After the Thirty Years’ War (1618 to 1648), the development in the Kraichgau was a conflict between the small rulers and the inhabitants. The knights and lesser rulers tried to reassert the status and authority they had lost during the decades of destruction in the Seventeenth Century. They clashed with the villagers, mostly farmers, who were struggling to rebuild their communities. During these clashes, the villagers often sought out the protection of one of the larger states for protection against their local rulers. The local rulers had no desire to see the larger states such as Wuerttemberg, Baden, or the Palatine Electorate exert any influence in their small realms.
The inhabitants of the northern Kraichgau owned allegiance to dozens of separate aristocratic rulers. The rulers who were not in the Palatine Electorate found themselves in a hostile environment in this early modern period. They lay between three larger German states and also found themselves between two of the early superpowers, France and Austria. The knights of the Kraichgau struggled to maintain their independent sovereignty over their tiny holdings. For as long as possible, they skillfully played off the surrounding princes against the emperor in Vienna.
The greatest enemy before the Thirty Years’ War was the Palatine Electorate, where the official religion alternated between Catholicism and the Reformed faith. The knights had quickly become Lutheran during the Reformation and tended to have closer relations with Lutheran Wuerttemberg. Local wars inclined the knights to the protection of the Catholic Habsburgs from the Protestant princes in order to maintain their independence. Vienna welcomed all allies it could find in its struggle against the princes.
Before 1620, the Kraichgau parishes were overpopulated but the Thirty Years’ War and the wars of the late Seventeenth Century nearly obliterated village after village in the Kraichgau while the knights tried to maintain their territories. The knights were so weak militarily that force could do nothing to preserve their realms.
The biggest losses were in the population itself. Adelshofen lost twenty-eight families, which was about half of its population, during the Thirty Years’ War and was again plundered during the 1670's and the 1680's. Ittlingen lay in ashes and the population of Kleingartach dropped to about one-third during the War. Massenbachhausen lost its entire population during the Thirty Years’ War and was resettled by outsiders. In 1674 the French took Sinsheim and fifteen years later they burned it to the ground. This pattern of destruction was wide spread throughout the Kraichgau as a result of the Thirty Years’ War and the later conflicts.
[We notice many gaps in the church records in the late Seventeenth Century.]
(14 Jun 06)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.