637: 'he is still trying to arrange if the s
company of 100 soldiers can be armed and he will report on progress and he also
sends a testimony of the arquebuses and arms he has, advising that most of the
militiamen are unarmed because there are no more arquebuses or arms than those
that have been registered'; and A(rchivo) M(unicipal de) A(rroyo de la) L(uz), leg
2, Acuerdos, 1607-70, n.f.: 'it seems that there are no suitable arms available for
what has been ordered .. . because those we had were taken by the company that
left this villa for Catalonia'; AGS GA leg. 1347, n.f., memorial of the Duke of Medi

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 13

carry a sword, they lacked small arms.60 In 16S2, over 70 per cent of
the 43 541 men enlisted in Castile's militias were without arms. The

best two of the 16 districts respectively had only 3.5 and 9.8 per ce
unarmed men; the worst eight indicated that over 90 per cent of th
men were unarmed, and three of these had failed to arm a single
man.61 The situation did not really begin to improve until the later
1630s, when serious steps were taken to supply the militias - which
from that time formed the core of the peninsula armies - and local
auxiliary shock troops (socorros) with arms. A review of over 100 militia
companies in about 1636 revealed that only around one quarter of the
more than 11000 soldiers were unarmed. Almost half were armed with

firearms, while the remaining 25 per cent had pikes.62 By the end of
the century, however, the situation had deteriorated once again, for
more than 87 per cent of the 465000 militiamen listed in the register
were unarmed.63
The shortage of firearms and other conventional weapons, however,
did not stop soldiers from fighting or prevent them from wounding
or killing their opponents. In their place they employed whatever wea
pons came to hand. During the revolt of 1568-70 in Granada, the mor
iscos employed large catapults, traditional weapons of war. From the
peak of Fijliana overlooking Torrox, some of the 3000 moriscos pelted
the Christian attacking force with a hail of stones. Some managed to
pierce or penetrate the Christians' round shields, killing at least 20
men and wounding 150.64 In 1641 a troop of hastily levied Castilian
militias which went to relieve a siege mounted by the Portuguese on
the frontier stronghold of San Martin, supplemented the few arque
buses they possessed with slings. With these they rained down stones
on the enemy, inflicting serious casualties, and helped to save the fort

Sidonia, reporting that the men on his estate had no arms; op. cit., 1469, n.f.,
consulta, containing information about the arrival in Badajoz of 500 soldiers from
Merida and Feria, almost all unarmed.
60 See BNM MS 2376, fos. 246-47v, copy of letter, 26 May 1644: 'Up to 3000 infantry of
the militias and socorros were massed in this garrison, and 1400 cavalry, many
disarmed with only their swords . . AMT 1-3-87, fos. 125-6, 12 Dec. 1637. See too
Thompson, 'Milicia, sociedad', pp. 124^5, including a reference of 1588 to 4000
petty nobles (hidalgos) specifying: 'they have no arms useful for fighting in these
times, though few lack swords and daggers and old lance-type arms [armas viejas
enhastadas].'
61 Contreras Gay, Problematica militar, calculated from figures provided on p. 23. The
best 2 districts were Murcia and Llerena; the worst 8 were Burgos, Avila, Guadalajara,
Cuenca, Ciudad Rodrigo/Almagro and (those which were totally unarmed) Segovia,
Madrid and Toledo.
62 Figures calculated from the list in AGS GA leg. 1195, n.f., undated Relation de las
armas ... de los 10V soldados . . . (probably for 1636) covering the districts of
Guadalajara, Siguenza, Mondejar and Pastrana, Ocana, Santa Cruz, Villa Escusa d
Haro, Cuenca, Guete, Moya and Canete, Molina and Atienza, Soria, Agreda, priora
of San Juan and Campo de Montiel, Alcaraz, Murcia, Albacete, Sandeonte, Alarcon
and Burgos.
63 Corvisier, Armies and Societies, pp. 29-30; H. Kamen, The War of Succession in Spain
1800-15 (London, 1969), p. 57, for reports of shortages in 1682, 1691 and 1698.
64 Cabrera de Cordoba, Felipe IIII, pp. 525-6.

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14 Lorraine White

from capture.65 Even in major encounters during the Thirty Years War,
soldiers resorted to these basic weapons: stones as well as musket shot
and grenades were hurled down on four Spanish soldiers who made
a midnight sortie across a moat to mine a wall during the 1642 siege
of La Basse.66
Regarding the firearms in use in early modern Spain, arquebuses
were used in greater number than muskets, perhaps in a ratio of two
to one in the mid-seventeenth century.67 Arquebuses were often pre
ferred for their relative ease of use: muskets were anything from a
quarter to three-quarters heavier than the 11-12 pound arquebus and,
with their six feet overall length, could only be fired when propped
up on a forked rest.68 Muskets had a calibre of between 0.7 and 0.9,
compared to 0.6 for the arquebus, and fired a heavier shot - between
one and half to two ounces, compared to just one ounce for the lat
ter.69 In France, the arquebus pet- se disappeared from service in the
1620s, and the weight of the musket started to be reduced from around
the middle of the century, producing a diversity of calibres and major
problems in supplying soldiers with the correct size of shot.70 In con
trast, soldiers in the Spanish peninsula continued to use both types of
weapon. Though elite companies of grenadiers (granaderos) armed
with flintlock guns and plug bayonets were first established in 1685,
matchlock muskets and arquebuses continued in general use until
early in the eighteenth century.71

65 Estebanez Calderon, Ohms completas, p. 30. The Portuguese besiegers who managed
to capture the wall of the stronghold also employed stones against the defenders.
66 Jesuit Letters XVI, p. 407. Stones were also thrown from the tops of masts on Spanish
ships: Perez-Mallama, Men of the Sea, p. 184.
67 As in the case of the militias of Merida, where the town decided to buy 1000
arquebuses and 500 muskets. AMM Acuerdos, fo. 102-v, 28 Sept. 1643. A year later,
however, Trujillo took delivery of an equal number of muskets and arquebuses - 300
each - while 2 years earlier Merida had armed 2 companies of soldiers with muskets
and pikes only. AMT 1-3-94—1, fo. 94v, 17 June 1644; AMM Acuerdos, fo. 62, 13 July
1641.
68 Muskets could weigh 15-20 lb and had an overall length between 5.6 and 6.2 ft.
Weights and dimensions, however, are only approximate, as at this time there was no
standardization of weapons. Moreover, the size, calibre and weight of the musket was
reduced in the later seventeenth century to around 4 ft, 13 lb, and around 0.8
calibre. The later musket was therefore only slightly larger than the average
arquebus, and 'musket' became the generic name for all small arms. See Tallet, War
and Society, p. 22; Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 176-8; Lynn, Giant, pp. 455 and 458
9; J. F. Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean
Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1974), p. 149, who gives the weight
of the arquebus as 10 lb or less.
69 Tallet, War and Society, p. 22; Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 177-8; Lynn, Giant, pp.
455 and 458-9; Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 100; Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys,
p. 149, who gives a weight of about half an ounce for the arquebus ball.
70 Lynn, Giant, pp. 458-9.
71 Though French influence after 1700, and particularly after the outbreak of war in
the peninsula over the succession, was significant, the general introduction of the
fusil was first proposed to Charles II in 1698. A real ordenanza of 10 Apr. 1702
ordered the adoption of 'a type of arm they call the fusil, while a decree of 29 Jan.
1703 abolished the use of the musket, arquebus and pike as standard equipment.
See J. Alvarez Abeilhe, 'Los armamentos', p. 424, and II, Entre la ilustracion y el
romanticismo, pp. 399-423, 'Los armamentos', pp. 402-3; Kamen, The War of Succession
in Spain, p. 61. Because of the cost and shortages of supply, the fusil could only be

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 15

In the peninsula (as elsewhere) muskets were employed to best

effect for defensive purposes, though they also had uses in offensives.
Hence they were deployed from or against city or castle walls by
besieged (who sometimes loaded them with scattershot for even better
effect) and besiegers alike, or against cavalry, especially by infantry in
skirmishing parties.72 Because of their value in defence and for
skirmishes, muskets made regular appearances in the lists of firearms
purchased for town militias in the border and coastal regions.73
Nevertheless, though muzzle velocities of round shot in this period
were supersonic or nearly supersonic (depending on the gunpowder
charge), heavy drag reduced a bullet's kinetic energy by about one
half during the first 100 metres of flight.74 This limited the musket's
lethal range to about 110-30 yards, while that of the arquebus was
around 60 yards.75 The Duke of Alba, however, recommended an effec
tive distance 'of a little more than two pike lengths' - around 12 yards -
to his arquebusiers.76 These killing zones were even narrower if the
opposing forces wore some form of body armour.77 In the battle of

