I have promised to keep this blog a writing diary! A documentary of how I write my witching novel – so, after finishing my first witching novel milestone, there is a new challenge!
I have to write the next part.
Although that is kind of a given, if I want to finish the novel for real, this really is a big challenge!
In the next part, my main character is an adult for the first time! I have to manage the transition from the eyes of a child introducing a world to the mind of a younger adult! Someone who knows more, has experienced more and has a wider horizon than a child.
This means thinking the world I am writing in in a new way!
Looking through the eyes of an adult, there is so much more space for politics, for the happenings in the world! Suddenly, there is a more complex human trying to find a place in this world!
A big question I came across at this point was one actually regarding the fate of Europe at this point, so it‘s not getting boring at all.
The 30-years-war
These chapters written about the witch as a young woman, looking foward to be getting married and planning on her own life within the city walls she knows so well, are written into the countdown to the start of the 30-years-war.
Understanding the countdown to this catastrophe is not an easy task. It has to be viewed from the eyes of someone who does not yet know that it is going to last for decades and spread so very far! And it has to be kept in mind how fast and on which ways news travel at this point!
So – what exactly happened in the year 1618, that was supposed to be such a happy occasion for my witch?
In 1618 a war started. A war that would last for 30 years, include parties from all parts of Europe and even some from outside its borders. In central Europe, it would cause destruction of suffering among the population that up until then no war had ever done.
Sounds like a fun time to be alive?
The start of this war looks like a bad joke indeed.
After fearing for the right to practice their religion in the kingdom of Bohemia, protestants threw three people belonging to the catholic king’s administrative out of the window. This was not even the first time, someone was “defenestrated” in the city of Prague, and was from some even seen as a Bohemian tradition! Also, nobody died or was seriously injured, since there was enough hay and grass to catch those falling.
It was the symbolic act that caused the following chaos.
This conflict is tearing apart the “Holy Roman Empire”.
Oooh, I find this title so ridiculous! But that is what the empire in the middle of Europe, reigned by one branch of the Harbsburg-Family and consisting of more than 300 smaller realms is called. And it is not a unity at all. It consists of many different cultures, languages, kings, dukes and many more!
The biggest conflict of the time was one of religion. More specifically, which way of Christianity was to be accepted and which one was not. A rule in place at that point stated that the reigning power was allowed to decide if either catholic or protestant believes (according to Martin Luther, all else was not accepted anyways) were to be followed within their smaller unit (a kingdom, a city or something similar) of the Holy Roman Empire. This meant that any other believe was not to be accepted. Citizens who did not want to follow had to migrate into other parts of the empire, churches had to be redecorated (and this puts it nicely, since calvinists were known to destroy art within churches, once they rose to power). This peace that was agreed on in Augsburg in 1555 was shortlived and did not solve the problem, leading eventually up to this war.
The 80-years-war
Since I now spend a big part of my days in the medium sized and unimportant city of Mönchengladbach, I can tell you what a weird discovery it was to stand on the piece of grass where the Dutch fought the Spanish. Yes, the Dutch and the Spanish. Well, the Netherlands are close enough to walk into, so that makes sense, but still.
This is so because geographically much closer to this region my novel takes place in was the 80-years war. Starting back in the 1560s, it was about the Dutch as merely protestants reaching independence from the Spanish, still very catholic. In 1618 a cease fire was still in place, but with the explosion of the 30-years-war further in the east, this stopped and the fighting went on, until both wars ended with negotiations in 1648.
This was a lot of history today!
All in all, I write my novel in a time were different versions of Christianity caused bloody wars all over Europe, because tied to this question of course was the right to reign and be in power. Over decades, more than one generation was sucked into this war and the normal populations suffered more than ever before in a war.
And for my witch, as a young woman? Looking forward to her wedding and to becoming pregnant, showing around the productivity of her young body?
Even without foreseeing all these consequences, certain things would have been noticed.
The whole empire reacted in the one or the other way to the Bohemian conflict. Some people were sympathetic with the protestant, fearing for their rights, even in the catholic region she lived in. Also, after the defenestration, the protestants gathered soldiers to fight the catholic emperor, and they gathered support from all over the empire, and even other regions of Europe. It was likely to know someone who left their former life to fight for the protestant, possibly to never be seen again.
There was a shadow lingering over those best years of her life.
Existence was so fragile and darkness was waiting at every corner.
Writing this fills me with so much excitement.
If you found this interesting and want to know more, here are some helpful links to check out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKUBpUSn-Kw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmKHYpC_jVs
And these were my sources:
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/heiliges-roemisches-reich-im-ueberblick-geschichte-der-staatlichen-emanzipation-1.827525-4
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/heiliges-roemisches-reich-im-ueberblick-geschichte-der-staatlichen-emanzipation-1.827525-5
https://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/portal/Internet/finde/langDatensatz.php?urlID=579&url_tabelle=tab_texte
https://www.geo.de/wissen/weltgeschichte/1618-1648-der-dreissigjaehrige-krieg-um-macht-und-glauben-30176762.html
https://themator.museum-digital.de/ausgabe/showthema.php?m_tid=1100&tid=1134&ver=standalone
https://themator.museum-digital.de/ausgabe/showthema.php?m_tid=1100&tid=1135&ver=standalone
https://www.bpb.de/themen/zeit-kulturgeschichte/reformation/235579/schlaglicht-1555-der-erste-religionsfrieden/#:~:text=Der%20Augsburger%20Religionsfrieden%20ist%20der,denen%20es%20sich%20abarbeiten%20wird.
Mistress witch writes 