Thirty Years' War Research Papers (original) (raw)

One of the most momentous and destructive wars in European history, the Thirty Years War has long been studied for its diplomatic, political, and military consequences. Yet the actual participants in this religiously motivated, seemingly endless conflict have largely been ignored. Hans Medick and Benjamin Marschke reveal the Thirty Years War from the perspective of those who lived it. Their introduction provides important insights into the roiling religious and political landscape from which the war emerged, as well as a thoughtful examination of the war's stages and enduring significance. An unprecedented collection of personal accounts, many of them translated for the first time into English, combine with visual sources to convey directly to students the experience of early modern warfare. Incisive document headnotes, maps and illustrations, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students' understanding of this fateful war.

- by Hans Medick
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- History of Violence, Cultural Memory, Thirty Years War, Thirty Years' War

Istoria statelor nordice între 1520 și 1870. NU SUNT COAUTOR.

- by Cristian-Radu Staicu
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- Reformation Studies, Sweden, Norway, Denmark
- by Martin Vyšohlíd
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- Archaeology, Postmedieval Archaeology, Thirty Years' War, Middle Ages

En l’imaginari col·lectiu català hi ha alguns episodis bèl·lics
que han marcat profundament la cultura i, en conseqüència, la
literatura, per les seves pregones repercussions històriques: a
l’edat moderna les guerres dels Segadors i de Successió són
guerres de sang i de papers, en què la poesia, com altres gèneres
literaris, serveix com a vehicle per transmetre idees i explicar
fets. Amb el tricentenari, la guerra de Successió i les manifestacions
culturals i literàries que va generar s’han pogut fer
visibles per a un públic més ampli, però la literatura de la guerra
dels Segadors segueix sent, per norma general, força desconeguda
per a la majoria dels lectors, i és de justícia que no
segueixi dormint als calaixos de quatre estudiosos.

In den Jahren 2003 und 2008 wurden die Reste von zwei Gebäuden entdeckt, die beim großen Brand von Stargard, der am 7. Oktober 1635 ausbrach, zerstört wurden. Zum einen handelt es sich um Überreste des Kellers eines Vorder- oder Hinterhauses, zum anderen um die Überreste des Kellers von einem Wiekhaus, das sich im Verlauf der Wehrmauer befand. Der Abstand zwischen den entdeckten Spuren der Brandstätte betrug nur hundert Meter. Aus beiden Bereichen wurden zahlreiche und genau datierte Materialien gewonnen. Bis heute war einer der tragischsten Brände in der Geschichte der Stadt nur aus historischen Quellen bekannt. Die Ergebnisse der oben genannten Arbeiten bildeten die Grundlage für dieses Buch – den vierten Band der Reihe „Archeologia Stargardu“ („Archäologie von Stargard“).
Die Bearbeitung und Herausgabe dieser Ergebnisse war dank Zuschüssen im Rahmen des Programms „Bodendenkmalschutz“ des Ministeriums für Kultur und Nationales Erbe und dank Mitteln seitens der Stadtgemeinde Stargard möglich.
Die Publikation besteht aus drei Kapiteln. Vorgestellt werden mehrere historische Studien über den Verlauf des Dreißigjährigen Krieges in Pommern und der Stadt an der Ina selbst sowie über das am 7. Oktober 1635 ausgebrochene Feuer, wobei alle archäologischen Quellen anhand der Ergebnisse metallurgischer Analysen umfassend bearbeitet wurden. Es werden hier auch die Erkenntnisse aus der petrographischen Analyse der Bruchstücke von Irden- und Grauwarevorgestellt und mit Beispielen aus anderen pommerschen Städten verglichen.

- by Marcin Majewski and +2
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- Military History, Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Early Modern History

This article provides an overview of economic inequality in Germany from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. It builds upon data produced by the German Historical School, which from the late nineteenth century pioneered inequality studies, and adds new archival information for selected areas. Inequality tended to grow during the early modern period, with an exception: the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), together with the 1627-29 plague, seem to have caused a temporary but significant phase of inequality reduction. This is in contrast to other European areas, from Italy to the Low Countries, where during 1500-1800 inequality growth was monotonic. Some evidence of a drop in inequality is also found after the Black Death of 1348-49. Our findings contribute to deepen and nuance our knowledge of long-term inequality trends in preindustrial Europe, and offer new material to current debates on the determinants of inequality change in western societies, past and present.