introduced gradually. The Spanish fusil is also known as the miquelet. See D.
Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (London, 1976), p. 77. On the
introduction of the fusil in France, see Lynn, Giant, pp. 459-64.
72 See e.g. in an incident near the Galician border in Oct. 1643, the use of muskets
alongside artillery in the northern Portuguese casde of Montealegre, and the
Spanish raiders' deployment of a line of musketeers with cavalry: Jesuit Letters xvii, p.
338. On loading with scattershot, Tallet, War and Society, p. 22. For an example of
Castilian defenders of the castle of Paios charging their artillery with musket shot,
nails and other things, which killed most of the besieging Portuguese's cavalry and
many infantry soldiers, leaving up to 500 dead, see Jesuit Letters xvii, p. 227.
73 See the examples in n. 67 above.
74 Hall, Weapons and Warfare, pp. 135-8, based on modern Austrian ballistic tests under
rigorous conditions of 13 muskets and pistols dating from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century. The tests indicated that spherical bullets decelerated at
approximately 2.5 m/sec. for every metre travelled in the first 24 m of trajectory (ie
2.7 yds/sec. for every yard travelled).
75 Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 138, though on p. 177 he says that at 109 yds the
musket's greatest effect would be to unhorse a man (both converted from metres);
Tallet, War and Society, p. 23. Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 100, places it rather
vaguely at the distance at which the whites of the enemy's eyes could readily be seen,
while on p. 134 he quotes an effective range of 60-75 ft (20-25 yds). The difference
in lethality between the two types of weapon was due not to variations in the speed
at which the bullets travelled, but simply to the greater weight (and therefore
impact) of the musket shot.
76 Quoted in J. Alvarez Abeilhe, 'Las armas', in Historia de la infanteria espafiola i, 'La
infanteria en torno al siglo de oro', p. 432. The pike at that time measured around
18 ft. See too Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 134, for an account of musketeers
holding fire until the approaching infantry was within 2 pikes' length. Here Carlton
uses a pike length of 16 ft.
77 As the penetration depended more than anything on the quality of the steel, as well
as on the actual design of the armour, it is not surprising that opinions also vary -
sometimes in the same work - as to the range of lethal fire of the musket against
body armour. See Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 147, for an interesting 1590
comparison of breastplates made from German steel and English iron. For differing
opinions about penetration of armour, see op. cit., p. 138 (converted from metres)
stating as little as 27-33 yds, and p. 169, 33-44 yds; Tallet, War and Society, p. 22,
giving 82 yds (converted from paces, at 0.82 per yd) for a 2-oz. musket ball to kill a
man in shot-proof armour; Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys, p. 149, stating that the
Spanish musket could reliably penetrate armour at 100 yds; Hale, War and Society, p.
51, that musket shot could penetrate all but specially reinforced siege armour at 164

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16 Lorraine White

Fraga (in Catalonia) in October 1642, for example, the Marquis of

Aytona was hit by two muskets shots. Though they severed the
crossband he wore (which was probably made of leather), he was saved
because of his armour (armas fuertes) ,78 Even so, muskets had a range
of 200 yards or more.79 This was clearly appreciated by the soldiers
themselves, for they spoke of being 'within musket range' (a menos d
un tiro de mosquete) or 'out of arquebus range' (a mas de un tiro d
arcabuz).80
While muskets and arquebuses had a serious inherent problem with
accuracy,81 apparent feats of individual marksmanship were not
unknown. In November 1640, a soldier in the Spanish army deployed
to put down the revolt in Catalonia fired his musket at an elderly
woman who climbed a tower to raise the alarm. He hit his target, and
the unfortunate woman fell to the ground.82 Such feats of marksman
ship must have been rare, however, for besides the inherent inaccuracy
of small arms, an added problem was the effect of the recoil, especially
from muskets. As a result, they tended to fire high, especially when
they were handled by new recruits.83 Many Spanish soldiers must have
been as thankful as the English captain who came under fire from raw
Scots levies in the enemy army and declared that 'they shot at the
skies'.84 This tendency to fire high led Robert Munro, a Scottish vet

or even 197 yds (converted from paces); Parker, Military Revolution, p. 17, stating that
a 2-oz. shot could penetrate plate armour 109 yds away (converted from metres);
Parker, Warfare, p. 154, citing English military writer Humphrey Barwick's claim that
musket shot could penetrate plate armour at 200 yds. On p. 236, n. 6, however,
quoting Barwick directly, he gives the distance as 200 paces (i.e. 164 yds).
78 Jesuit Letters xix, p. 351, letter 10 Oct. 1642.
79 Again, opinions vary as to the maximum lethal range of muskets, with distances
ranging from 250 yds to 500 yds. Lynn, Giant, p. 458, gives 250; Alvarez Abeilhe, 'La
armas', p. 432, gives 328 (converted from metres); Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 100,
gives 400; Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys, p. 149, is the highest with 500. On the
devastating effectiveness of volleys of fire from the Spanish musketeers on the
Elector of Saxony's men across the River Elbe, 200 yds wide, see Oman, Art of War in
the Sixteenth Century, pp. 249-50.
80 See 'Relacion de la vittoria que tubieron las armas de su Magestad', in Cortes Cortes,
'Guerra en Extremadura', pp. 90 and 91.
81 This was because of the unpredictable lateral deviation (the Magnus effect) of the
shot fired from their smooth-bore barrels, which increased, moreover, with distance.
Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 144. Again, opinions vary over accuracy. For the
arquebus, Parker, Military Revolution, p. 17, states that it was accurate up to 109 yds;
Tallet, War and Society, p. 23, says 60 yds. For the musket, Guilmartin, Gunpowder and
Galleys, p. 149, states that 'hitting an individual man at 75 or 80 yards would have
been an exceptional feat'; Lynn, Giant, p. 458, declares that aimed fire was effective
only to about 80 yds (though it is unclear if this refers to the heavier or lighter
version); Parker, Military Revolution, p. 236, n. 6, cites Thomas Digges, who claimed
131-64 yds when balls fitted the barrel tightly, otherwise 82 yds (converted from
paces).
82 Jesuit Letters xiv, p. 76, letter 20 Nov. 1640.
83 Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 100.
84 Op. cit. Duffy, Military Experience, pp. 208-9, relates that, in the wake of an
investigation conducted in the early 1740s, Frederick II of Prussia recommended that
soldiers ensure the butts of their muskets were held firmly against their shoulders
and that they point their barrels at the ground 8 or 10 paces away from approaching
troops to compensate for the kick of the weapon and the natural tendency to fire

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 17

eran of the Thirty Years War, to counsel that soldiers should aim 'never
higher or lower than levell with the enemies' middle'.85
It seems likely, however, that many musketeers did not aim at all,
or that they did not aim at a particular human target.86 Indeed, new
recruits were terrified of firearms and took some time to grow accus
tomed to firing them.87 In 1568 a commentator described just how
badly some Spanish soldiers handled their weapons:

To fire their arquebuses they charge them to the mouth [of the
gun] with powder; they take hold of them half way along the barrel
with their left hand and move their arm as far away as they can, to
prevent the fire from touching them (as they are so afraid of it);
and when they light it with the wick in their other hand they turn
their face away, just like those who are waiting for the bloodletter
to open a vein; and even when they fire they close their eyes and
go pale, and shake like an old house.88

On top of this, the performance of muskets and arquebuses deterio

rated and the rate of misfires increased as their barrels fouled up with
combustion residues. Even with regular cleaning, misfires might aver
age between one in eight and one in six; they increased to one in two
as conditions deteriorated.89 In wet weather, as both the match and
the gunpowder were affected, small arms could not be fired, and
strong winds also impeded their use.
The inaccuracy and unreliability of the weapons, not to mention
the variable skill of the user, especially under battle conditions, clearly
affected the efficacy of small arms in battle. Their effectiveness lay,
however, not in individual feats of marksmanship, but in volume when
employed in volley fire,90 especially against large targets. On the battle
field, massed infantry in line formation provided a suitably large target.
So, too, did cavalry - men and horses alike - when they charged en

into the air.

85 Tallet, War and Society, p. 23.
86 Keegan, Face of War, p. 171, who also points out that the word of command generally
used by the English was 'Level' rather than 'Aim'. M. Roberts, 'The Military
Revolution, 1560-1660', in C. J. Rogers, The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the
Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, CO, 1995), p. 14, states 'no
one could reasonably demand of a musket that it should be aimed with accuracy.'
87 A commentator remarked in 1642 on the soldiers of Galicia after their commander
had commended them for 'fighting like lions' in a major engagement with the
Portuguese that 'they were now losing their fear of firearms', fesuit Letters xix, p. 342,
letter 16 Sept. 1642.
88 E. de Salazar, Carta al capitan Mondragon, BAE cxii, p. 289, cited by A. Rodriguez
Sanchez, 'Guerra, Miseria y corrupcion en Extremadura, 1640-1668', in Estudios
dedicados a Carlos Callejo Serrano (Caceres, 1979), p. 607.
89 Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 149, gives 1 out of every 6, rising to 1 in 4; Carlton,
Going to the Wars, p. 100, gives figures of 12-18% (about 1 in 8 to 1 in 5), though on
p. 134 he assumes a 33% misfire rate for each volley fired; Tallet, War and Society, p.
23, states it was as high as 50% in arquebuses; Lynn, Giant, p. 458, as high as 50% in
muskets.

90 Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 148.

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18 Lorraine White

masse as a troop (ranging from three abreast to as many as 18, 20 or

30, and anything from two to three, six or even sixteen rows deep).
Cavalry was equally vulnerable when it performed a caracole
manoeuvre, with each file of a formation that was typically 15 or 16
ranks deep trotting at intervals, one after the other, to within a few
yards of the infantry formation before firing their pistols and wheeling
to one side.91 Though there are no reliable figures for the accuracy of
small arms in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one estimate
for musket fire assumes a 10-15 per cent chance of a hit at 100 yards,
and at that range envisages no more than one man in 15 being hit.92
Estimates for more modern weapons indicate that, under ideal con
ditions, muskets could expect to hit a given target with only 10-20 per
cent of shots attempted. In practice, however, it was likely to be much
lower - at best 5 per cent, or at worst, 0.2 to 0.5 per cent (i.e. one
bullet in 200 to one in 500 striking home).93 Precise figures for the
effectiveness of small arms in Spain are almost impossible to come by,
but occasional insights can be gleaned. For example, in the afternoon
of the first day of the Portuguese siege of Badajoz in September 1643,
when the besieging forces fired volleys at the Spanish defenders on
the walls, after several hours they had only killed six or seven men
and wounded about twenty.94 It is important, however, to distinguish
between the effectiveness of small arms in battles and in sieges. Small
arms were clearly more effective when deployed against troops in
massed formations on the batdefield. They were far less effective when
used against defenders taking shelter behind fortifications.

