A part from p ro b lem s relatin g to a d m issio n s p o lic ie s and th e internal o r g a n isa tio n
o f the h o sp ita ls, extern al in flu e n c e s a lso had th e p oten tial to m ak e a great im p act
u p o n th e territorial h o sp ita ls. It a ffe c te d not o n ly their ab ility to cater for th e sic k
p o o r o f th e area, but co u ld a lso sig n ific a n tly in crea se th e nu m b ers o f p e o p le
requiring support. T h e o r e tic a lly s e lf-fin a n c in g , th e h o sp ita ls w e r e la rg e ly
d ep en d en t u p o n their p o sitio n as la n d o w n ers - b o th in term s o f their o w n
p rod u ction and th e lan d s that th ey le a se d - to be able to pay for their e x iste n c e .
T h e h o sp ita ls w er e thus d ep en d en t u p o n external fa c to rs fo r their su rvival.
P h e n o m e n a su ch as d rou gh ts, fa m in e s and w ar cou ld h a v e a h u g e im p act u p on an
in stitu tio n ’s a b ility to p rovid e for it s e lf - th is w o u ld d o u b tle ss h a v e ilffe c te d both
h o sp ita l in m a te s and p oten tial a p p lica n ts as w e ll. In sp ite o f th e im p o rta n ce o f
th e se c o n sid e r a tio n s, th e se th e m e s h a v e b e en w h o lly ig n o red w ith in h isto r ies o f
th e se in stitu tio n s. (O n e e x c e p tio n rela tes to the T hirty Y ea rs W ar - u su a lly o n ly
a c o u p le o f s e n te n c e s are d ed ica te d to this ev e n t, n o rm ally cen trin g on th e
d estru ctio n and su b seq u en t c lo su r e o f G ronau h o sp ita l.)''^ T h e c o n fin e s o f sp a c e
attributable to a th e sis m ean that I am u n a b le to g iv e to o m u ch detail regard in g
su ch to p ic s here.'*^ C ertain a sp e c ts, h o w ev e r, d ese rv e m en tio n in order to g a in a
w id e r u n d ersta n d in g o f th e p o sitio n o f th e se in stitu tio n s w ith in early m od ern
H e ssia n s o c ie ty .
For more detail regarding tlie devastation of Gronau, see StAM, Bestand 4h, Paket 1052, ‘Kriegsbeschwerden der Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen, besonders des Hospital Gronau 1632'.
i. Nature.
Natural disasters effecting both crops and livestock could impact upon the hospitals, especially in the light of the financial pressures that they already faced as a result of overcrowding. In 1602, for example, the superintendent
(Obervorsteher) Johann Clauer wrote to Landgrave Moritz, requesting support as
a result of the ‘loss of the principal livestock [Hauptviehhestandes] as a result of a livestock disease [ViehseucheY. Clauer explained that both Haina and Merxhausen had been visited by a ‘burdensome and almost pernicious cross to bear [hauscreutzY in the form o f ‘a dangerous ... disease [affecting] the cattle in both hospitals’ Within four weeks ‘over seventy of the best livestock had died’ in each o f the institutions. At the time of reporting ‘ [the] torment \plage] had still not ended, so that one must seriously doubt if there will be anything left alive’. Dairy cows (Melckviehes) were needed to provide butter and dairy products
(Melckwercl^ for the poor. These institutions had already had to cover the
expense both o f buying oxen and of various other costs. As a result, Haina and Merxhausen ‘[are] so totally exhausted of money that I [Clauer] have not even the smallest amount of money [heller^ in reserve’. He thus felt unable to buy any other replacement hvestock, and appealed to the charity of the Landgrave ‘to request that Your Princely Grace would, out of princely charity, consider the plight of the poor and would ... reimburse the severe shortages in the hospitals with a princely gift [Gaben], so that one can once again buy the necessary livestock... and [so that] the poor will have sufficient maintenance in the coming year.’^^^ When one considers that this petition was written in 1602, the same year in which Clauer wrote the aforementioned letter about overcrowding and financial pressures, we can imagine the added effect that such a natural disaster would have. Such events usually lasted for a short period of time, however. As we will now illustrate, wars could potentially have far longer-lasting repercussions.
