See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.
LANCES, Free.
With Sir John Hawkwood and his "free company" of English
mercenaries, "came first into Italy [about 1360] the use of
the term 'lances,' as applied to hired troops; each 'lance'
being understood to consist of three men; of whom one carried
a lance, and the others were bowmen. … They mostly fought on
foot, having between each two archers a lance, which was held
as men hold their hunting-spears in a boar-hunt."
_T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
volume 2, page 144._