Bringing the Contractor Back In: The Thirty Years' War and the Fiscal-Military State
This paper challenges the notion that the military revolution of the sixteenth century was the crucial determinant in the emergence of centralized fiscal-military states in central Europe. Instead, it argues that warfare in the sixteenth and seventeenth century is best characterized by the notion of the ‘contractor state’ which relied on professional military enterprisers (“mercenaries”) to wage war. It does so by investigating the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) which was one of the largest and most destructive conflicts of pre-industrial Europe involving nearly all of its major powers. Based on novel, granular data the paper proves that urban financial contributions were extracted by military enterprisers and that these exceeded centrally-collected imperial contributions. In consequence, average household wealth declined by 37 percent during this period and urban debt crippled long-run investment.

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Date: 10 June 2025, 17:00
Venue: History Faculty, George Street OX1 2RL
Venue Details: Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Victoria Gierok (Oxford)
Organising department: Faculty of History
Part of: Economic and Social History Research Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Belinda Clark