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In the area of Central Europe, including Germany, the Thirty Years War (between 1618 and 1648) was a brutal conflict over Protestant-Catholic religious and political differences. The number who died in that long war, from all manner of consequences, including famine and the plague, numbered in the millions. The historical Faust, whose fictional legend was popular about 1580, but who had died around 1541 was possibly born within Württemberg.

According to Wikipedia:

“So great was the devastation brought about by the war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 25 to 40 percent. Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers. Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz, would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.”

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

From Germanhistorydocs:

A Swabian Cobbler-Farmer Survives the Thirty Years War – Hans Heberle (1597-1677):

The Great Comet and the Start of the War (1618 and 1619)

“In 1618 a great comet appeared in the form of great and terrible rod, which was accorded us by and through God because of our sinful lives, which we have richly earned in the past and continue to earn daily. “

Pasted from <http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3709>

“On August 25 [1628], between one and two o’clock in the afternoon, my dear wife brought into this world for me my daughter Catherine, her first child, who was baptized that very evening during the preaching service. On that day, the sun rose at about 5:22 in the morning, and the moon stood in the sign of Scorpio.”

Pasted from <http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/docpage.cfm?docpage_id=4404>

German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) is a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany’s political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present.

Pasted from <http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/index.cfm>

[An interesting web site, well worth pursuing]

The study of nature, including observations of the sky, though not a higher calling, was important for practical reasons.

“The study of nature was pursued more for practical reasons than as an abstract inquiry: the need to care for the sick led to the study of medicine and of ancient texts on drugs, the need for monks to determine the proper time to pray led them to study the motion of the stars, the need to compute the date of Easter led them to study and teach rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the Sun and Moon.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Middle_Ages>”

Portrait of Nicole Oresme: Miniature from Oresme’s Traité de l’espere, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France, fonds français 565, fol. 1r.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresme>

“Nicole Oresme c. 1320–1325 – July 11, 1382) was a significant philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology and astronomy, philosophy, and theology; was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and probably one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century.”
Pasted from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Oresme>

From the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d –
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m>

Isaiah 47 (New International Version (NIV))
The Fall of Babylon

God/Isaiah is is speaking to the Babylonians who captured the Jews and forced them into exile for sixty years (The Babylonian Captivity from 597-539BCE). Soon Cyrus will come to save them. But in a sense, it will be too late. The Babylonians took the elite of Israel into their own city as hostages, to be used and to be assimilated. When they returned to Jerusalem, they returned with adopted myths and magic. Christianity contains elements of the the Babylonian culture and of other cultures which passed through the Middle East – the Jews, of course, the Egyptians, and the Greeks among others (though degree and direction of influences are debated). The occult arts of the region of the Babylonians were highly regarded and influential in Europe in later centuries.

“(5.) Sit in silence, go into darkness,
queen city of the Babylonians;
no more will you be called
queen of kingdoms.

I was angry with my people
and desecrated my inheritance;
I gave them into your hand,
and you showed them no mercy.

Even on the aged
you laid a very heavy yoke.

You said, ‘I am forever—
the eternal queen!’
But you did not consider these things
or reflect on what might happen.

…

“(12.) Keep on, then, with your magic spells
and with your many sorceries,
which you have labored at since childhood.

Perhaps you will succeed,
perhaps you will cause terror.

All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
Let your astrologers come forward,

those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
let them save you from what is coming upon you.

Surely they are like stubble;
the fire will burn them up.

They cannot even save themselves
from the power of the flame.

These are not coals for warmth;
this is not a fire to sit by.

That is all they are to you—
these you have dealt with
and labored with since childhood.

All of them go on in their error;
there is not one that can save you. “

Pasted from <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+47&version=NIV>

From “The Casebooks Project”

The website provides access to the case history books of two of England’s most active and prominent professional astrologers of the late 16th/early seventeenth century, beginning three years after the death of Marlowe:

“What is my disease? Am I pregnant? Will I die? These are the sorts of questions that thousands of people asked Simon Forman and Richard Napier, two of the most popular astrologers in early modern England. Through four busy decades, Forman and Napier recorded more than 50,000 consultations. Their casebooks are probably the richest surviving records of medical practice before 1700. They provide a unique view of the lives of ordinary — and extraordinary — people four centuries ago. Our freely available electronic edition will combine sophisticated editorial expertise and cutting-edge digital humanities to make these records accessible as never before.”

See <https://casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk/>

Simon Forman in http://books.google.com/books?id=S7U_AAAAcAAJ&dq=Simon William Lilly’s history of his life and times from the year 1602 to 1681, by William Lilly.