However, no armies in early modern Europe conssistd exclusively of combatants. Most soldiers wee accompanied by prostitutes, mistresses, wives and children, servants, camp-hawkers and sutlers. Camp followers in th Spanish army of Flanders appear to have constituted more than half its number, out of whom female followers formed a minimum of 28 per cent. As can be seen from the broadsheets produced by Durer’s pupil, Hans Sebald Beham in the 1530s, this was typical of armies of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Portraying a ‘Wounded Man in the Army’s Train (Plate 3.4) Beham offers insight into the chaotic conditions of an early sixteenth century army on the march. In between the infantry mingle women on horseback and on foot carrying cooking utensils and food on their backs and heads, not to mention the presence of live chickens and a cock crowing.. at the back a couple of sutlers on horseback can be seen while at the front of the broadsheet wounded soldier on a small, decrepit looking horse is offered a drink by his heavily loaded mistress. . . . Page 104
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Dinesh said: