Covering the years between the end of the Hundred Years War and the beginning of the Thirty Years War, this book explains the part played in the lives of individuals in the early modern phase of European history. It starts with a survey of conflicts and an analysis of the 'military reformation' in the ways in which wars were fought, and goes on to investigate the problems of recruitment in an age when those taking part in wars formed a society of their own. The book concludes with a study of the impact of war on civilians, and the more pervasive but indirect impact on them of war-induced shifts in the economy, the incidence of taxation and the nature of government.