91 On cavalry tactics, see Carlton, Going to the Wars, pp. 135-9; Lynn, Giant, pp. 495—
500; Oman, Art of War, pp. 86-7 and 226-8; Tallet, War and Society, pp. 30-1; Hall,
Weapons and Warfare, pp. 194-7; T. F. Arnold, 'The Wheel-Lock Pistol', MHQ: The
Quarterly Journal of Military History VIII (1995), p. 76.
92 Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 134, assuming an equal number of men on both sides,
a 50:50 ratio of musketeers to pikemen, and a 33% misfire rate from each round of
volley fire. With an equal number of men on both sides Carlton envisages the same
number of men on each side being hit.
98 Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 138; G. Raudzens, 'Firepower Limitations in Modern
Military History', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research LXVII (1980), p. 132;
Arcon Dominguez, 'De la pica', p. 358. Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 139,
summarizes tests on muskets conducted in the eighteenth century shooting at a
target roughly equal in size to the frontal area presented by an enemy battalion
(about 100 ft long by 7 ft high): only 60% of bullets penetrated the target from 82
yds, 40% from 164 yds, 25% from 246 yds, and only 20% from 328 yds. On pp. 140
1 he gives the results of the modern Austrian tests, though the target here
approximated the frontal area of a standing human being: the average probability of
muskets scoring any hit at 109 yds was a little more than 50% (all distances
converted from metres). Lynn, Giant, p. 458, n. 17, provides results of tests
conducted during the Napoleonic era on weapons ballistically the same as earlier
matchlocks: they could hit a 'large target' 75% of the time at 80 yds; at 120 yards
they could hit a 'small target' 50% of the time, and at 160 yds accuracy fell to only
25%. Significantly, all of the tests were conducted in shooting ranges, not under
battle conditions.
94 Jesuit Letters xvn, pp. 249-51. As for the Portuguese besiegers, who numbered about
8000, their casualties were far higher: in the first 5 days some 150 were killed and
200 wounded, mainly by artillery shot fired from the town.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 19

Finally, to the imprecision in firing small arms must be added an

even greater hindrance that is often overlooked - the dense clouds of
smoke that obscured the battlefield from the time the action got under
way. In dry weather conditions, dust clouds could also cause problems.
During an attack on the Portuguese settlement of Otero Seco in 1643,
a Galician cavalry squadron was lucky not to suffer any casualties from
friendly fire when cavalrymen discharged their firearms during a melee
where the dust was so thick that they could not make out their own
comrades.95
Despite the apparent shortages of lead shot in the peninsula, there
is evidence to suggest that Spanish soldiers employed the latest tactics
of early modern warfare. In 1644, for example, when a Castilian raid
ing force of 250 cavalry and 250 musketeers found itself being closed
in by 1000 Portuguese shock infantry troops and 100 cavalry, the mus
keteers fired off two or three volleys and brought down almost 100
Portuguese. This was sufficient to cause the rest of the Portuguese to
flee, leaving the Castilians to escape with their booty.96 Moreover, a
year earlier, in a night assault, the Portuguese used drums to coordi
nate the salvos of their musketeers, and were well aware of the fear
and confusion such volleys caused among those who came under fire.97
The tactics of the Military Revolution - including a reduction in the
size of infantry units to around 500 men, the thinning of formations
in which soldiers stood just six ranks deep, the deployment of
musketeers in lines eight ranks deep, and firing salvos - were clearly
in evidence in peninsular Spain by the middle of the seventeenth
century.98
Nevertheless, soldiers were killed and wounded by firearms and by
cannonballs, as well as by the more traditional hand-to-hand fighting of
sword and pike. Some were killed or wounded by small arms through

95 Op. tit., p. 273.

96 Op. cit., p. 458.
97 Orders to employ these tactics were given by a Portuguese mestre de campo in 1643 to
a troop of 50 musketeers who were ordered to fire on the rearguard of the Galician
army making a night attack on the trenches guarding the recently conquered
Galician castle of Salvatierra. The musketeers were directed to repeat their salvoes.
The attack was repulsed. Ericeira, Portugal Restaurado I, p. 449.
98 On tactics of the Military Revolution, see G. Parker, 'The "Military Revolution" 1560
1660: A Myth?', Journal of Modem History XLVTII (1976), pp. 195-214 (reprinted,
together with Michael Roberts's revised 1956 lecture and other seminal articles on
the Military Revolution, in Rodgers, Military Revolution Debate, pp. 37-54). See too
Lynn, Giant, ch. 14, and G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and Rise
of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988). Doubtless because of the lack of evidence,
Parker's map on p. xvi fails to include the Portuguese front in the principal areas
affected by the Military Revolution. On evidence of the use of such tactics on the
Extremaduran front: Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, p. 88, indicating an
average Castilian squadron size of 570 men 6 ranks deep in the 1644 battle of
Montijo; R[eal] A[cademia de] H[istoria], [Coleccion] S[alazar] y C[astro], K-12,
fos. 206-24, report on the 1663 campaign with tercios divided into squadrons (the
average size of a Spanish squadron was 760 men, that of the Italians and Germans
respectively around 400 and 350); Laranjo Coelho, Cartas dos govemadores n, p. 108
on the deployment of 8-rank-deep lines of musketeers.

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20 Lorraine White

confusion, misadventure or mischief. During the battle between Span

ish and French troops at Fraga in October 1642, one of the Spanis
tercios fired on their own cavalry, killing at least 20 soldiers." A neg
gent comrade-in-arms might accidentally discharge his firearm. Othe
soldiers were fired upon deliberately.100 The careless handling of the
glowing match used by soldiers to ignite the priming charges of gun
powder in their arquebuses and muskets was another danger, an
particularly hazardous as they carried measured charges of powder in
small flasks hanging from bandoliers across their chests. As one h
torian has noted, it almost made soldiers walking bombs.101 The soldi
ers themselves (and civilians too, it seems) were well aware of this
danger. In 1643 Portuguese inhabitants near the border with Galicia
set fire to the brush in surrounding hills in an effort to deter a Spanish
raiding party. The soldiers, all carrying munitions, along with the
reserve gunpowder supplies they transported with them, were in
danger of being blown up as they carefully picked their way to safety
through the fire.102 Even small arms that were charged with gunpowder
but lacked shot could be lethal.103 What, then, were the soldiers'
chances of survival, and what medical assistance did they receive?

In early modern Spain, health care for the sick and wounded (civilians
as well as soldiers) was undertaken by a variety of providers: an elite
corps of university-trained physicians and surgeons,104 vocationally
trained surgeons and barber-surgeons, certain orders of hospitallers
(for example, St John of God), permanent hospitals (usually based in
monasteries) or camp hospitals (which were set up in tents to serve a
particular army and moved with it),105 quacks (curanderos) and camp

99 Jesuit Letters xix, p. 351. The correspondent added that 'it was not possible to excuse
it', and noted 'it was a miracle they got out alive from there'.
100 Early in the war of 1640-68, the first commander of the Army of Extremadura, the
Count of Monterrey, was shot by one of his own soldiers who accidentally discharged
his arquebus. F. Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos de soldados en la Extremadura del siglo XVJI
(Merida, 1996), p. 185. Though his source declares that the count was killed, he
survived. Cortes Cortes also gives two examples of assassination, though not
necessarily by fellow soldiers.
101 Lynn, Giant, p. 461. Carlton, Going to the Wars, p. 99, stated that the bandolier
threatened to turn the soldier into a live Roman candle if burning match-cord or
powder-flash from other weapons set it alight.
102 Jesuit Letters xvn, p. 339.
103 See Morales Padron, Memorias de Sevilla, p. 42, for the case of a student killed by an
arquebus that lacked munition as he walked past when it was fired by a soldier.
104 On physicians, see D. C. Goodman, Power and Penury: Government, Technology and
Science in Phillip IPs Spain (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 215-30.
105 Op. cit., p. 245. On the permanent hospital at Mechelen and on health care in the
Army of Flanders, see L. Van Meerbeeck, 'L'Hopital royal de l'armee espagnole a
Malines en l'an 1637', Bulletin du Cercle Archeologique de Malines LIV (1950), pp. 81
125, and her 'Le Service sanitaire de l'armee espagnole des Pays-Bas a la fin du
XVIme et au XVIIme siecle', Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire XX (1959), pp.
479-93.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 21

followers (generally women). Soldiers and sailors in the major ports

used by the Spanish navy were treated in the local civil hospitals, often
overwhelming their limited resources; permanent military hospitals
were established in some ports only from the later sixteenth century.
From about 1574, soldiers stationed in the Navarrese town of Pam
plona were treated in what seems to have been the only permanent
military hospital in the interior.106 Field hospitals were also set up, for
example, in the centre of action on the edge of the Alpujarras during
the morisco uprising (1568-70), and in tents in Extremadura for the
army that annexed Portugal in 1580.107
This seeming abundance of assistance, however, was not always avail
able to the early modern Spanish soldier, or if forthcoming, it arrived
rather late in the day - literally! The surprise is perhaps that the death
rates were not higher. The injured were only attended to after the
battle or military encounter had ended, so it is probable that only the
strongest or less seriously-wounded survived even to the end of the day
of battle.108 Nevertheless, it is likely that a significant number of those
soldiers lucky enough to survive beyond the day of battle died in the
days and weeks that followed as a result of shock, peritonitis, dehy
dration and loss of blood, though more from blood letting than from
wounds.109 Those unlucky enough to fall ill or be wounded in a
besieged fort or stronghold probably fared even worse, for they were
wholly reliant on whatever supplies, assistance and expertise, medical
or otherwise, were available within the enclosure under siege. In the
event that the defenders decided (sometimes after resisting for several
months) to capitulate to the besiegers, it was usual for carts and beasts
of burden to be provided to evacuate the sick and wounded.110 Their
misery and suffering did not end there, however, for they were then
subject to the ordeal of a tortuous journey along the notoriously poor
roads of that period, and some at least must have deteriorated or
expired along the way.111

106 Goodman, Power and Penury, pp. 240-1, 242-3 and 249.
107 Op. tit., pp. 245-6. The field hospital followed Alba's army as it marched through
Portugal, and after the capture of the port of Setubal in July 1580, part of the
hospital staff was ordered to join the second embarkation and join the army which
was to sail to Cascais to begin the capture of Lisbon. CODOIN xxxn, p. 526, letter 27
July 1580.
108 V. Velamazan Diaz, V. Velamazan Perdomo and M. Velamazan Perdomo, 'La sanidad
militar en los siglos XV y XVI', in Adas, p. 69. Recent experience in trauma
medicine suggests, however, that the delay in receiving medical attention is not
necessarily detrimental, as the body triggers natural defence mechanisms designed to
improve the chances of survival.
i°9 Keegan, Face of Battle, p. 202. Though he was referring to the wounded at the battle
of Waterloo, the early modern soldier was open to the same risks.
110 For example, clause 3 of the capitulation of Monzon to the Army of Galicia in Feb.
1658 after a 4-month siege, contained in BNM, VC/56/144, 'Diaria relacion de lo
svcedido'.
111 After the fall of Perpignan to the French in Sept. 1642, the terms of the capitulation
were said to include the transport of the sick Spanish troops to Tarragona, a journey
of about 12 km by land followed by some 290 by sea. The healthy were to go to
Rosas. Jesuit Letters xix, p. 339.

