Destruction and devotion: Lutheran religious life during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48)

This article examines the impact of the Thirty Years War on Lutheran religious life. Drawing on evidence from Electoral Saxony, one of Germany’s most important Protestant territories, it argues that faith played an important role in individual and communal resilience. It uses eyewitness accounts to explore the disruption of everyday religious life, strategies of spiritual survival and the post-war restoration of religious space and ritual. The article emphasises the importance of traditional beliefs and practices and argues that rather than being a crucible in which disinterest in faith was forged, war reinforced religion’s role at the heart of pre-modern society.