Schürger, André (2015) The archaeology of the Battle of Lützen: an examination of 17th century military material culture. PhD thesis. Edited version, 3rd party copyright material removed. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6508/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/
[email protected] The Archaeology of the Battle of Lützen: An examination of 17th century military material culture André Schürger M.A. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow 2 Abstract In the late 20th century, historical research on the 1632 Battle of Lützen, a major engagement of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), came to a dead end after 150 years of mostly unfruitful discussions. This thesis examines the battle’s military material culture, including historical accounts and physical evidence in the form of archaeological finds from the battlefield to provide new insight into the battle’s events, but also to develop a methodology which allows a comparison between two very different sources: the eyewitness account and the ‘lead bullet.’ To achieve this aim, the development of 17th century firearms is highlighted through an assessment of historical sources and existing weapons and by an evaluation of various collections of ‘lead bullets’ from Lützen and other archaeological sites, thus providing a working baseline for interpreting bullet distribution patterns on the battlefield.