The word ‘freelance’ originates from the medieval mercenaries who hired themselves out to the highest bidder. The term was first used by novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in Ivanhoe (1820) to describe a ‘free lance’ (indicating that the lance is not sworn to any lord’s services). In modern times the term morphed from a noun (freelance) into an adjective (a freelance journalist), a verb (a journalist who freelances) and an adverb (she worked freelance), as well as into the noun ‘freelancer’.
In the middle ages, the freelancers were the soldiers who offered their services to the kings who paid them. They were mainly such soldiers who had already lost their kings in wars and now fought for whoever they wanted to. These hired soldiers were common after 1000 A.D. These soldiers in English were more commonly known as condottiere. The term basically refers to the leader of a band of mercenary soldiers. Latin records indicate that these soldiers were initially called stipendiaries. Again as the name suggests, these are soldiers who worked on stipends provided.
These mercenary soldiers had their main origin in 13th century Italy.
Credit : Truelancer
Picture Credit : Google