This is an area that I plan to expand upon in due course. StAM, Bestand 171. Nr. 4785.
ii. War.
Arguably the greatest event to impact upon Haina and Merxhausen - as indeed, upon the whole territory - in the period under consideration here was the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648). This War had a devastating impact on Hesse as a whole, which lost between thirty and fifty per cent of its entire population during this p e r i o d . A s Arthur Imhof states: ‘From the winter of 1622 - 23, when General Tilly’s troops took up quarters in Hesse, the people suffered under its chaos almost without interruption right to the end of the war. For them it was, if not a Thirty Years’ War, then at least a Twenty-Five Years’ W ar.’^^^ Concerning this event, Hans Philippi has asserted that: The devastation in states, villages and towns through the often month-long billetings would have been felt to be as terrible as a rampant epidemic or a famine which repeated itself every few years through natural phenomena, and against which one was defenceless’. F o r the district of Ziegenhain, so near to the border of the warring Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Kassel, the situation reached its peak in the late 1630s and early 1640s. Imhof records how a 1643 survey of this district revealed that in nine of the thirteen localities at least half o f the previously inhabited buildings were listed as having been either ‘burned down, destroyed or abandoned’. In 1636-37 the village of Loshausen lost twenty-six o f its thirty-six dwellings to fire. Similarly, four of the seven buildings in the village of Gungelshausen were destroyed.
It must be noted however that the largest losses are thought to have been due to outbreaks of plague and other epidemic diseases in the 1620s and 1630s - most notably the plague of 1635 - 36.^^^ When Tilly’s troops returned to the Werra region in 1626, for example, they brought plague and dysentery with them. The
Robisheaux, ‘Peasantries’, p. 118. Such statistics can also be found for Franconia, Bavaria, the Rhineland-Palatinate and Württemberg.
Imhof, Lost p. 18. Imhof is primarily concerned here with the Schwaim region in the district of Ziegenhain.
Regardng this issue of billetting costs in the district [Amt] of Haina, see StAM, Bestand 171. Nr. 906; Philippi, Hans, ‘Machtpolitik unter Landgraf Karl im Hochabsolutismus’, in Schultz (hrsg.), Geschichte. p. 107.
Imhof, Lost, p. 19.
Robisheaux, ‘Peasantries’, p. 118. It is also important to note that, in contrast to the mortality crises of the sixteenth-century, ‘hard-hit communities failed to make up the losses quickly’. Studies of the 1630s mortality crises in Hesse reveal unusually high numbers of infant and
potential demographic consequences of this are evidenced by the tombstone of the pastor of Ulfen. It states that in that year some three hundred and forty-nine people had died of the so-called ‘red dysentery’ {Rote Ruhr)^^^ The combined effects of both war and plague upon the population of Hesse can be briefly illustrated by the following case study of the Hooss family who owned the Valtes Farm in the village of Leimbach (district of Ziegenhain). Valt (Valentin) Hooss was born in 1626. His father died from the plague in 1635, and his mother, his twelve-year old brother, Johannes, and his sister, Guda, all died the following year. At this point, the only people left on the farm were three orphaned boys aged ten (Valt), five, and four. As a result, the farm was given over to the joint trusteeship both of an uncle from Achenrode (a village close by) and a peasant from a local farm. They were to look after the farm for the next decade until Valt, aged twenty years, took over these duties in 1646. The impact of the War meant however that, in spite of the fact that peace had resumed in 1648, it was not until 1659 that Valt believed the house and farm to be sufficiently restored for him to consider marrying and starting a family of his own.^^"^
Compared to many other individuals in Hesse, however, Valt had been fortunate. Further twists of fate could quite easily have rendered him and his brothers suitable for an application to be taken into Haina as orphans. The requisitioning o f supplies and the taking up of quarters by both enemy forces and their own troops impacted heavily upon the local population. Horses and oxen were confiscated as draught animals for a variety of transport measures, such as the mobilisation of the artillery. Sheep and cattle were seized for food supplies, as was grain - including the seed grain held for planting the following year. Work in the fields was severely disrupted, resulting in crop failures and the onset of famine. The potential impact of these requisitioning policies is exemplified by the 1640 skirmish at Riebelsdorf (district of Ziegenhain). Here, the imperial army o f c. 3,000 cavalry and 1,800 infantry were defeated by the Hessian- French-Weimar allied force of some 2,400 infantry and cavalry. Reports place
childhood mortality coupled with low rates of marriage and, consequently, of births in the years following these losses. Ibid. p. 118. Also Theibault, German, pp. 166 - 174; Imhof, Lost, p. 20.