- by Guido Alfani
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- Economic History, Black Death, Germany, Thirty Years' War

Therefore, the Czech Ore Mountains, represented an area where means of early modern
wartime logistics had been fully applied. The collected contributions were subject to
strict supervision and inventory on the side of the city or state officials, for which the
documentary evidence is provided by the increasing bureaucratization of the early modern
state. At that time the Ore Mountains as a link between Saxony and Bohemia were
carrying a considerable (definitely not negligeable) degree of the war load.

- by Lukáš Sláma
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- Early Modern History, Czech History, Transition Towns, Thirty Years' War

Julius Henry, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg was among those who obtained a domini-on in Bohemia during the Thirty Years’ War. He and his son belong to the richest aristocrats in the land what was reflected in their representation and building activity. This paper is trying to introduce some interesting moments to motivate further research about this family which should be included in the early modern aristocracy discussion.

El 24 de octubre de 1648 quedaba oficialmente firmada la paz por el Sacro Imperio Romano con Francia y Suecia en las ciudades de Münster y Osnabrück respectivamente. Sin embargo, bajo la esperanza del establecimiento de un acuerdo definitivo de paz, sumando los esfuerzos por llevar a cabo la aplicación de los tratados en el congreso de Núremberg, un importante escollo estuvo a punto de provocar que dichas negociaciones acabasen abocadas al fracaso y dinamitasen todo lo recorrido, hasta desembocar en una nueva guerra en Centroeuropa.

A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it uses the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 to explore warfare through a neo-Darwinian lens. This emphasizes the universal features of human behavior and psychology as they relate to violence and war. Oxford University Press, January 2016, Paperback version 2018; Italian translation LEG 2018.

- by Martin Solte
- •
- Global History, Military Revolution, Private military contractors, Thirty Years War

This essays looks for to trace a panorama of 17th century during the Thirty Years' War, whose stage was the Holy Roman Empire. Simultaneous to the bloody religious conflicts, the Europe knew the meaning of the economic crises that... more

- by Jack Brandão
- •
- Thirty Years' War, Leitura De Imagens, History of Germany, Alemanha
- by Jeremy Murray
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- Military History, Historiography, Military Revolution, Sweden

The hoard was discovered in December 2018 in a meadow, which began to be cultivated again after many years. Ploughing brought a set of coins to the surface, from which a total of 972 pieces were saved using a metal detector. The coins were originally stored in a ceramic vessel, of which only the lower part with glaze on the inside is preserved.
All coins from the hoard represent silver currency, minted over a period of more than 150 years. The oldest coin is undoubtedly the Meissen Grosch, minted sometime between 1457 and 1464, while the youngest part of the hoard consists of so-called kipper Groschen, minted in 1622.
From the chronological and geographical point of view, the hoard from Hrachov can be divided into two parts. About a quarter of the coins was made before 1619 and comes almost exclusively from mints in Bohemia. This part of the hoards reflects the fact that Bohemia was able to maintain the good quality of its own small circulation coins before 1619, which was rather exceptional in Europe.
On the other hand only one single Bohemian coin from the period of the Thirty Years' War is documented in the hoard (kipper 3Kreuzer of Ferdinand II. from the year 1622). In addition to it, the younger and more numerous part of the hoard (roughly three quarters) consists mainly of kipper Groschen, minted since 1619 in today's Germany, especially Saxony, Anhalt, Brunswick and Mansfeld. Kipper (or “long”) coins are inflationary coins with a reduced silver content, mass-produced in some Central European countries, most intensively in the years 1619–1622. During this period, there were many dozens of mints in Central Europe, which intensively withdrew older quality coins from circulation and produced less valuable inflationary kipper coins. One of the factors that enabled their mass production was the introduction of machine minting (rolling machines) in many workshops. This was also reflected in the hoard from Hrachov, where more than 220 pieces of kipper coins show traces of machine minting. The result of the large volume of production of these coins is their considerable variability, so it is no wonder that the hoard also contained variants not yet described in the literature.
The hoard also includes three counterfeit coins from the period 1619–1621. Using SEM-EDS analysis, it was shown that all the counterfeit was silver-plated by the amalgamation method, a commonly used procedure consisting of applying a thin layer of silver-mercury alloy to a core of a cheaper material (copper or brass).
Coins from Austria, Silesia, Poland and Switzerland are only marginally represented in the hoard. Single coins from the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden are of the most remote origin.
An interesting question is why the hoard from Hrachov does not contain almost any kipper coins from Bohemia, although inflationary currency has been largely minted in our territory as well. One of the reasons may be the general shortage of domestic small kipper coins, which were neglected in production in favour of coins with higher denominations. This fact probably forced the use of foreign small coins, imported mainly from the German region. An important circumstance that influenced the composition of the depot may also be the ban on the circulation of foreign and old Bohemian coins, issued on 18 February 1622 by the viceroy of Bohemia, Prince Liechtenstein. From the point of view of this regulation, from April 1622, practically the entire content of the hoard was to be an illegal currency. For this reason, coins could be separated from the currently valid currency and hidden under the ground.