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22 Lorraine White

For the wounded who had access to medical treatment, a fifteenth

century manual makes the surgeon's work in healing wounds sound
straightforward. It divided his tasks into three stages: first, staunching
the flow of blood, second, guarding the wound against infection, and
finally, curing it with medicine and appropriate measures.112 Contem
porary accounts show just how gruesome this was in practice.
For those injured in military actions or armed encounters, sixteenth
century doctors and surgeons had become reasonably competent in
the treatment of sword wounds or, where necessary, in performing
amputations or dealing with the loss of limb caused by cannon-fire.
Up to the sixteenth century, the most common form of treatment after
such amputations was to cauterize the wound by burning it with hot
metal or boiling oil.113 In the absence of anaesthetic, this must fre
quently have sent the patient into shock. An equally effective though
less traumatic form of treatment that came into use in the sixteenth
century was the application of thick animal fat to seal the wound.114
Increasingly, however, ligatures were employed to secure arteries and
cauterization was curtailed.115 In the case of simple open wounds like
those caused by pikes or sword strokes, hemp fibres soaked in cold
water and egg white were used to stop the flow of blood, and the edges
of the wound were drawn together and sewn up with a needle and
thread, leaving an opening at the lower end for any pus to escape.116
The treatment of wounds caused by projectiles - initially arrows but
increasingly, in the early modern period, shot from firearms - was,
however, much more difficult and complicated. The projectile pen
etrated deeply, causing internal bleeding, and was coated with frag
ments of dirt, grit or gunpowder. It frequently shattered bones, usually
remained in the body, and resulted in a much higher incidence of
infection and, ultimately, of death.117 Until the middle of the sixteenth
century surgeons generally poured boiling oil into the wound and
employed various artifices and implements to clean the wound and
extract the shot. This method (known as pus laudable) consisted of
inserting a piece of pork fat or string and moving it around to encour

112 P. Moratinos Palomero and J. M. Perez Garcia, 'Algunas connotaciones medico

sanitarias en la organization militar en el siglo XV', in Adas, p. 83.
113 Op. tit., p. 82.
114 G. Parker, 'Military Medicine and Care for Veterans', in his Cambridge Illustrated
History of Warfare, pp. 148-9.
115 A. Pare, The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Pare containing the Voyages made into Divers
Places with Many of His Writings upon Surgery, ed. G. Keynes, (London, 1951), pp. 146
60, 'Of Amputations'.
116 Moratinos Palomero and Perez Garcia, 'Algunas connotaciones', p. 83.
117 On the medical problem posed by crossbows and other types of this 'lesser kind of
artillery' - even in the nineteenth century - see R. I. Burns, 'The Medieval Crossbow
as Surgical Instrument: An Illustrated Case History', in Moors and Crusaders in
Mediterranean Spain: Collected Studies (London, 1978), ch. 7 (originally published in
the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicin XLVIII (1972), pp. 983-9). See too
Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 168. Hall, Weapons and Warfare, p. 146, states, however,
that 'gunshot wounds are not inherently more prone to infection than many other
sorts of battlefield lesions are'.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 23

age suppuration and the natural expulsion of the shot. To complete

the healing of the wound, it was covered with a poultice. However,
in the mid-sixteenth century the French surgeon, Pare, accidentally
discovered a treatment that dispensed with the use of boiling oil. This
was the 'digestive', 'dry' or aseptic method that used an astringent sol
ution of turpentine, rosewater and other essences. Not surprisingly, its
use spread rapidly throughout Europe.118
Infection was an ever-present danger, so in an attempt to prevent it
wounds were washed with a mixture of water and chamomile, and
dusted with verdigris.119 A poultice or an astringent mixture of wine
and pomegranate was sometimes applied later. Finally, ointments
made from red or white lead were applied. After that, the patient was
purged, then fed on a nutritious diet.120 If the patient survived and
the wound continued to weep or suppurate, it was washed with an
astringent mixture at least once a day. If fever set in, the doctor was
summoned and once again the unfortunate soldier was subjected to
purging.121
A Toledan nobleman, Don Juan de Silva, has provided us with a
graphic account of his treatment for and recovery from a firearms
wound. As ambassador of Philip II to the Portuguese court, he
accompanied the ill-fated Portuguese King Sebastian on his crusade to
north Africa. At the battle of A1 eager Quibir on 4 August 1578 he
received 'a considerable arquebus wound in the left arm'.122 He first
reported on his health after returning to Spain at the end of 1578
(almost five months after being wounded):

Here in Gibraltar the state of my arm has now allowed me to get

up for a short time during the day. I have seven wounds that the
surgeons have had to make in my arm because each one festered
as a result of the problems and bad treatment I had in the first 40
days. Four of these wounds have now been covered with cloth and
balm and have almost healed over; three are in the very joint of my
elbow and are so stubborn, and the two very small ones, so resistant
to the medicine that for two months nothing has been able to heal

118 Moratinos Palomero and Perez Garcia, 'Algunas connotaciones medico-sanitarias',

pp. 82-3; F. H. Garrison, Notes on the History of Military Medicine (Hildesheim, 1970)
(repr. of The Military Surgeon, 1921-2), pp. 110-17 and 127-9; Pare, The Apologie, pp.
130-42, 'Of wounds made by gunshot, other fierie engines, and all sorts of weapons',
which includes the famous account of his discovery.
119 Green crystals formed on copper treated with acetic acid.
120 Moratinos Palomero and Perez Garcia, 'Algunas connotaciones', p. 83. Hospitals gave
the sick 'presents' that were considered necessary to cure them. See e.g. AGS
Contadurfa Mayor de Cuentas, 3a epoca, leg. 601, which includes the amounts paid
in 1645 to an apothecary, a citizen of Badajoz, who provided medicines and drugs to
the hospitals of the Army of Extremadura.
121 Moratinos Palomero and Perez Garcia, 'Algunas connotaciones', p. 83
122 L. Salazar y Castro, Historia genealdgica de la Casa de Silva (Madrid, 1685), p. 521,
cited in F. Bouza Alvarez, 'Corte es decepcion: Don Juan de Silva, conde de
Portalegre', pp. 472-3, in J. Martinez Millan, ed., La Corte de Felipe II (Madrid, 1995),
pp. 451-502.

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24 Lorraine White

them; another one is in the inner angle of my elbow and should be

healed in about two weeks; but those two I mentioned are causing
me so much trouble and are so sore and painful that I fear that they
will not heal up for a very long time, and some sweat [a poultice?] or
fire [cauterization] will be needed to heal them, because the sur
geon has tried every method he knows, to no avail.123

One and a half months later (and six and a half months after being
wounded) he wrote from Seville with further news and recounted how:

When I was about to leave at 8 o'clock . . . they found a bone that

was sticking out of that small wound they had tried to close. There
wasn't room even for a lentil to fit, and the bone was so big that it
looked as though it would not fit through anything but a big hole.
When the surgeon tried the next day to widen the wound with
sponges and other devices, it was so difficult, but he started to pull
the bone out with his hand and made room for it till it came out.
The bone is an inch thick, and the length of three fingers; it was
God's great favour to reveal it and remove it with so little damage -
though with a lot of pain. That same day, from another wound that
I have on the inside of my elbow, another bone came out without
any pain, though it left a large wound in my elbow that has now
closed up these last few days, and seems to be healing. I was doubtful
and very unconcerned about finding the shot, and when one day I
went to take my pulse, I found it in that very spot, on the inside of
my arm between the muscles, about a finger's length from where
my hand joint is. It is amazing that it had travelled from alongside
my shoulder to reach this spot, without me having felt it set off,
move or stop.124

In spite of his wounds, Don Juan was lucky enough to survive - unlike
the count of Losestein, a German colonel in the service of Philip IV
who died two weeks after receiving a pistol shot, also in the arm, at
the battle of Ameixial in 1663, or the unfortunate Marquis of Torralbo
who died in Badajoz a few days after a bullet passed through his
hand.125 Though Don Juan's arm did not have to be amputated, five
and half months after being wounded, he was still only able to get out
of bed for a short time each day. Not surprisingly his arm was useless
and, like his more famous contemporary, Cervantes, who was wounded
in 1571 in the renowned naval battle of Lepanto, he was nicknamed
'the one-armed man' (el manco). Nevertheless, Don Juan's was only an
arm wound. Moreover, as a nobleman and ambassador in the service
of Philip II, he could not only solicit special treatment because of his
ability to pay in cash or in kind; he also presented his captors with the

