Hi I’m John Green. This is Crash Course European History and
today we’re going to look at what is sometimes called the “seventeenth century crisis.” Now I know what you’re thinking: This whole
history business is just one crisis after another. And yes, dear viewer, it’s true. Humankind careens from disaster to disaster,
but still we press on, like boats against the current, and sometimes we even learn from
previous disasters. And since the Seventeenth Century Crisis involves
climate change and catastrophic war, we should maybe pay attention to this one. [Intro]
Let’s begin with the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age began in 1300, but it really
escalated beginning in 1570 and then the climate continued to cool for over one hundred years
after that. It was a global phenomenon. In some places, the temperature may have shifted
two degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but the average was about half a degree Celsius. That may not sound dramatic, but it was. Intense rainfall, lack of sunshine, and lower
temperatures decreased harvests or ruined them entirely. Europeans suffered hypothermia; the birthrate
dropped; and famines became more common--as did cannibalism. In New England, the end of the 17th century
was the worst part of the Little Ice Age. 1797 was especially brutal: Settler Samuel
Sewell noted in his diary: “To Horses, Swine, Nett-Cattell, Sheep, and Deer, Ninety and
Seven prov’d a Mortal yeer.” Now, unlike contemporary climate change, the
Little Ice Age was not caused primarily by human behavior--it may have been caused by
volcanic activity or orbital cycles or cyclical lows in solar radiation. We like to think of the Earth’s climate
as entirely stable, but it never has been. That said, contemporary climate change IS
caused by humans--and even the most ambitious goals to limit it would result in an average
global temperature change of 1.5 degrees celsius, far higher than the average shifts seen during
the catastrophic Little Ice Age. And something else was also happening in the
17th century that felt as mysterious and strange as lower temperatures: Higher prices, sometimes
called a “price revolution,” that increased prices for food and other goods. This was caused partly by the growing population
we discussed in our last episode, and partly by inflation--more precious metals were entering
Europe, especially due to mining in the Americas, which decreased the value of coinage. But this was really baffling for people--I
mean, imagine that you’re living in Spain in the 17th century, watching precious metals
pour into your country via the New World, and despite all this new wealth, you’re
finding it harder to pay for bread, and clothing, and almost everything else. Inflation, like climate, is extremely complex,
and also a hugely important historical force. And so as prices soared and harvests declined,
it really did feel like the 17th century might just be the end. As one pamphleteer from Spain wrote in 1643:
“Every nation is turned upside down, leading some great minds to suspect that we are approaching
the end of the world.”[i] And then there was the 30 Years War, which
unlike the 100 Years War, actually did last for 30 years. The war, which took place from 1618 to 1648,
was tremendously destructive in Central Europe--millions of people were killed, including many from
starvation brought on by the war. Many different states within the quickly fracturing
Holy Roman Empire were involved, as were France and Sweden and Denmark and
England. The war started in 1618 over, you guessed
it, religion. It began when Ferdinand II, the devotedly
Catholic new Hapsburg king of Bohemia, sent representatives to inform powerful Protestants
that Prague and the rest of Bohemia would be Catholic territory from now on. Unsurprisingly, the Protestant lords in Prague
weren’t terribly happy with this news. In fact, the were so unhappy that they threw
Ferdinand’s representatives out--literally, out the window, in the so-called Defenestration
of Prague. Did the center of the world just open? Is there a window in there? Now, this is a famous moment in European history,
in part because it’s called the Defensetration of Prague, which is just irresistible, but
in part because it was the SECOND defenestration of Prague. The first one occured in 1419 and resulted
in the deaths of seven people, the second one, the one we’re concerned with now, resulted
in the deaths of no people, because all four of the defenestrated landed in a pile of manure. Ferdinand’s people, of course, called this
a divine miracle, while the Protestants were like, “they landed in poop!” Ah, god I love history. Soon after the defenestration, Ferdinand II
was elected Holy Roman Emperor, which led the Protestant Czechs to reject him as king
of Bohemia, and choose the protestant Frederick V of the Palitanate to replace him, and then
war truly erupted. The Czechs would be initially defeated by
Hapsburg forces in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, and the Hapsburg family would in
fact rule the area until 1918. But that didn’t settle the war--nor, in
fact, did Ferdinand’s next victories. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. 1. So on the one hand you have the imperial forces, 2. led by the Catholic Hapsburg Ferdinand
II, 3. and on the other hand you have protestant
Frederick V 4. and his allies among the protestant aristocrats
of central Europe. 5. The Hapsburgs went on to crush Frederick’s
allies. 6. In the 1620s, Ferdinand took the Palatinate
from the defeated Frederick 7. and awarded it to his Catholic ally, Maximilian
of Bavaria. 8. Ferdinand then awarded other lands to Catholic
allies 9. that had belonged to defeated protestant princes, 10. and he decreed that in conquered territories
those who had bought Catholic lands, like monasteries, had to return them. 11. Furthermore, all citizens needed to return
to the Catholic Church or else leave their homes. 12. The Little Ice Age, inflation, and war had
crashed the economies, 13. making it difficult for people to dispose
of their property before they moved. 14. And we see this again--and again and again--in
refugee crises throughout history. 15. So it seemed the Catholics Hapsburgs were
going to win, 16. but then the Protestant king of Denmark, Christian
IV, a hugely wealthy ruler, 17. decided to enter the war to block imperial
expansion, 18. protect Protestants, 19. and preserve the traditional rights of
the many hundreds of independent kingdoms, and duchies, and cities in the Holy Roman
Empire. 20. And that meant that the war, instead of being
over, was just getting started. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So, Emperor Ferdinand hired the wealthy Albrecht
von Wallenstein to confront the Danish menace and to continue conquering the Protestant
