A number of those adventure seekers were established in Italy, where they had become _condottieri_, and went fighting up and down the peninsula according to the will of whomsoever paid them. Such were John Hawkwood, whose tomb still adorns the cathedral at Florence,[576] William Gold, and several others. Fierce folk they were, with ardent passions, ready sometimes, as in Homeric days, to do and sacrifice as much to recover a fugitive girl as to take a town. One letter of William Gold may give an idea of the temper of these bellicose wanderers. On August 9, 1378, he wrote to Louis Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, concerning the girl Jeannette, of France: “. . . Let her be detained at my suit, for if you should have a thousand golden florins spent for her, I will pay them without delay; for if I should have to follow her to Avignon I will obtain this woman. Now, my lord, should I be asking a trifle contrary to law, yet ought you not to cross me in this, for some day I shall do more for you than a thousand united French women could effect; {404} and if there be need of me in a matter of greater import, you shall have for the asking a thousand spears at my back. Therefore, in conclusion, again and again, I entreat that this Janet may be put in a safe place unknown to anybody, and there kept until I send some servant of mine for her with a letter from myself, for I would do more for you in greater matters. And I pray you, thwart me not about putting her in a safe place, for you alone, and no one else are lord in Mantua. “_The Camp under Verona, August 9, 1378._ “P.S.—I beseech by all means that [the] said Janet may not quit Mantua, but be in safe custody, and so you will have obliged me for ever.” No less determined as a warrior than as a lover, and accustomed, as it seems, in both cases, to put people to flight, William Gold was made a citizen of Venice in recognition of his services on April 27, 1380, and in July of the same year received from the Doge Andrea Contarini a pension of 500 gold ducats for life.[577] Thinking less of the Jeannettes to be met on the way, troops of pilgrims sailed from England, beginning their long journey towards the Holy Land, usually provided with letters from their sovereign, to serve both as passports and as recommendations in case of need. The tenor of these documents, written in French or in Latin, was usually similar to that of the following letter granted by Edward III in 1354 to one who, it is true, was more of a fighter than a pilgrim: “Know all men that the noble Jean le Meingre, knight, otherwise Bussigand [Boucicaut], our prisoner, is about to set forth, duly licensed by us, with twelve knights to St. James, and thence to march against the enemies of Christ in the Holy Land; and that we have taken him and his twelve companions, {405} their servants, horses, and harnesses under our protection and safe conduct.”[578]