12s CODOIN XL, pp. 99-100, cited in Bouza Alvarez, 'Corte es decepcion', p. 473.
124 Letter written on 16 Feb. 1579, cited in op. cit., p. 474.
125 BNM MS 2390, fo. 91; Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos <k soldados, pp. 184-5. Torralbo was
clearly a victim of infection.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 25

potential reward of a lucrative ransom. It is probable, therefore, that

he received prompt medical attention immediately after the battle -
despite his complaints that it was 'bad'. On his return to Spain his
wealth and status secured regular access to the services of a doctor and
surgeon. Perhaps like one of the captains under whom the biographer
soldier Miguel de Castro served, he was even attended by several doc
tors and surgeons.126
Another notable survivor of a firearm wound, this time in the head,
was the commander of the Army of Extremadura in 1659, but again
it can be assumed that he received the best medical attention avail
able.127 The more usual fate of soldiers with firearms wounds was
revealed by Don Luis de Requesens, captain general of the Spanish
Army of Flanders. In 1575 he wrote that many of his soldiers had been
wounded and that 'most of the wounds come from pikes or blows, and
they will soon heal, although there are also many with gunshot wounds
\arcabuzazos], and they will die'.128
Army hospitals dealt as much with those who fell ill - those who
succumbed to endemic illnesses and epidemics such as typhus, syphilis
or plague - as with those who were wounded in battle. As English
historian John Hale declared, if half of Europe's soldiers died, the
majority were killed by bacteria rather than bullets.129 In early 1641,
even before fighting broke out in the war for Portuguese indepen
dence, a request was sent to the council of war in Madrid to form a
hospital to care for the soldiers arriving in Extremadura, who were
already falling ill.130 Three months later, central government ordered
the establishment of a hospital by the brothers of the order of St John
of God in the town of Merida, the first base of the Army of Extremad
ura. The projected level of care for an army that was expected to num
ber 24000 was hardly encouraging, for the hospital was to have just
one doctor and an apothecary. For each sick person treated the hospi
tal was to receive two and a half times a soldier's daily pay (two and
a half reales).131 Significantly, the soldiers themselves were obliged to
contribute to the running costs of the hospitals through a monthly
deduction from their pay of one and a half reales.132 In effect, they
were funding a military health insurance scheme.

126 The day after he was shot in the back the injured captain was disembarked at
Mesina, where 2 surgeons and 4 doctors attended him, but he died 9 days later.
Castro, Vida del soldado, pp. 56-61.
127 BNM MS 2387, fos. 5-15, at p. lOv. He was said to be been wounded by a musket
shot, but it is unlikely to have been a very serious wound, as he continued to serve as
commander of the army.
128 Cited in Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 168.
129 Hale, War and Society, p. 120. Corvisier, Armies and Societies, pp. 173-4, also states that
battles were not the main cause of death.
130 AGS GA leg. 1406, n.f., letter, 25 Jan. 1641.
131 AGS GA leg. 1375, n.f., consulta, 5 Apr. 1641.
132 In the sixteenth century the deduction was one real a month. Parrilla Hermida, 'La
anexion de Portugal', p. 276; Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 167; Goodman, Power and
Penury, p. 243.

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26 Lorraine White

Though it has been claimed that Spain did far more than any other
European state in the provision of health care for its forces,133 it is
unlikely that many Spanish soldiers were treated by an expert surgeon
or that they went to a hospital. The experience of English sailors who
fought in the English Mediterranean fleet during the war of 1702-13
was similar.134 The reason was that the number of doctors and surgeon
attached to Spanish armies was generally quite low. The army bein
sent to Algeria (North Africa) in 1572 that was to comprise 30000
infantry and 600 cavalry was to be accompanied by just four doctors,
four apothecaries and 25 surgeons135 - an average of one surgeon for
every 1200 men and one doctor for 7650. Alba's army of 17100 in 158
was far less well provided for, for it had just one surgeon (increased
to two after four months), one barber-surgeon and one doctor - a
average of one surgeon for every 8550 men, or 5700 if the barbe
surgeon is included, and only one doctor for the entire army.136
In the middle of the campaigning season of 1643, the commande
of the Army of Extremadura complained that the army had no doctor
or surgeons at all.137 In 1660, for an anticipated force of 26000 men,
the same army was allocated one master surgeon, four ordinary su
geons, one surgeon general (protomedico), one doctor, four barber-su
geons, eight nurses and one apothecary - approximately one surgeon
for every 2900 men and only one doctor for every 13000. The followin
year, for an army of 15000 men, there was a marked improvement in
the provision of healthcare: five doctors, a protomedico, a master docto
(mestre medico), a licensed surgeon for the army and another for th
hospitals, and nine surgeons — approximately one surgeon for every
1360 soldiers and one doctor for every 2140 - in addition to 12 pr
titioners and bloodletters.138 As for the army hospitals, in 1580 Alba's
17100-strong army in Extremadura was given 100 beds: one bed fo
every 171 men. In the same province in 1660, the anticipated force of
26000 men was to be allocated only 50 beds: one for every 520 men
The following year the number of beds provided had risen markedly
to 2000 - one for every 7 soldiers.139 This was an unusually large num
ber. Sick and wounded soldiers were frequently placed two to a be
and others were merely accommodated on the floor. When the army

133 Op. tit., p. 242. Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 167, also states that 'the Army of Flanders
managed to provide admirable free medical care for a large number of its troops'.
134 J. D. Alsop, 'Sickness in the British Mediterranean Fleet: The Tiger's Journal of 170
War and Society XI (1993), pp. 57-77.
135 E. Roldan Gonzalez, 'De la farmacia medieval a la castrense del XV y XVI', in Adas,
pp. 87-8.
136 Figures extracted from Parrilla Hermida, 'La anexion de Portugal', pp. 275-6.
137 AGS GA leg. 1463, n.f., consulta, Junta de Guerra de Espana, 15 July 1643. The
commander was instructed to make use of the practitioners in the province until a
doctor and surgeon could be sent to the army.
138 According to Meneses, Historia de Portugal Restaurado n, p. 329, the Army of
Extremadura comprised 10000 infantry and 5000 cavalry. In addition to the medical
staff mentioned, there was also an apothecary; RAH, SyC, K-20, fo. 181.
139 Op. tit. and Parrilla Hermida, 'La anexion de Portugal', p. 275.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 27

hospitals were overwhelmed, the sick and wounded were sent to civ
ilian hospitals, or were cared for in the houses of obliging civilians.140
Because of this shortage of qualified medical practitioners, each of
the companies in the Spanish royal armies (which generally had a
complement of 250 men in the sixteenth century, and 100 in the
seventeenth) possessed a barber-surgeon, and each cavalry squadron
had its own master surgeon. Though the barber-surgeons were less
qualified than the surgeons and, it seems clear, did not possess the
same array of surgical instruments or medications, they were at least
closer at hand for the sick and wounded soldiers in their companies.
Nevertheless, given the low overall proportion of qualified doctors and
surgeons to soldiers, it seem certain that the initial (and maybe the
only) medical assistance given to soldiers was that offered by their com
rades in arms or by women camp-followers,141 supplemented, perhaps,
by the attendance of the barber-surgeons from their own companies.
Perhaps the overall lack of surgeons was not such a bad thing for, if
English military surgeon William Clowes was correct, bad surgeons had
killed more men than the enemy!142

Ill

No study of welfare would be complete without examining provisions

for the physical comfort and spiritual wellbeing of Spain's peninsular
soldiers. Obtaining adequate supplies of food and drink was essential
for their physical comfort. While munition bread was their staple
food - one and a half pounds of wheat bread daily - it was
accompanied by oil and vinegar, and either dried cod, cheese, bacon
(tocino), salt pork or fresh meat (beef or lamb).143 Bread, meat or
cheese and sardines were commonly supplied to soldiers on the
march.144 They washed their food down with generous quantities of
wine, though not as much as some manual workers received. While an
average Extremaduran household in the mid-seventeenth century may

140 AyC 8, Acuerdos, n.f., 19 Aug. 1667; Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos de soldados, p. 183,
for 2 examples from wills drawn up in 1648 and 1649, one of a sick, one of a
wounded soldier, who were cared for in the homes of local inhabitants in
Extremadura.
141 For evidence of peninsular soldiers caring for their comrades and removing them
from the battlefield at the end of the day, see Estebanez Calderon, Obras completas, p.
89. On the role of women in bandaging the wounded on the batdefield and in the
siege lines and carrying them to the rear, and evidence from Robert Monro of
Swedish soldiers hazarding their own lives to rescue wounded comrades, see Tallet,
War and Society, pp. 133 and 135.
142 Op. tit., p. 110.
143 Daily quantities issued to each soldier on the Extremaduran front in the mid
seventeenth century were: 3 oz dried cod or cheese, 3-4 oz of bacon, a quarter
pound of salt pork or half a pound of fresh meat, 1 oz of oil and a quarter of a pint
of vinegar. The cost of a soldier's rations was deducted from his pay. White, 'War
and Government', pp. 285-6. For rations of French soldiers, see Lynn, Giant, ch. 4.
144 E.g. Jesuit Letters xvm, p. 195, letter 3 Nov. 1645; AMM Acuerdos 1648, fos. 108v-109.