- by Jan John and +1
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- Archaeology, Numismatics, Coin Hoards, Postmedieval Archaeology

This is an excerpt from a draft version of my book A God of Our Invention: How Religion Shaped the Western World (Apocryphile Press, 2023). I've extracted just a few sections here so as to present some of my ideas on how the idea of God has driven war, and how, even when God is supposedly not involved, other ideologies replace him. The key to reducing war, I submit, lies only partly in removing God; the true solution requires minimizing all ideologies. While I cite sources and scholarly works, the book this note is extracted from is intended for a general audience, not an academic one. Comments welcome, especially on whether I've accurately reported the historical details.

- by Dan Kohanski
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- History of Religion, French Revolution, Wars of Religion, Religious Pluralism
- by Hugo A Cañete
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- History, Ancient History, Military History, Strategy (Military Science)

The aim of the paper is to introduce the instructions related to the build-up of redoubts, which were published in fortification manuals from the time of the Thirty Years’ War and from a few preceding and following years. The reason for writing this text is the planned recreation of a redoubt near Rakovník in the spring of 2021, shortly after the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Rakovník was commemorated. The redoubt will be built in accordance with the theoretical knowledge of that time, using the authentic methods.

- by Klára Andresová
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- Military History, Experimental Archaeology, Fortifications, Thirty Years' War

This is a long-term study concerned with the 350-year history of recollecting the fending-off, in 1645, of the Swedish forces which besieged Brünn (Brno). The author demonstrates that various groupings sought to capitalize on this event, be it for engendering loyalities or for building and stabilizing cultural identities or enemy images. Wheras for a long time it was mainly the Church which sought to instil with believers eternal gratitude to the Virgin Mary, around 1800 the citizen as a new player came increasingly to the fore. Citizens used recollections of 1645 as a legitimation for their demands that they be granted political participation. Starting at the end of the 19th century, interethnic tensions resulted in the image of the historic enemy being epplied to the contemporary opponent. This nationalization of memory led to the topic being almost forgotten in the 20th century within Chech inhabitants of Brünn. Only after 1995, 350 years after the Swedes had been repelled, did ceremonies slowly restart which were devotes to the memory of the 1645 events. However, large parts of the memory of the Swedes are being overlooked in this attempt to construe and strengthen a more local outlook on history.

- by Simon Hadler
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- Czech History, Urban History, History and Memory, Central European history
- by Robert T Tomczak
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- Czech History, Thirty Years War, Thirty Years' War

„Forms of War 1600-1815“ is the title of the Bavarian Army Museum’s latest permanent exhibition, opened in 2019 and housed in the New Castle of Ingolstadt. With exhibits from the museum‘s own collection and some important loans, it illustrates the forms of warlike violence in the early modern period. Focal points are the fighting in the major battles on open fields, the siege and defence of fortresses, and the so-called “small war”, which placed a heavy burden on the countryside and the population in the vicinity of the major conflicts.
The book is an introduction to the subject and also provides some information about the redesign of the museum rooms. All the exhibited items are documented in text and pictures, most of them are published here for the first time.

- by Tobias Schönauer
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- Military History, Bavarian, Warfare, Thirty Years War

In recent years, the growing corpus of modern scholarship on the history of Spanish Italy has challenged and often overturned most of the profoundly biased (but highly successful) narratives established on the topic by nineteenth-century Italian historiography. Still, to this day the memory of the massive Italian military involvement in the series of conflicts that shaped the history of the Spanish Low Countries still hinges almost solely upon that of the two iconic Italian generals of the Army of Flanders: Alessandro Farnese and Ambrogio Spinola. In beginning to address this lacuna, the present article will offer an overview of the history of the Italian natione of the Army of Flanders based on the complex historical and historiographical trajectory followed by its longest-lived infantry unit—its terzo vecchio.

