Religion and Magic during the Thirty Years War

Both religion and magic helped people to address the uncertainties of pre-modern everyday life. War multiplied these uncertainties, bringing violence, disease and famine. In many parts of central Europe the Thirty Years War (1618-48) brought with it an unprecedented level of material destruction and population loss. Using examples drawn from Saxony, the heartland of the Lutheran Reformation, this paper will explore the impact of war, arguing that times of conflict provide especially valuable insights into popular belief and practice.

Bridget Heal's research focusses on the long-term impact of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations on German society and culture. The most distinctive element of her approach is the incorporation of visual evidence into the broader frameworks of religious history. Her first monograph, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500-1648, drew on both textual and visual sources to analyse the significance of Marian piety during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Her second monograph, A Magnificent Faith: Art and Identity in Lutheran Germany, was published in 2017.  It explains how and why Lutheranism—a confession that insisted upon the pre-eminence of God’s Word—became a visually magnificent faith, a faith whose adherents produced, during the eighteenth century, monuments as splendid as the Frauenkirche in Dresden. 

Register in advance for this seminar:
https://york-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlcuqpqzoiHtO6SzRgrAEPP12CvSRqURbz

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Image: Wallenstein’s Horoscope Book, National Museum, Prague