Abstract
The early seventeenth century was a period of such complex and widespread warfare that few parts of Europe remained unscathed. Ever since, the motives of the major protagonists have been disputed, the overall significance of religious, economic and diplomatic factors debated, and the severity of the material destructiveness and long-term consequences periodically reviewed — even the very existence of a definable ‘Thirty Years War’ between 1618 and 1648 has been challenged.1 Without denying the usefulness of this revisionism, historians have more recently concentrated on detailed studies of individual regions and localities within the Holy Roman Empire, in order to provide more finely drawn analyses appropriate to the territorial particularism which became so prominent a feature of the Empire during the course of the war and thereafter. Interestingly, however, many of these studies2 have revealed the continuing strengths and positive aspects of the imperial machinery, even after 1648. What older generations of historians, taking their cue from an out-of-context phrase from Pufendorf’s De statu imperii Germanici of 1667, regarded as a monstrous medieval constitutional anachronism, in fact remained a loose but in many respects beneficial confederative framework capable of protecting the independence and security of the smaller states, at least in the western and south-western parts of the Empire.
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Notes
T.K. Rabb (ed.), The Thirty Years War (Lexington, 1964) and his ‘The effects of the Thirty Years War on the German economy’, JMH, 34 (1962), 40–51; S. H. Steinberg, ‘Thirty Years War: a new interpretation’, H (1947), 89–102
H. Kamen, ‘The economic and social consequences of the Thirty Years War’, PP, 39 (1968), 44–61
K. Repgen, ‘Noch einmal zum Begriff “Dreissigjähriger Krieg”’, ZfHF, 9 (1982), 347–52.
Recent interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire have emphasised its value as a framework for small-state co-existence and local autonomy. See J. V. Polisensky, The Thirty Years War (London, 1971)
G. Benecke, Society and Politics in Germany 1500–1700 (London, 1974)
J.A. Vann and S.W. Rowan (eds), The old Reich (Brussels, 1974)
J. A. Vann, The Making of a State: Württemberg 1593–1793 (Ithaca, 1984).
Emperor Matthias was childless, and the choice of a younger member of the family — Ferdinand, archduke in Styria and Carinthia — could not be finalised without a deal with Philip III of Spain, himself a claimant. Matthias had little control over these events, and his advisor Khlesl was ousted and imprisoned in 1618. See also G. Parker, The Thirty Years War (London, 1984) and his The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road (Cambridge, 1972)
P. Brightwell, ‘The Spanish system and the twelve years’ truce’, EngHR, 89 (1974), 270–92, and his ‘The Spanish Origins of the Thirty Years War’, EurStR, 9 (1979), 409–31.
For a discussion of Ferdinand’s entourage, his own beliefs and the attitude of the Papacy (which had little significance in the Empire in practical terms), see R.S. Bireley, Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counter-Reformation (Chapel Hill, 1981), p. 46 and passim
cf. Bireley, Maximilian von Bayern, Adam Contzen, S.J., und die Gegenreformation in Deutschland, 1624–35 (Göttingen 1975)
see also G. Parker, The Thirty Years War (London, 1984), ch. 3, for a survey.
Polisensky, Thirty Years War, 137–62; R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy (Oxford, 1979), pp. 195–234.
A short survey of the Kipper- und Wipperjahre is found in W. Abel, Massenarmut und Hungerkrisen im vorindustriellen Europa (Hamburg, 1974), pp. 138–47.
The Empire had in 1512 been divided into ten circles (provinces), each with an assembly (Kreistag) and with certain local responsibilities regarding law and order, defence, and taxation for imperial armies. In practice only the southern and western circles had much durable significance, primarily because those areas did not have any single powerful princes. In any case the circles were affected, like all other imperial institutions, by the confrontational deadlocks around the turn of the century. See also F. Magen, ‘Die Reichskreise der Epoche des Dreissigjährigen Krieges’, ZfHF, 9 (1982), 408–60.
L. Tandrup, Mod triumf eller tragedie, vols 1–2 (Aarhus, 1979)
K.J.V. Jespersen, ‘Kongemødet i Ulfsbäck præstegård februar 1629’, Historie Jyske Sml., 14 (1982), 420–39
E. L. Petersen, ‘Defence, war and finance: Christian IV and the council of the realm’, ScJH, 7 (1982), 277–, and his ‘War, finance and the growth of absolutism’, in Europe and Scandinavia: Aspects of the Process of Integration in the 17th century, ed. G. Rystad (Lund, 1983), pp. 33–49.
H. Diwald, Wallenstein (Munich, 1969)
G. Mann, Wallenstein (London, 1976), emphasise that the underlying motives were to some extent financial: the emperor could never hope to repay his debts to the generalissimo, but for the officers in Wallenstein’s army their only security for investments lay in his survival.
M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus and the Rise of Sweden (London, 1973), pp. 125–7
S. Lundkvist, ‘Gustav Adolf som fältherre’, in Gustav II Adolf (Livrustkammaren, Stockholm, 1982), pp. 47–60
L. Ekholm in H. Landberg et al., Det kontinentale krigets ekonomi (Kristianstad, 1971)
R. Nordlund, ‘Kontribution eller satisfaktion: Pommern och de svenska krigsfinanserna 1633’, HTS, 37/94 (1974), 321–402.
For a survey of Swedish military organisation until 1632, see M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus, vol. 2 (London, 1958), pp. 198–271.
Bireley, Religion and Politics, passim, esp. pp. 130f and 209–29; cf. H. Sturmberger, Kaiser Ferdinand II (Munich, 1957).
The pamphlet and flysheet literature in Germany during the war has been studied from a number of angles, including that of political propaganda, popular opposition and simple extremist agitation, as well as in terms of its embodiment of literary and pictorial conventions and images handed down from earlier generations. A few examples are cited in H. Langer, The Thirty Years War (London, 1980).
For a detailed analysis, see esp. R.W. Brednich, Die Liedpublizistik im Flugblatt des 15. bis 17. Jhrs. (Baden-Baden, 1974)
G. Rystad, Kriegsnachrichten und propaganda während des Dreissigjährigen Krieges (Lund, 1960)
W. A. Coupe, The German Illustrated Broadsheet in the Seventeenth Century (Baden-Baden, 1966)
H. Strobach, Bauernklagen: Untersuchungen zum sozialkritischen Volkslied (Berlin, 1964); D. Böttcher, ‘Propaganda und offentliche Meinung im protestantischen Deutschland 1628–1636’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 44 (1952).
See also A. Ellenius, ‘Gustav Adolf i bildkonsten’, in Gustav II Adolf (Stockholm, 1982), pp. 91–111
T. Schroder, Das gesamte Werk Jacques Callot, vols 1–2 (Munich, 1971)
A. Rossel, Le faux grand siècle (Paris, 1982), for some French newspaper reports; further references are in Parker, Thirty Years War, p. 259 n. 2 and passim.
Polisensky, Thirty Years War, pp. 197–208 and 232–53; and G. Franz, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg (Stuttgart, 1961) for a detailed survey, region by region, of population losses and migration. The destructive aspects of the war were clearly a major factor in the policies of some of the participants: by the last years of his life, Wallenstein, like many other landowners and commanders, was taking individual initiatives for peace in order to save his own possessions.
W. Crowne, A true relation of the Travels of Thomas Howard ambassador extraordinary to Ferdinando the Second 1636 (London, 1637), pp. 10–11.
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© 1990 Thomas Munck
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Munck, T. (1990). The Thirty Years War in the German lands. In: Seventeenth Century Europe. History of Europe. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20626-1_1
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