The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

wax strong. So with Germany: the work was both
laborious and tedious of re-building its cities,
restoring the verdure of its fields and the shade of
its forests, and especially reviving its all but extinct
population. Unconscionable war taxes, ravaging
camps waiting for disbandment, prolonged into the
era of peace the miseries that had darkened the
period of war. To these were added annoyances of
another kind. The whole country swarmed with
"masterless bands," made up of runaway serfs and
discharged soldiers, with women and camp
followers.
After these came troops of beggars and hosts of
robbers, who wandered from province to province
in quest of prey. "A stream of beggars," says
Gustavus Freytag, "of every kind wandered over
the country – dismissed soldiers, cripples,
homeless people, old and sick people; among the
rest, lepers, with certificates from the hospitals;
exiles from Bohemia and Hungaria, who had left
their home for their religion; expelled nobles from
England, Ireland, and Poland; collectors who
wished to set free their relations from the Turkish
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