Theibault, German, p. 151. For details regarding the R ote Ruhr’, see Zedler, Johann Heinrich, Grosses vollstandiges Universal Lexicon. Halle und Leipzig, 1732, pp. 1618 - 1637.
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losses at c. 1,400 horses and 600 soldiers. Even if, as Imhof points out, we take these figures to be exaggerated, and halve or quarter the totals, replacement horses or draught animals would still have to be found to make up for these losses. Any suitable livestock to be found in the area would have immediately have been seized by the troops, thus affecting still further a local population that was additionally having to cope with the devastation by fire to their villages and towns which had preceded this battle.
iii. Medical provision and the Thirty Years War.
The impact that these skirmishes had upon medical care in the region is an element of the W ar’s history that is all too frequently underplayed. Indeed, the attacks upon one o f the four hospitals, Gronau, caused such extensive damage as to force its closure. Reports from the Landesspitaler are filled with accounts of pillaging and attacks upon patients. According to a report from Hofheim, a surprise attack on the hospital resulted in enemy soldiers raping ‘a chained woman and badly mistreating another aged insane and crippled woman who had been imprisoned in the so-called Blockhaus for twenty years’. S i m i l a r l y , on the 20^ May, 1626, J. Friederich Hÿperius, governor of Merxhausen, wrote to the Chancellor and Council in Kassel, the advisers of Landgrave Moritz, regarding the plundering of Merxhausen by Tilly’s soldiers. One can sense his frustration, and indeed despair, at the situation in which he found himself. He complained that this was the third time in the past few days that he had written to Kassel regarding ‘the deplorable state of the hospital...’, and he was still awaiting a reply. It is evident from the letter that this was not the first time that he had corresponded with Kassel. In spite of the fact that the hospitals, as charitable institutions, were supposed to be protected from attacks by either side, the hospital had recently been looted on several occasions. As a result, Hÿperius lamented, ‘the poor have nothing left inside [the institution]’. On one occasion, a
Ibid, pp. 1 9 -2 0 .
For more information, see StAM, Bestand 4h Paket 1052.
A copy of the report is to be found in Anon, Heimatbuch Crumstadt im Ried. Crumstadt, 1979, p. 152f. Quoted in Vanja, Christina, ‘Care of the Insane in the Hospitals of Hesse from the
party o f soldiers attacked the hospital. When half of their group had finished looting the inside, they swapped over, and the other half came in. They pillaged everything that they could find. ‘No corner’ was left untouched and they forced open every box (kisten vndt hasten) in the place and ‘also tried to take everything with them’. Physical force was used. Hÿperius complained; ‘as tyrants they hit me as well as the poor people, so that I along with the servants [gesindtlein] had eventually to run away from them’. Consequently, he ‘no longer knows how to support and defend the poor’. Hÿperius believed that the continuous plundering meant that it would be better if neither the livestock nor the people were to be seen by the troops. He commented that ‘the villages are [also] all empty’. He prayed that ‘God the Almighty will save us from this great burden and misery’ and implored the authorities to respond to his letter and to offer him advice. The frustration o f this individual is quite clear. He felt helpless to defend the hospital - and to an extent, this letter was a justification of his inability to do so.