princes in the empire, thus restoring more property to the Catholic Church. Wallenstein was Czech- and he’d been born
a Protestant, but he’d converted to Catholicism as a teenager and then married a widow who
died a few years after their marriage, leaving him a lot of property. But that was just the beginning of Wallenstein
gaining property via death and/or marriage. Wallenstein did his conquering with such gusto
and success that Ferdinand constantly rewarded him with more estates. And when Wallenstein married again, he gained
even more wealth and prestige. He started out as hired help, but eventually
grew to be powerful in his own right. It’s a real Holy Roman Empire Dream story. You know, you start out in the war-making
mailroom, and then eventually work your way up to being the CEO of war. He raised armies of tens of thousands of fighters
who laid waste Protestant lands and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people. He also had army officers go house-to-house,
collecting regular contributions or “taxes” to support the ever growing military forces. And as he built his army, he justified raising
taxes. Wallenstein expanded the battlefield, in the
30 years war, by seeking out any nearby Protestants whose lands could be captured and returned
to the Catholic side, thereby bringing new entrants into the war. The Netherlands came to the Palatinate’s
rescue; Spain, Italian states, and France also got involved, as did Sweden, a military
powerhouse at the time. Unlike today, when the Swedes are primarily
a Flat Packed Home Goods powerhouse. Then in 1626, Danish King Christian IV, a
Protestant, lost half his army in the battle of Lutter. Ferdinand II’s confidence soared, and with
it his counter-reformation zeal; in 1629 he issued the Edict of Restitution—a sweeping
confiscation of formerly Catholic lands and a harsh directive for non-Catholics to emigrate. And Ferdinand was merciless. When his armies would defeat the rebels, Ferdinand
had those taken prisoner disemboweled after their right hands were hacked off. His German prince allies counseled moderation,
but Ferdinand preferred the advice of his Jesuit priest to push the Counter-Reformation
ever further. Ferdinand, his confessor announced, could
“lose all his kingdoms and provinces and whatever he has in this world, provided he
save his soul.”[ii] So there would be no compromise. Then in 1631, Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus
defeated the imperial army at the Battle of Breitenfeld, the first major Protestant victory
of the war, which was by then thirteen years old. Though Gustavus Adolphus was killed in battle
the next year, that Catholic defeat heartened Protestant forces, who kept the war going. Meanwhile, the war stopped being about JUST
religion. For instance, Louis XIII of France had allied
himself with the Swedish king, even though Louis was Catholic and the Swedes were Protestant,
because Louis didn’t want the Holy Roman Empire to become too powerful. Over time, the daily realities of the war
became even more brutal, as armies simply wandered across central Europe killing and
scrounging for food. Young and old peasants and townspeople were
stabbed or captured and tortured to death as waves of soldiers went from house to house. The first waves took obvious treasure, and
then each successive wave settled on smaller objects like copper and other base metal coins
or tiny silver trinkets. Those were the minor offenses. Roasting people alive, torturing people’s
genitals until victims died, and raping girls to death now became standard behavior in the
war. Meanwhile, civilians were also dying of hunger,
and cold, and disease. The little ice age was taking its toll along
with the armies, who fought in the name of the Catholic, or Lutheran, or Calvinist cause
or just merely to survive. Desperate refugee families were forced to
leave their homes to start over dozens of times. Just one example of the horror: in Protestant
Magdeberg, city officials faced an imperial army and its mercenaries at the city limits
in the fall of 1630. And over the course of seven months devastation
unfolded. Residents harassed the Catholic invaders,
hurling rocks and other objects on them from the city’s ramparts. And once the imperial armies breached the
walls, they started to torch the city. Magdeberg’s citizens struggled to escape
both the armies and the fire. Of 25,000 citizens, only 5,000 were left at
the end of the battle for the city--which was in the end destroyed by fire. In 1634, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II had
his own general Wallenstein assassinated, because it appeared that Wallenstein was plotting
to make peace with Sweden and perhaps planning a coup, although why anyone would want to
be the Holy Roman Emperor at that point is an absolute mystery to me. But the war continued. The 1640s brought more horrendous weather,
and disorder reigned as social and political systems completely fell apart. There was often little in the way of a functioning
government; economies completely collapsed; and all manner of social norms broke down. There were, for instance, many reports of
cannibalism. And public spaces became additionally dangerous
when wolves and other wild animals arrived in villages and private farms. Finally, in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia
finally brought the war to an end. Even hard-headed theologians by that time
allowed concessions to the other religion in order to obtain peace. And the fact that French Catholics uniting
with Swedish and other Protestants led to the conclusion that this maybe meant the end
of religious war—at least in Europe, at least for now. The war tapered off because of political and
economic considerations, but also because the level of devastation just became too horrifying. Combatants met at a peace conference where
Emperor Ferdinand III made concessions of land and cash reluctantly, forced by exhaustion
and the continuing miseries inflicted by the little ice age. All of this marked a turn to more “practical”
concerns in government policy rather than just like, going to war to promote your religion. Rates of mortality were very high in the seventeenth
century globally because of the pervasiveness of the little ice age and because of devastating
warfare. And we need to remember the immense human
costs of the thirty Years war: some 20 percent of the central European population died, while
in areas of intense and continuous fighting, it was closer to 50 percent. If I can return to a shockingly positive picture,
amidst all of that, the creation of our modern view of science and its benefits was taking
place in many of the same regions, which reminds us that history is not one human story, but
all human stories. Some good news is coming next week. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you then.