- by Cornel Zwierlein
- •
- Early Modern History, Thirty Years War, Thirty Years' War

ost people who have heard of Johannes Kepler, pictured here at age 39, remember him primarily as an astronomer who changed our understanding of planetary motion. He is most famous for his discovery that planets move in elliptical orbits rather than in the pure circles theorized by those who came before him. He deemed Earth a planet like any other, one that revolved annually around the Sun. That belief made him one of the first to accept Copernicus's heliocentric cosmos.

- by Aviva Rothman
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- History of Astronomy, Johannes Kepler, Confessionalization, Thirty Years' War

This essay seeks to further our understanding of the assembling of Charles I's art collections, establishing a connection to the plunder of art during the Thirty Years' War. An encounter between Archibald Rankin, a Scottish diplomat, and the news-gatherer, John Pory, confirms the early establishment of Charles I's reputation abroad as an art collector. Rankin is the first to recognise that the Swedish king, Gustav II Adolf's (Gustavus Adolphus's) military ambitions and Charles I's collecting ambitions might converge on Munich, the seat of Maximilian I of Bavaria. It is shown, however, that artworks taken from Munich eventually reached Whitehall not through Rankin's agency but through the separate efforts of two of Charles I's courtiers who witnessed the city's capture in May 1632: James, Marquess of Hamilton, and Sir Henry Vane.

- by Timothy Wilks
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- Thirty Years' War, Charles I, Gustav II Adolf, Art plunder
- by Jan John
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- Archaeology, Numismatics, Thirty Years' War, Coins

The transformation of war is a major problem in the study of Early Modern military history. This history dissertation addresses the pace and nature of military transformation in a war between Sweden and Denmark in 1643-1645. The focus of this investigation is on insurgency and small war between soldiers, armed peasants, and hybrid contingents of both in Scania, Norway, Jutland, and Holstein during the final years of the Thirty Years War.

- by Olli Bäckström
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- Military Revolution, Swedish History, Danish History, Thirty Years' War

This text is a translation of the Czech paper "Polní opevnění v období třicetileté války v dobových vojenských plánech" presented on June 10, 2019 in Prachatice at the "Polní vojenská opevnění od třicetileté války" conference, organised by the Prachatice museum.
Summary: Manuscript military plans from the period of the Thirty Years' War represent a very interesting, but so far relatively little researched authentic source of information about the contemporary military. The authors of these plans were not only specialized military engineers, but in some cases also skilled army officers. The aim of this paper is to present this topic through examples depicting the most common types of field fortifications on selected contemporary military plans from the collections of Czech and European archives.

- by Pavel Hrncirik
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- Military History, Historical maps, Thirty Years War, Thirty Years' War

This paper gives an overview of the emergence and development of mobile light field artillery in selected European countries during the first half of the Thirty Years' War. In the final part of the paper, the importance of the collection of four field bronze cannons from the period of the Thirty Years' War at the Opočno Castle in East Bohemia is also discussed.

- by Kathrin Zickermann and +1
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- Military History, Early Modern History, German History, Scottish History

Die Ausstellung "Formen des Krieges 1600-1815" stellt den ersten Abschnitt der neuen Dauerausstellung des Bayerischen Armeemuseums im Neuen Schloss von Ingolstadt dar. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Entstehung der Ausstellung... more

- by Tobias Schönauer and +1
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- Military History, Museums and Exhibition Design, Exhibition Design (Architecture), Exhibition Design

ÖZET Orta Avrupa'da Katolikler ve Protestanlar arasında din temelli olarak başlayıp uzun yıllar devam eden ve bu coğrafyada büyük bir yıkıma neden olan Otuz Yıl Savaşları 1648 yılında Westphalia Barışı ile sona ermiştir. Daha sonra kendisine özel bir anlam yüklenen bu barış, modern devletlerin ortaya çıkışı ve egemen devletlerin eşitliği ilkesine dayanan yeni bir uluslararası düzenin kuruluşuyla ilişkilendirilmiştir. Büyük oranda kabul gören bu yaklaşım son yıllarda "mit" olarak değerlendirilerek tartışılmaya başlanmıştır. Fransa, İsveç ve Kutsal Roma İmparatorluğu arasında yapılan bir barışa böyle bir anlamın yüklenmesinin yanıltıcı olduğu, bunun antlaşma metinleri tarafından doğrulanmadığı, tarih-sel gerçeklerle örtüşmediği ve modern devletin ortaya çıkışını bir "an"a indirgeyerek, uzun bir "sürecin" ürünü olduğu gerçeğini görmezden geldiği ileri sürülmüştür.