Between 1450 and 1650 the nature of warfare dramatically changed in Europe. At the beginning of this era, the use of gunpowder weapons became widespread throughout the continent. In response, commanders revamped their military tactics and reconstructed urban fortifications. The new weaponry also caused the size of armies to grow considerably as leaders sought to capitalize upon and defend their forces against the new weapons (Roberts 1995, 13-21; Parker 1988, 1-5). These changes caused a significant shift in the structure of European armies. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, small military forces that leaders raised occasionally from their own supporters gave way to larger armies consisting of native forces and mercenary units. Warfare during this period became entrepreneurial in nature as individual commanders constructed their own units and then sold them to the highest bidder. As a result, the loyalty of such troops to a particular cause, and the control that individual monarchs exerted over the forces fighting for them, often only extended as far as the leader's pocketbook (Lynn 1996, 516-17). The entrepreneurial nature of warfare first took root in the wealthier regions of Europe, such as France and Spain, where rulers possessed the significant financial resources needed to maintain mercenary forces. This change spread more slowly to the European peripheries. Rulers in other regions, Scandinavia, for example, did not possess the financial resources or the political means to extract such resources from their subjects until the late sixteenth century or early seventeenth century (Lynn 1996, 508-17; Glete 2002, 177). These military innovations, described by many historians as the military revolution, not only influenced military structures, but also caused dramatic political, social, and economic changes throughout Europe (Rogers 1995, 3-8). As the size of armies grew and the cost of hiring such forces ever increased, rulers sought to gain control over the situation. During the seventeenth century, monarchs throughout Europe engaged in a process of
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.