The seventeenth century was a critical turning point in the development of the military revolution and the fiscal-military state, yet our understanding of the common soldier’s relationship to military change remains woefully inadequate (far more scholarship exists on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century common soldiers, largely due to the availability of sources). In The War People: A Social History of Common Soldiers during the Era of the Thirty Years War, Lucian Staiano-Daniels offers an insightful corrective stemming from the fortunate survival of some regimental legal books, as well as the author’s dogged tenacity to uncover forgotten experiences and “history from below” (4).

Using a mixture of microhistory and statistical analysis, Staiano-Daniels undercuts some of the key takeaways of the military revolution thesis, especially arguments about the role of drill in the formation of increasingly disciplined troops. Scholars have long questioned whether impoverished armies with poor communications could have successfully carried out the discipline articulated in contemporary drill manuals. Staiano-Daniels’s most important contribution lies in the sensitive presentation of a fine empirical basis from which to draw new points of view on this question, as well as on a number of other interpretive issues related to military matters, including the social and emotional lives of soldiers. While Staiano-Daniels often positions his interventions in opposition to conventional military revolution arguments (for instance, the stereotype of the mercenary as a rootless marauder), his most important contributions build upon the work of military historians like Gregory Hanlon and David Parrott and are, in fact, complementary to recent approaches.

Rather than describe formal battles, Staiano-Daniels aims to reconstruct “actions and interactions” between soldiers and between soldiers and the surrounding society. He focuses on the Mansfeld regiment (“an unimportant regiment” [5]) recruited by imperial commander and Catholic sympathizer Wolfgang, Count of Mansfeld (1575–1638), to help defend Milan in service to the Spanish king during a minor episode of the Valtelline conflict from 1625 to 1627. After the regiment departed Saxony “strung out in dribs and drabs along the roads” (16) and arrived in Lombardy, neither king nor count played much of a role (aside from their ongoing mismanagement and negligence). In this version of events, Mansfeld departs the scene almost at once. Meanwhile, the minor officers, common soldiers, and various followers, including women, lingered on until the regiment disintegrated miserably in 1627.

Chapters examine the regiment’s social world as members attempted to survive these circumstances, fighting over status, engaging in drunken parties, stealing, and killing one another. At least these are the scenes that appear in the internal legal documents created by the regimental secretary Mattheus Steiner. Staiano-Daniels interprets these colorful tales of Mansfelders in terms of broader themes: mustering, marching, and quartering (ch. 1); origins of soldiers (ch. 3); regimental finance and soldier pay (chs. 2 and 8); military supply and uniforms (ch. 4); social structure (ch. 5); impact on local communities (ch. 6); masculinity (ch. 7); and the disbanding of troops (ch. 8). Notably absent is any analysis of battles or skirmishes. In addition to studying the regimental legal books, Staiano-Daniels derives patterns from Saxon muster rolls and contracts, demographic data from local Italian parish records, and a variety of egodocuments. He visited 16 archives and libraries, including state and diocesan collections rarely used by Anglo-American scholars, to paint a thorough yet nuanced picture of what happened to a long-forgotten multinational Saxon regiment on the ground in Italy.

This book is effective and at times revelatory because Staiano-Daniels employs “thick description” (7) to interpret rich and unusual sources and offers a conception of the Mansfeld Regiment as a porous, ambiguous entity defined by interactions and networks. A wide cast of characters takes shape, including women like Victoria Guarde, murdered by her husband, the lieutenant general of infantry, Theodoro de Camargo. Staiano-Daniels does not shy away from the grisly murder scene (“did [they] kneel in clotted gore in indoor halflight and stick their fingers in the wounds to make their examination?” [118]). However, he treads carefully, refrains from judgment, and endeavors to read Camargo’s testimony against the grain. This approach produces a true gem. Victoria’s maid reported that Victoria, a noblewoman who quarreled with her parents and husband, moved in and out of convents, and socialized with men, “wanted to be happy doing what she liked, because it was the kind of thing she did” (125). This surprise vision of a relatively mobile, scandal-ridden woman seeking her own happiness reveals an emotional life at odds with the historiography on seventeenth-century military life and social disciplining. Another fascinating case revolves around the theft of eight bales of fabric. By tracing cloth handovers among soldiers, Staiano-Daniels juxtaposes a tiny, previously unseen network of soldiers with global supply networks. He argues for the possible significance of primary group cohesion within regiments for activities central to nourishment and survival beyond formal set-piece battles. Data visualizations demonstrate some of the book’s findings.

There are many fascinating details to peruse in this diligently researched and thoughtful book. By immersing the reader in many curious layers of evidence, Staiano-Daniels manages to provide incisive views of early modern soldiers while retaining the startling strangeness of the texts. As a result, the previously forgotten Mansfelders have been restored to the historical record, and their wild lives of revelry, violence, and suffering are sure to haunt the reader long after the book has been put down.