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Jacob Boehme and the Thirty Years' War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Charles Andrew Weeks
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Extract

The Thirty Years' War, which lasted from 1618 to 1648, was occasioned, if not caused, by complex disputes over religion. Fought mainly in Germany, it was a European war, involving powers from Spain to Poland. The three decades of merciless warfare in the heart of Europe undermined the old awareness of a universal Christendom, shattered the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, and contributed to the consolidation of the territorial entity or nation state. The war ended with Germany weakened and divided, and with the once proud Kingdom of Bohemia bereft of its former national and confessionla identity.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 24 , Issue 2-3 , June 1991 , pp. 213 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1991

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References

1. For a beautifully illustrated account of the war, emphasizing its innovations and impact on the people, see Langer, Herbert, Thirty Years' War (New York, 1980), 235–36 (the spread of newspapers).Google Scholar

2. For the available collected documents of responses to the events in the period of religious war, see Opel, Julius and Cohn, Adolf, eds., Der Dreissigjährige Krieg. Eine Sammlung von historischen Gedichten und Prosadarstellungen (Halle, 1862);Google ScholarHofmann, Ilse, ed., Deutschland im Zeitalter des 30-jährigen Krieges. Nach Berichten und Urteilen englischer Augenzeugen (Greifswald, 1927);Google ScholarJessen, Hans, ed., Der Dreissigjährige Krieg in Augenzeugenberichten (Düsseldorf, 1963);Google ScholarBeyer-Fröhlich, Marianne, ed., Selbstzeugnisse aus dem Dreissigjährigen Krieg und dem Barock (Deutsche Literatur in Entwicklungsreihen. Reihe Deutsche Selbstzeugnisse), vol. 6 (Leipzig, 1930).Google Scholar

3. Bloch, Ernst, Christliche Philosophie des Mittelalters, Philosophie der Renaissance, Leipziger Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 2 (Frankfurt a. M., 1985), 183.Google Scholar

4. See Armytage, Walter H. G., “Behmenists: A History of the Followers of Jacob Boehme in England, 1644–1740,” Church Quarterly Review 160 (04–June 1959): 200–209;Google ScholarAubrey, Bryan, Watchmen for Eternity: Blake's Debt to Jacob Boehme (Lanham, MD, 1986);Google ScholarHutin, Serge, Les Disciples anglais de Jacob Boehme aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar

5. See Weeks, Charles Andrew, Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth Century Philosopher and Mystic (Albany, 1991), 80–81Google Scholar. (Until now, no attention has been accorded to the fact that the composition of Boehme's fragmentary first work coincided with both the efforts of the Upper Lusatian estates to secure a Letter of Majesty guaranteeing their religious freedom and with the confusing and contested transfer of power from Rudolf II to his brother Matthias. The composition was broken off in June 1612, the month of Matthias's election to the office of Holy Roman Emperor, an event which put an end to the hope of making the secession conditional on concessions to Protestant subjects.)

6. Unless otherwise indicated, references are translated into English from Böhme, Jacob, Von den Drey Principien Göttliches Wesens, vol. 2 of Sämmtliche Schriften, ed. Peuckert, Will-Erich and Faust, August (Stuttgart, 1955–1961).Google Scholar

7. See Theosophische Sendbriefe, ep. 4 (Letter to Christian Bernhard of 14 11 1619), in Böhme, vol. 9, Schriften.Google Scholar

8. Boehme, , Vom Dreyfachen Leben des Menschen, vol. 3, Schriften, 249–50.Google Scholar

9. Böhme, Jacob, Ungedruckte Sendbriefe 1 (previously unpublished letters), in Urschriften 2, ed. Buddecke, Werner (Stuttgart, 1966), 399–402.Google Scholar

10. Böhme, Sendbriefe, ep. 67 (to Christian Bernhard on November 1620).

11. Böhme, Sendbriefe, epp. 31.2, 41, 34.23, and 36.3.

12. Böhme, Sendbriefe, ep. 64.7

13. Böhme, Sendbriefe, epp. 62.10 and 64.4.

14. Böhme, Sendbriefe, epp. 63.9 and 62.5.

15. See: Weller, Emil, ed., Die Lieder des Dreissigjährigen Krieges (Basel, 1858);Google ScholarWilhelm, Franzvon Dithfurth, Freiherr, ed., Die historisch-politischen Volkslieder des dreissigjährigen Krieges (Heidelberg, 1882);Google Scholar and most impressive of all, Bohatcová, Mirjam, Irrgarten der Schicksale (Prague, 1966)Google Scholar. This impressive collection contains the engravings that accompanied many of the songs collected by Weller and Dithfurth, thereby showing what care and expense went into the songs of the war, which were hardly spontaneous effusions of popular sentiment. Herbert Langer's work, cited above, contains further valuable information on the utilization of propaganda.

16. See Weeks, Boehme, 130–38.

17. Böhme, , Schutz-Schrift wider Balthasar Tilken, (1621), vol. 5. sec. 5, in Schriften, 161–62.Google Scholar

18. Böhme, Von den Drey Principien, 350.

19. Ibid., 420 (24.10): “Truly, I tell you, and it is no joke; as I was at Jericho my dear companion opened my eyes that I might see, and behold! a great generation and horde of nations of men were mingled and a part of them were like animals and a part like human beings, and a struggle was among them…”

20. Ibid., 367.

21. Opel, Julius Otto, Valentin Weigel. Ein Beitrag zur Literatur-und Culturgeschichte Deutschlands im 17. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1864)Google Scholar, see esp. ch. 8, “Die theologische Kritik,” 201–23, and ch. 13 “Der Weigelianismus während des dreissigjährigen Krieges,” 298–329.

22. Ibid., 305–13.

23. Ibid., 201ff.

24. See Goedeking-Fries, Johanna, “Anna Ovena Hoyers,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1971).Google Scholar

25. Hoyers, Anna Ovena, Geistliche und weltliche Poemata (Amsterdam, 1650), 29–30, 63, 64.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 71–72. “Heran ihr Pfaffen all heran / Lasst euch zur Schulen führen / Von Herrn Tetinge und Lohmann …”—these were the heretical friends of Hoyers.

27. Ibid., 265ff. “Ein Schriben über Meer gesandt / An die Gemein in Engelandt / Aus einer alten Frawen Handt / Die ungenandt / Gott ist bekandt.”