Antecedents
Charles VIII dreamed of his own crusade against the infidel and of recapturing Jerusalem for Christendom. This was to be preceded by the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples, to which he had a nebulous claim through his paternal grandmother, Marie of Anjou (1404–1463).
To have his hands free in Italy, Charles made ruinous pacts with all his neighbours, so they would not interfere. Henry VII was given cash, Ferdinand II of Aragon was given Roussillon and Maximillian was given Artois and Franche-Comté. This handing out of territory is symptomatic of Charles' lack of foresight. However, Charles was willing to do this in his attempt to establish his Neapolitan base for his crusade.
The fighting between the many independent towns of Italy was done by establishing a contract, condotta in Italian, between the town leaders and the leaders of mercenary bands, who came to be called Condottieri. This led to the developing of fighting tactics destined to establish field supremacy, gaining wealthy prisoners to be ransomed, and minimizing casualties, as it was basically a business. These tactics were going to be put to shame when the motivated armies of France and Spain descended upon the Italian peninsula.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Fornovo
Famous quotes containing the word antecedents:
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)