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28 Lorraine White

have consumed about two pints of wine a day, soldiers in the provinc
were supplied with two to four pints of wine daily; day labourers got
six.145 The wine, though, may have been watered down (as it was for
Spanish sailors), so that it animated the soldiers without clouding
their judgement.146
Rarely, however, did soldiers receive adequate supplies of food and
drink on a regular basis from the army purveyors. Supplies were con
tinually disrupted, whether by natural disasters such as harvest failure
(caused by floods, drought or locusts) or, more often, by the lack of
money to pay the contractors and victuallers.147 Hungry soldiers eithe
deserted or stole. When the French sent troops to Catalonia in Octobe
1640 to support the revolt there, the Duke of Modena's tercio defecte
to the French, saying they were dying of hunger: in the previous tw
days they had eaten only grapes.148 Those holed up in sieges ha
neither of these options. The daily food ration of the 2500 Spanis
soldiers under siege in 1642 by the French in Perpignan was reduced
to three ounces of cow or horse hide each, soaked in liquid. Not su
prisingly, about 2000 of the men died and only 500 survived, though
they 'looked like the picture of death' when the siege ended.149 How
ever, soldiers robbed and stole even when they were not hungry, and
revealed their preference for a more varied diet. Four companies o
dragoons who spent a night in transit in an Extremaduran village in
early 1638 were offered fish (as it was Friday), but took chickens (an
other items) from the villagers.150 When soldiers raided enemy terr
tory, however, their main preoccupation was in seizing livestock and
other goods to sell rather than to consume themselves.
A comfort or perk traditionally associated with military life was the
soldier's association with prostitutes and concubines.151 A Spanish dis
course on military discipline of the later sixteenth century advocated
that 'in order to avoid disorders, as well-ordered republics permitted
such people [prostitutes], in no other republic was it more necessary
to allow them than among free and tough men who would mistre

145 Op. cit.; and White, 'War and Government', pp. 285-6, and table 1.5 for number of
households in Merida in 1646. Calculation for Merida's wine consumption derived
from figures given in AHN Cons 7158, decree 12 June 1645. The daily drink ration
for French soldiers was set at a pint of wine, though it could reach as much as 3.
Lynn, Giant, p. 114.
146 This was advisable when sailors were given their ration before a storm. Perez
Mallaina, Men of the Sea, p. 183.
147 See Thompson, War and Government, ch. 8. On problems in the Army of
Extremadura, see White, 'War and Government', esp. chs 8 and 9.
148 Jesuit Letters xvi, p. 26, letter 16 Oct. 1640. This was a tercio of Italian soldiers.
149 Op. cit., xix, p. 339, letter 16 Sept. 1642. The siege ended when the Spanish
capitulated.
150 AGS GA leg. 1223, informacion, 21 Jan. 1638. The young recruit Miguel de Castro
and some comrades stole food and wine from their ship when they landed in Sicily,
but sold it, not consumed it. Castro, Vida del soldado, p. 13.
151 See Tallet, War and Society, pp. 131-3; Lynn, Giant, pp. 342-3; Parker, Army of
Flanders, pp. 175-6. For Spain's early modern sailors, see Perez-Mallama, Spain's Men
of the Sea, pp. 164—6.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 29

inhabitants, molesting [procurando] their wives, daughters and sisters'.

Moreover, it continued, 'it would be dangerous not to have them, but
they must be shared [ser comunes]'.152 Army commanders and even
official military orders therefore recommended and sanctioned the
presence in each company of anything from three to eight whores153 -
a ratio of between two and eight per 100 men. In practice, the number
may sometimes have been higher, though contemporary records make
no distinction between prostitutes and soldiers' wives. The four compa
nies of dragoons (probably comprising no more than 200 men) who
passed through the Extremaduran village of Las Brozas in 1638 were
accompanied by 'twenty women of ill repute'.154 A group of 16 Irish
soldiers who spent a night in transit in Zurita, another Extremaduran
village, were accompanied by a woman with a small child. In an appar
ent effort to impose a modicum of decency on the soldiers, the woman
was lodged separately in the house of the local priest.155
Garrison towns in the peninsula naturally attracted large numbers
of prostitutes to serve the needs of the soldiers. Nevertheless, evidence
suggests that they were still nominally attached to individual compa
nies. In 1662, for example, when Philip IV issued one of his regular
orders to punish and stamp out 'public sins' and swearing, a colonel
(maestre de campo) billeted in Badajoz, headquarters of the Army of
Extremadura, was ordered to expel and exile the prostitutes in his ter
cio,156

Nevertheless, soldiers clearly found comfort from women other than

professional prostitutes.157 While some women willingly entered into
liaisons,158 soldiers frequently took their pleasure by force. In one case
reported in 1646 in the municipal council of Badajoz, two soldiers bil
leted in the town beat one women so badly when she refused to sleep
with them that she was left close to death and had been given the last
sacraments.159 Soldiers often left their companions with an unwanted
legacy, and garrison towns can be distinguished from other communi
ties by the increased numbers of illegitimate births and of foundlings

152 S. de Lodono, El discurso sobre la forma de reduzir la disciplina militar a meior y antiguo
estado . . . (Brussels, 1596), p. 91, cited in Quatrefages, Los tercios, p. 272.
153 Parker, Army of Flanders, pp. 175-6, citing actual figures of 5, 6 and 8. The
recommendations were for 4—8 whores in companies of 100 or 200 men.
154 AGS GA leg. 1223, information, 21 Jan. 1638. By the mid-seventeenth century, cavalry
or dragoon companies in the peninsula generally comprised between 25 and 50
men. On this basis the ratio is 1 per 10 men.
155 AHN Cons 7123, no. 25, letter 6 June 1655.
156 RAH, SyC, K-20, fos. 104-v. He was also ordered to get rid of any kind of
concubinage. On concubinage, see below. Royal decrees dating from at least 1635
ordering the punishment and stamping out of public sins and swearing can be
found in a number of legajos in AHN Consejos.
157 Miguel de Castro recounts a number of amorous encounters he had with women
who were not prostitutes. Castro, Vida del soldado.
158 Op. tit., for several examples during the soldier-autobiographer's military service.
159 Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos de soldados, p. 146.

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30 Lorraine White

left to the care of the church and municipal authorities.160 Before th

war of 1640-68, the cathedral of Badajoz cared for 10-12 foundlin
a year. In 1659 the number had increased to 30 a year.161 Officers, o
the other hand, with their higher pay and privileged status, were in
position to maintain concubines in rented or even abandoned hous
in the settlements where they were garrisoned.162 In 1647 Philip IV
singled out for criticism soldiers receiving a salary of 4 escudos and
above who not only founded entails on their war benefits but use
their pay to keep mistresses in their houses.168
High-ranking officers were often notorious offenders. It was said of
the first commander of the Army of Extremadura, the Count of Mo
terrey, who held office for only nine months in 1641, that in Merid
where he resided, 'no woman was safe from his lechery'. Worse still,
he took a shopkeeper as his mistress, and made her two sisters concu
bines to other senior officers, one a maestre de campo and the other th
administrative chief (comisario general) of cavalry.164 One of Monterrey's
unsuccessful quarries became the mistress of another senior officer
the Army of Extremadura, maestre de campo general Don Juan de Gara
and had a daughter by him.165 Normally it was left to the local justic
to deal with matters that offended public morals. Where high-ranking
officers such as colonels of regiments were involved, the council
Castile at court attempted to intervene and order the removal of the
women living in their houses.166
As for spiritual care, it is no coincidence that the head of army hos
tals, generally an ecclesiastic, was given the title 'vicar general'. As t
constitution of a royal hospital for workers building the great mona
tery of the Escorial reveals, preaching and praying warranted much
attention 'because it matters more to cure the soul than the body'.16
The obligation of Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centurie
was to make every effort to save their souls and to prepare for the ho
of their death. Before dying everyone had to summon a priest w
would administer the three sacraments necessary for their final jour

160 On the increase in illegitimate births in Badajoz, headquarters of the Army of

Extremadura, between 1640 and 1668, and among these the significant number in
the category of 'unkown mother-military father' see Cortes Cortes, Militares y guerra,
p. 12. For further details, see his Una ciudad de frontera: Badajoz en los siglos XVI y XV
(Badajoz, 1990) and 'Guerra en Extremadura'.
161 AHN Cons 7169, no. 91, consulta 13 Oct. 1659.
162 See Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos <te soldados, p. 147, for the example of a captain who
in 1646, shortly after arriving in Badajoz, moved from his allocated billet into an
abandoned house with a woman.
163 AGS GA leg. 1616, decree 9 July 1647.
164 From a report by the chaplain major of artillery, cited in Cortes Cortes, Alojamientos
de soldados, p. 134.
165 Op. cit., p. 177.
166 For two examples involving colonels in Badajoz, the first also serving as governor
(corregidor) of the town, AHN Cons 7162, 1652 no. 2, consulta 26 Jan. 1652 and ibid.
7123, no. 38, consulta 21 Apr. 1670. In the latter case, the Council ordered the
maestre de campo to place the woman in a convent.
167 Goodman, Power and Penury, p. 213.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 31

ney: confession, communion and extreme unction.168 In addition, in

order to organize the funerary rites and to be able to say mass for the
salvation of the soul, the church required that all adults draw up a
testament before dying.169
Although death could surprise anyone at any moment because of
sudden illness or the outbreak of an epidemic, or an accident or viol
ent incident, those who were most evidendy exposed to death were
soldiers, especially in times of continuous warfare.170 Soldiers who were
treated in the field and fixed military hospitals were attended by the
hospital chaplains, who also cared for the sick and wounded. Two
chaplains were attached to Alba's field hospital that functioned from
March to July 1580.171 However, when isolated on the battlefield or
engaged in the siege of a town, soldiers could rarely expect to receive
the last sacraments. Only rarely - as in 1642, when four Jesuit priests
were present at a battle between a Galician force and the Portuguese
army, and heard the confessions of almost all of the Galician soldi
ers172 - did the soldiers have the opportunity to fulfil at least some of
their religious obligations before they engaged in military action. The
morale of armies would therefore have been at risk had it not been
for the decision to appoint a chaplain to each of the companies of the
regular armies, both infantry and cavalry.173 With a priest attached to
each company, military authorities thus hoped to ensure that soldiers
were exposed to regular spiritual and religious observance that would
help sustain their morale. It was the chaplain's duty to say mass befor
each battle and, at the end of the fighting, to administer the sacr
ments to those dying on the battlefield or in the siege lines. However

