At first, the Tercio denoted not a combat unit, but an administrative unit under a General Staff, commanding garrisons throughout Italy for fights on various distant fronts. This peculiar character was maintained when it mobilized to fight the Protestant rebels in Flanders. Command of the Tercio and its companies was granted directly by the king, and companies could easily be added or removed. By the middle of the 17th century, the Tercios began to be raised by nobles at their own expense, patrons who appointed the captains and were effective owners of the units, as in other contemporaneous European armies.