Spessart Roots - A History of the People of a German Forest
The Thirty Years War Comes to Spessart Forest
30 Years War: Plundering
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30 Years War: Desolation
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Devastations of the Thirty Years War make its way to Spessart Forest.
The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, was still far away. Or so people hoped. In a time with virtually no news media, the forest’s inhabitants relied on sketchy reports from travelers passing through or from other villagers returning from a town or city. The atmosphere was electric, the uncertainty and unrest contributing to the mass hysteria that resulted in the horrendous witch persecutions which were still in full swing.
Then it hit. The first inkling a village or hamlet might have of the nearness of the war was when they were suddenly overtaken. A resident who for some reason had not been home would return, spotting smoke curling up as he approached his village, soon finding his family and all others tortured and butchered. As he stood there in dismayed numbness, he might have heard the peaceful far-off church bells of another village, a village still undisturbed and unaware. The period of the early 1630s, when the Swedish forces were in their ascendancy and the war was at its height, is also the period when the Thirty Years War entered the Franconia region, and subsequently Spessart Forest, with full impact. The residents of the forest had felt it before. By the early 1620s, marauding soldiers from troops marching through had already brought a good deal of misery to the forest. Now things were to get much worse.
The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, was still far away. Or so people hoped. In a time with virtually no news media, the forest’s inhabitants relied on sketchy reports from travelers passing through or from other villagers returning from a town or city. The atmosphere was electric, the uncertainty and unrest contributing to the mass hysteria that resulted in the horrendous witch persecutions which were still in full swing.
Then it hit. The first inkling a village or hamlet might have of the nearness of the war was when they were suddenly overtaken. A resident who for some reason had not been home would return, spotting smoke curling up as he approached his village, soon finding his family and all others tortured and butchered. As he stood there in dismayed numbness, he might have heard the peaceful far-off church bells of another village, a village still undisturbed and unaware. The period of the early 1630s, when the Swedish forces were in their ascendancy and the war was at its height, is also the period when the Thirty Years War entered the Franconia region, and subsequently Spessart Forest, with full impact. The residents of the forest had felt it before. By the early 1620s, marauding soldiers from troops marching through had already brought a good deal of misery to the forest. Now things were to get much worse.