168 C. M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century
Spain (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 29-32. See too F. Martinez Gil, Muerte y sociedad
(Madrid, 1993).
169 Eire, Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 19-24. I. Teston Nunez, 'El hombre cacereno ante la
muerte: testamentos y formas de piedad en el siglo XVII', Norba IV (1983), p. 374. A
more cynical reason could have been the need to avoid rivalry between the different
parish churches, monasteries and convents to be named as the beneficiaries of
testaments (and to receive monetary payments) for the masses and burials: for the
rich, these masses were costly, and they provided the religious order that conducted
them outwith a substantial income. For evidence of this, see A. Rodriguez Sanchez,
'Morir en Extremadura: una primera aproximacion', Norba I (1980), pp. 279—97.
Numerous testaments for this period can be found in Spain's notarial archives; the
parish registers of deaths generally specify when an individual had made a testament.
170 Unfortunately, the most recent monographs on death - those cited in n. 168 above
by Martinez Gil and Eire - omit the death of soldiers. This is perhaps because their
sources (the archives of Toledo and Madrid) were too far removed from the
battlefields of the peninsula. See F. Cortes Cortes, La poblacion de Zafra en los siglos
XVI y XVII (Badajoz, 1983), and Cortes Cortes, Una ciudad de frontera, for records of
soldiers' deaths from the burial registers of Zafra and Badajoz.
171 Parrilla Hermida, 'La anexion de Portugal en 1580', p. 276.
172 The Jesuits also gave heart to the soldiers as they carried a crucifix with them. One
was wounded by a kick from a horse, and had a lucky escape when a shot passed
through his hat. Jesuit Letters xix, p. 326. The Portuguese army in question was the
one based in the province of Entre Douro e Minho.
173 Maneru Lopez and Camara Fernandez, 'El reclutamiento militar', p. 180, quoting
part of a royal instruction.

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32 Lorraine White

until the creation of the post of army depositor general at the end o
the sixteenth century, unscrupulous chaplains were in a position
persuade dying soldiers to name them as sole heirs to their estate.174
Others seized the opportunity to steal items of value from the wound
and dead soldiers they attended. Nevertheless, these lucrative if illeg
and rather erratic fringe benefits were insufficient to offset the sho
age of priests, and many companies were unable to find a chaplain.17
In an effort to ensure that they fulfilled their religious obligation
and did not die before making a testament, officers of the regul
armies and of the militias frequently drew up their wills with their lo
notary before going off to war.176 Others, like Captain Juan de Estrad
got the notaries of the towns in which they were billeted to add
codicile to their testaments. Estrada had drawn up his testament wit
a notary of Seville; he added a codicil in Merida on the day that t
1645 campaign of the Army of Extremadura began.177 Alternatively
other officers may have reacted like Don Pedro de Mendoza y Guevar
a maestro de campo (commander of a tercio) of the Army of Extremadu
and native and alderman of Badajoz. He only made his testament whe
he fell seriously ill in Merida where he was serving.178
How, though, did common soldiers prepare themselves for death
Those who had no money or belongings - the vast majority - did not
make a testament.179 It is likely that those who possessed some belon
ings only asked to make a testament when they felt close to death. Th
was the case in 1659 with a young soldier who had come to Extremad
ura from the southern province of Murcia to fight with his compan
against the Portuguese. He fell ill in Merida and entered the hospital
of the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy, where he made his testament
He asked to be buried in the church of the hospital and dutiful
declared that the proceeds from the sale of two houses he own
should be used by the hospital to cure the sick.180

174 Depositors general took possession of the goods of dead soldiers. For evidence of
clerical corruption in Flanders, where a chaplain refused to hear the confession of
soldier or to copy down his testament unless he was granted a considerable legacy,
see Parker, Army of Flanders, p. 172.
175 Maneru Lopez and Camara Fernandez, 'El reclutamiento', p. 180.
176 A(rchivo) H(istorico) Provincial de) B(adajoz), (Escribano) Juan Romo (Merida)
1640, n.f., testament of Don Fernando de Toledo, captain of a militia company of
Merida, 30 July 1640: 'as I am about to leave on His Majesty's service with the said
company on Friday 31st ... if God sees fit that he dies on this present occasion and
so that his virtue and good behaviour are known
177 His parents were from Oviedo in Asturias. AHPB, Juan Romo Trujillo (Merida),
1662, n.f., testament dated 22 Nov. 1662. He was to march on campaign later that
day.
178 Op. cit., testament dated 22 Nov. 1662. One of the witnesses was an apothecary,
perhaps the same one who had prepared his medication.
179 Cortes Cortes, 'Guerra en Extremadura', states on p. 51 that of 403 common soldiers
who were buried in Badajoz between 1640 and 1668, only 17 made a testament; 107
(more than a quarter) were declared to be 'poor'.
180 AHPB. Cristobal Fernandez Sirgado (Merida), 1659, n.f. testament dated 26 Feb.
1659. He was a part-owner of the second house.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 33

IV

The early modern soldier was both pitied and reviled by his contem
poraries. In 1572 the Frenchman Pierre Boaistuau wrote that those
who chose fighting as a career led 'a tragic and servile life . . . which
is so austere and rigorous that the brute beasts hold it in horror'.181
Others, however, saw the soldier not just as a physical threat to society
but also as an immoral miscreant who invariably gave in to the temp
tation to gamble, drink, fornicate, blaspheme and forget God who
awaited him in battle.182 It was evident, too, that a culture of violence
permeated military society both on and off the battlefield. At times
the violence shown by a soldier to the enemy was directed with equal
vehemence towards his companions in arms and, above all, to civilians.
It mattered little whether the civilians were neighbours, compatriots
or enemies.

Military encounters of the early modern period were of many types.

For the French military commander and theorist, Blaise de Monluc,
war was nothing more than a series of 'fights, assaults, escalades, cap
tures and surprises of towns'.183 War in peninsular Spain was similar.
Even in the seventeenth century, with its lengthy wars, sieges and large
scale battles in particular were far less common than small-scale raids
and encounters between a few dozen or a few hundred soldiers. 'Small'
wars as opposed to 'big' wars predominated. As we have seen, the type
of weapon used in these encounters ranged from the latest firearms,
field artillery and grenades to crude weapons such as stones, catapults
and slings. Encounters were often stubborn and bloody and occasion
ally lasted a whole day.184
Although the successful conclusion of a military action should have
ended the soldier's licence to engage in violence, the victors frequently
showed no consideration for the vanquished. During the Luso-Spanish
war of 1640 to 1668, and above all in the initial 'small war' phase, the
victors of skirmishes - whether they were Castilian or Portuguese -
regularly killed the defeated soldiers, both officers and men, who failed
to escape.185 Some went so far as to torture and mutilate their captives.
In 1641, for example, after an ambush had been set up to capture a
band of Portuguese livestock robbers - they were guards of the hills

181 Quoted by J. R. Hale, 'Sixteenth-Century Explanations of War and Violence', in his

Renaissance War Studies (London, 1983), p. 347.
182 Op. tit., p. 342.
183 Cited in Parker, Military Revolution, p. 41.
184 See e.g. the account of the siege of San Martin in 1641 in Estebanez Calderon, Obras
Completas, p. 30.
185 In Nov. 1645, for example, of the 800 Portuguese infantry who confronted a
Castilian force, 17 escaped, 143 were taken prisoner and 640 were killed. Jesuit Letters
xvii, pp. 190-93. For atrocities committed during the English Civil War, see C.
Carlton, 'The Impact of Fighting', in J. Morrill, ed., The Impact of the English Civil War
(London, 1991), p. 19, and Carlton, Going to the Wars, pp. 256-9. In the Ottoman
armies, by contrast, indiscriminate or vengeful killing was frowned upon as an
uncivilized aberration. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, p. 131.

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34 Lorraine White

and customs - the entire group of 50 was killed. The so-called captain
was decapitated and his head carried back to the acting commander
of the Army of Extremadura.186 A particularly brutal incident was
reported in Extremadura in 1650. The survivors related how the troop
of Portuguese soldiers

cut off Don Francisco de Amezquita's instrument of nature whilst

he was still almost alive, they cut off lieutenant Don Juan Cid's ears
after killing him, another soldier . . . arrived at Ceclavin with his ears
cut off, they killed an aide of the maestro de campo and afterwards
they spiked him with pikes and spreadeagled him on a rack, and
did the same to another cavalry soldier, and two cavalry ensigns and
up to fourteen soldiers who were otherwise unhurt, leaving them
for dead [. . .] and to a cavalry soldier who they wounded badly they
threw some gunpowder on the ground and blew him up . . . ,187
In Catalonia, too, between 1640 and 1652, some of the prisoners taken
in battle were killed. At times it served as an example of what would
happen to others - even civilians - if they did not capitulate, part
cularly to those who refused to negotiate terms during a siege.188
Civilians in enemy territory were often treated little differently from
enemy soldiers. An attack in 1636 on the French border town of San
Juan de Luz which involved 4500 soldiers from Navarre and 3000 men
from the Basque province of Guipuzcoa provides an example of such
violence and, what is even more remarkable, involved the wives of some
of the soldiers. While the Spanish soldiers concentrated their attack
on the French defenders in the trenches around the town, the wives of
the Guipuzcoan troops who had marched with their husbands stormed
through the main gate, shouting 'Victory for Spain'. Then, as the
women proceeded in organized bands to sack the houses, the Spanish
troops attacked the French soldiers who had withdrawn behind barri
cades in several streets. After the Spanish had broken through one of
the barricades, they set fire to houses in that district and 'put everyone
to the sword that they came across'.189 Moreover, in spite of the polit
ical imperative to persuade rebel subjects to return to obedience, civ
ilians in territories that had revolted were frequently treated just as
violently as enemy soldiers. During a raid on the northern Portuguese
village of Moimenta in 1641, besides engaging in their usual practice
of pillaging the settlement, the Spanish soldiers killed everyone they
came across and set fire to the houses to which the defenders had

