ABSTRACT

If one attempts to inform oneself about the historical importance of the use of power and warfare, the role of violence, and the impact of mass death in seventeenth-century Europe, one encounters various historiographical explanations. In the search for valid historical explanations of the meaning of power, violence, and mass death in the century of Richelieu, Cromwell, and Wallenstein, one can also come across the theory of the "Iron Age", eloquently explained by Henry Kamen. From the last few decades of the sixteenth through the first two decades of the seventeenth century, the authors can see a growing concern with the omnipresence of death leading to widespread anxiety among people, and they can also observe an unmistakable tendency to solve problems by means of violence. The wars of the second half of the seventeenth and the first two decades of the eighteenth century appear as an extension of extremely severe economic and social conditions.