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This paper will seek to explain how and why military contracting came to dominate warfare in this period, and what it tells us about early modern states and societies.

Historians have long sought to understand European warfare between 1500 and 1750 through concepts like 'military revolution', the growth of state control over armies and navies, and the rise of military professionalism and bureaucracy. Yet the most striking feature of early modern warfare was the huge expansion in military contracting, the outsourcing of military functions, and the state's reliance on the organizational skills and finance of private individuals and their networks. This paper will seek to explain how and why military contracting came to dominate warfare in this period, and what it tells us about early modern states and societies. There are interesting parallels to be drawn with the second great period of military devolution, which has shaped Western militaries for the last few decades and shows no sign of losing its grip in the future.

David Parrott is Fellow and Tutor at New College, and Professor of Early Modern History in the History Faculty, University of Oxford. His is the author of Richelieu's Army. War, Government and Society in France, 1624-42 and The Business of War. Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe, and has written articles on numerous aspects of early modern military and political history. His most recent book, 1652. The Cardinal, the Prince, and the Crisis of the Fronde, is a study of the intersection of politics, warfare and contingency in mid-17th century France.