186 Jesuit Letters xvi, p. 203, letter 25 Dec. 1641.

187 AGS GA leg. 1750, n.f„ letter 25 Mar. 1650.
188 See J. Senabre, La action de Francia en Cataluna en la pugna por la hegemoma de Euro
(1640-1659) (Barcelona, 1956): p. 115, the death of 600 prisoners who capitulated
Cambrils; pp. 118-19, the death from handgun fire of all the Catalans who
capitulated; p. 114, the hanging of most of the civilian prisoners as an example to
those who resisted.
189 Jesuit Letters xiii, pp. 523-4, letter 11 Nov. 1636.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 35

retreated. They ended up burning all the houses and, as the commen
tator noted, 'in them many innocent people'.190
Violence amongst the soldiers themselves was widespread. The most
likely place for duels to take place and the greatest risk of danger was
inside armies.191 Violence was present in all the ranks and confron
tations were universal, especially when the soldiers were idle. In his
short period of command at the beginning of the war against Portugal
in 1640, the Count of Monterrey suffered more than one attempt on
his life by soldiers, whilst one of his senior officers, the Marquis of
Toral, was killed by a veteran soldier when he tried to calm a brawl
between his own troops.192 In an earlier war, that of 1568-70 in the
Alpujarras, the son of the captain-general of the Kingdom of Murcia
was shot in the arm by one of his own men when he tried, unsuccess
fully, to stop 400 arquebusiers from deserting.193 The armies of Portu
gal which fought against Spain in 1640-68 were also plagued by
internal violence.194 Many encounters took place between entire units.
One such incident occurred in 1641 when a contingent of soldiers
from the town of Trujillo who were on their way to serve in a coastal
garrison clashed violently with an infantry company billeted in the
town of El Escorial.195 Above all, however, there were confrontations
between Spanish soldiers and foreign soldiers - the naciones - serving
in Spain's armies, many of whom were subjects of the King of Spain.196
Confrontations even took place during combat, usually over the ques
tion of precedence in the battle lines.
Above all, though, the soldier was considered to be a threat to
society, for he was armed, lived by and was habituated to violence, and
his prime function was to kill. Virtually all the wars in the peninsula
produced violent acts by soldiers against civilians and the civil auth
orities, as the abundant evidence shows. In the war of 1568-70 the
troops of both sides, Christian and morisco, committed violent acts
against civilians. The moriscos specifically targeted the clergy, crucifying

190 Op. cit., xvi, pp. 168-9, letter 20 Oct. 1641.

191 Articles of war formulated by states and generals continually prohibited the duel,
and the confrontations that led to them, and provided alternative methods to resolve
them. G. N. Clark, War and Society (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 38-9.
192 Estebanez Calderon, Obras compktas, p. 25. See too Cortes Cortes, Militares y guerra, p.
11.
193 Cabrera de Cordoba II, p. 530. The son (who survived) was Don Diego Fajardo.
194 E.g. F. Cortes Cortes, Guerra e pressdo militar nas terras de fronteira 1640-1668 (Lisbon,
1990), p. 78, where an infantry captain was killed by a pistol shot by his second
lieutenant or a sergeant.
195 AMT 1-3-91, fos. 62v-63.
196 On a confrontation between two tercios of the Army of Extremadura - one from
Granada, the other Irish - see Cortes Cortes, Militares y guerra, p. 10. On a
confrontation between native and foreign troops in Portugal, see Rodriguez Sanchez,
'Guerra, miseria y corrupcion', p. 610; and on an incident between 3 tercios of
Milanese soldiers and three cavalry companies that led to several killings in Merida
where they were all billeted, see AMM Acuerdos, fo. 82.

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36 Lorraine White

them upside down.197 On at least two occasions, in 1645 and again in

1647, commanders of the Army of Extremadura had to resort t
instructing their troops to kill only soldiers, but clearly such orders
were widely ignored.198 Pedro Calderon de la Barca's play El Alcalde d
Zalamea (The Mayor of Zalamea), set in Extremadura during the
march of the Duke of Alba's troops through the province to Portugal
in 1580, highlights two of the commonest outrages committed by sold
ers billeted in civilian homes - rape and confrontations with pe
ants.199 The need to obtain food and lodging from an unarmed civilian
population led soldiers to treat civilians in the same violent manne
as they dealt with foreign or enemy civilian populations.200 Similarly
to meet their need for food and money, some military units raide
municipal grain stores, siezed the taxes collected in regional treasurie
and threatened the civil authorites.201 In June 1639, the tercios that were
transferred from Navarre to Catalonia were accused of committing a
manner of atrocities against the inhabitants of the countryside throug
which they marched: forcing them to give money to the soldiers and
officers, and battering, wounding, raping and cutting their ears off
with such fury and cruelty that many of them died.202 Confrontation
between civilians and soldiers billeted in their localities were common
place. Usually one or two deaths resulted. A notable case occurred in
1626 in the Andalusian town of Carmona, when 10 inhabitants and 15
of the Neapolitan soldiers billeted there were killed during a brawl.203
Not surprisingly, civilians were keen to seek revenge and showed no
mercy towards soldiers when they had the upper hand. Three wounded
Portuguese soldiers left behind after an attack on the Extremaduran
town of Encinasola in May 1643 were killed as soon as they were
found.204 That same month inhabitants of the Aragonese capital, Zara
goza, rioted after a civilian was wounded by Walloon soldiers billeted

197 Hurtado de Mendoza, Comentarios de la Guerra, pp. 39 and 70-1. The moriscos were
the descendants of Muslims living in Granada who had nominally converted to
Christianity at the beginning of the sixteenth century. As a war both against rebels
and against followers of a different religion, the brutality was perhaps even worse.
198 Jesuit Letters xvm, p. 195, letter 3 Nov. 1645; AGS GA leg. 1616, n.f., letter 9 June
1647.
199 Calderon wrote this play after participating for 2 years in the war in Catalonia. For
an actual incident committed by troops in billets, see AMT 1-3-107, fo. 65v, and see
above for the assault by 2 soldiers on a woman in 1646.
200 White, 'Actitudes civiles', p. 490.
201 White, 'War and Government', pp. 285 and 311-12; Valladares, Guerra olvidada, p.
39.
202 The soldiers - Italians and Irish as well as Castilians - were also accused in the
petition submitted to Philip IV by the city of Zaragoza of sacking villages, breaking
into granaries and stealing their contents, spilling wine from vats and burning what
they could not take with them, and stabbing transporters and their loads. Jesuit Letters
xvi, p. 9, note 1.
203 Morales Padron, Memoriae cU Sevilla, pp. 57-8. See p. 30 for another example in 1616
when soldiers from the Mediterranean galleys spent the winter billeted in Seville and
'every day on both sides there were deaths'.
204 Jesuit Letters xvn, pp. 84-5.

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 The Experience of Spain's Early Modern Soldiers 37

there, and killed any Walloons they encountered in the streets. Before
the riot was quelled 60 men had been killed and many wounded.205
It was inevitable that the close intermingling of soldiers and civilians
in the peninsula would generate tension and violence. The progressive
professionalization and slow separation and isolation of the military
from civil society would be left to a later period.206 Until then, the king
and his council of war hoped that the military ethic of loyalty, disci
pline and sacrifice would prevail. In reality, however, the behaviour
of soldiers was largely determined by the conditions of daily life, the
perceived opportunities and threats in their immediate environment,
and the culture of violence.

While it is inappropriate to speak in blanket terms of the experience

of warfare of Spain's soldiers, especially when covering much of the
peninsula over an extended period, it seems certain that the condition
of military service in the peninsula during the sixteenth and seve
teenth centuries were generally hard and unpleasant. It is unsurprising
that few people envied or were eager to share the experiences o
Spain's peninsular soldiers: the hardships and dangers of battle an
commonplace violence in which they risked death or serious injury
the uncertain pay and provisions, the limited spiritual and health care,
hardly compensated for by a few unpredictable 'perks'. Writing in
1596, a secretary of Spain's council of war revealed how knowledge of
the soldier's experiences negatively affected recruitment. The
recruiting captains only succeeded in enlisting a few men because of
'the little one can prosper nowadays in this profession, the many
maimed who turn up from all over, the destitution that they and thos
who are not soldiers recount about where they have come from, seeing
many honourable soldiers suffer and not be rewarded, and that gener
ally they are hated and viewed and treated badly.207 The experiences
of Spanish soldiers were little different from those of their contempo
aries throughout western Europe. Expressing what many, perhaps all,
who experienced military service thought, in 1631 an English soldier

205 Op. cit., pp. 96-97.

206 Corvisier, Armies and Societies, pp. 171-2. On the Bourbon army of the eighteenth
century, see C. Borreguero Beltran, El reclutamiento militar por quintas en la Espana del
siglo XVIII (Valladolid, 1989), and her 'Carlos III y el reemplazo annual del ejercito',
Adas del Congreso International sobre Carlos III (Madrid, 1989) I, pp. 487-94; F. Anduja
Castillo, 'Aproximacion al origen social de los militares en el siglo XVIII (1700
1724)', Chronica Nova X (1979), pp. 5-31; J. Marchena Fernandez, Oficiales y soldados
en el Ejercito de America (Sevilla, 1983), and his 'El Ejercito de America; el
componente humano', Revista de Historia MilitarXXV (1981), pp. 119-54; on the
militias, J. Contreras Gay, Las milicias provinciales en el siglo XVIII: estudio sobre los
regimientos de Andalucia (Almeria, 1993).
207 Explaining the difficulties encountered in recruiting soldiers, almost certainly for
overseas service, he also declared 'the worst thing is that most say that these people
are contemptible and that no honourable man wants to to become a soldier'. Cited
in Thompson, 'Milicia, sociedad y estado', pp. 126-7.

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38 Lorraine White

of the Thirty Years War wrote: 'it is a great deal of misery that a soldi
doth endure, besides danger, every minute of his life.'208

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208 Carlton, Going to the Wars, 89. The lament was contained in a letter to the soldier's
uncle.

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