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Germany and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

Sheilagh C. Ogilvie
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge

Abstract

This article surveys the debate on the ‘General Crisis’ of the seventeenth century in the light of hitherto neglected research. Firstly, most theories of the crisis fail to combine its economic and socio-political aspects. Secondly, few explanations of the crisis take account of evidence from the local and regional levels. Thirdly and most seriously, theories of the crisis have ignored Germany, while historians of Germany have ignored the crisis debate. This article seeks to Jill these gaps. It puts Germany at the centre of a comprehensive theory of the crisis that takes existing crisis theories as its starting point, but also shows how the Thirty Tears War, largely caused by the peculiar institutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire, in turn wrought significant institutional change, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe.

Type
Historiographical Review
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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96 Electoral debts rose from 3.3m guilders in 1622, to 7.1m by 1628, to 11.9m by 1657, despite generous grants and taxes: ibid. pp. 229–30.

97 Ibid. p. 232.

98 Ibid. p. 239.

99 Ibid. p. 232.

100 Ibid. p. 53.

101 Ibid. p. 180.

102 Ibid. p. 182.

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128 Bierbrauer, , ‘Bauerliche Revolten’, p. 54Google Scholar note 3, and Appendix pp. 65–6.

129 Hoffmann, , ‘Typologie’, p. 313Google Scholar.

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139 Trossbach, , ‘Bauernbewegungen’, p. 234Google Scholar, argues that this was also true of the smaller territories; it is confirmed in Ulbrich, ‘Charakter’.

140 Sec, for instance, Kriedte, Peasants; Rabb, ‘Effects’; Kamen, ‘Consequences’.

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144 Schulze, , ‘Veranderte Bedeutung’, p. 279Google Scholar; Barnett-Robisheaux, , ‘Peasant revolts’, pp. 392–3Google Scholar.

145 Schulze, , Bauerlicher Wider stand, pp. 62–6Google Scholar; Schulze, ‘Peasant resistance’. An interesting example of how rebels used competing state powers for their own ends (in the Schoenberg unrests in Saxony between 1647 and 1680/1) is provided in G. Heitz, ‘Agrarstruktur, bauerlicher Widcrstand, Klassenkampf im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert“, in Schulze, , Aufstande, p. 155Google Scholar.

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148 Bierbrauer, , ‘Bauerlicher Revolten’, p. 59Google Scholar.

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150 Trossbach, , ‘Bauernbewegungen’, p. 254Google Scholar.

151 On the less violent nature of German revolts, see Schulze, , ‘Europaische und deutsche Bauernrevolten’, pp. 42–3Google Scholar, and Trossbach, , ‘Bauernbewegungen’, p. 246Google Scholar.

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