One should however not merely regard this document as hyperbole designed to defend Hÿperius. During the war period, similar stress was also felt by the
Obervorsteher Johann Clauer. On 18^ May, 1632, Clauer wrote to the rulers
(Landesherren) requesting that he be relieved of his duties as he was finding the
economic pressures that the War had caused to be more than he could cope with. They responded on the 23"^^ May of the same year, imploring him to stay. He obliged. The situation did not improve, however, and on 21^ October 1635, Clauer contacted the Landgraves once more with the same request. He presumably met with the same reply as he remained in his duties until 1636.^^^
Haina’s geographical location certainly did not help matters. Situated close to the Lower Hessian border, it often came under sudden attack from wandering parties of troops. They robbed the poor of the few supplies o f fruit and livestock that they had.^^^ A concern for the plight of the poor within the hospitals, and the sense of frustration that there was little that could be done to defend these places.
16* to the 18* centuries’, in Vijselaar, Joost (ed.), Dollhuizen - Madhouses: Chapters from the history of madhouses in Europe 1400 - 1800. Utrecht, 1995, pp. 67 - 77, here p. 70.
StAM, Bestand 17L Nr. 676. Friedrich, ‘Hohen’, p. 148. StAM, Bestand 171. Nr. 2303.
as suggested in a correspondence to the government in Marburg from Landgrave Georg, on September 1640. In this the Landgrave explained ‘how our Sambt
Hospital Haina has recently been plundered in a quite deplorable and wretched
fashion upon two separate occasions.’ The offenders in one instance were the Emperor’s troops, and the latter incident involved ‘Swedish wandering parties [of soldiers]’. The Landgrave (presumably unable to do anything else) ordered that a special report be made regarding the situation, whereby details would be given as to exactly what had been looted and also as to the effect that such events were having upon the populace.
Of crucial importance is the fact that the effects of the Thirty Years’ War clearly did not restrict themselves to the devastation of the territorial hospitals. Reports from Wetter during this period allege that troops had attacked the ‘Armen
Hospitalhaus'. The source states that a party [Parthey] of 300 men arrived in the
town and, among other atrocities, they ‘broke into the church, looted the common chests [Gotteskasten], took three chalices [Ketch] and the money for the poor [der Armen Opfergeld], [and] smashed the organ to pieces. [They] stormed the pastor’s house [Pfarrhausen], hit and stoned the pastor, the women and girls
[Jungfraueri] who were in the house. [They] raped them, young and old, both
those of ten years [of age] and those of seventy years [of age]. [They] stormed the hospital [Spitalhaufi], threw out the blind and lame, clouted them with axes on the[ir] heads, arms, legs and bodies. [They] pillaged everything. [They] shot dead a young girl [and] forced a blind man, who had been blind for twelve years, to carry a sack of fruit on each shoulder, and as he was not capable of doing this, they hit him twice on the head and stabbed him dead with a sword. A foreign
[fremde] poor exiled woman [who was] in confinement [ins Kindbett]’ was also
attacked. ‘They tore limb from hmb another boy who [had] sought refuge in the hospital with axes and hatchets, so that the posteriora hung down over his leg and knee.’ Apparently ‘such tyrannical acts’ were carried out in the hospital upon ‘the sick, lame, blind [and] poor people, that a Turk would not have done and thought [of] more. [They] also killed other people on the streets and crushed
[gequetschet] and wounded over two hundred native and foreign persons. [They]
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tortured the poor schoolboys ... and used torture to encourage other to name the people of means. Such [people were] gagged, [so] that the blood flowed out of their noses, mouths, eyes and ears. [They] gave a good hiding to others [and] tied