Some words just capture people’s fancy. They amuse the mind and tickle the tongue. This was never more true than during my time in junior high. As my classmates and I entered this new academic world from elementary school we found that there was indeed a vocabulary beyond the “yo mama” jokes that captivated us only a year before. Along with the awfully unwieldy antidisestablishmentarianism,¹ the word that most dazzled our malleable minds was defenestration.
Few words roll of the tongue quite the way defenestration does. (Go ahead; try it. You know you want to, if there’s any joy left in your heart.) The fact that this word means “the action of throwing someone or something out of a window” makes it all the more delightful. Defenestration stands head and shoulders above other words for acts of violence.² Murder, punching, kicking, beating: boring. Defenestration has the added advantage of confusing an opponent. By the time they figure out what “I will defenestrate you!” means, they’re already flying through the nearest window.
But where does such a word come from? The boring answer is Latin. Defenestration can be broken down into de meaning off or from and fenestra meaning (and this should be pretty obvious) window.
The longer, and imminently more interesting story is that, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it was coined in 1620 to describe an event that occurred two years prior, the Defenestration of Prague.³
The early 1600s were a time of religious unease. The Protestant Reformation had been running amok in Europe for about a century. Bohemia, the area around Prague, had been been home to its own religious reform movement since the early 1400s. While Bohemia boasted a streak of religious independence, it lacked political independence. Since 1526, Bohemia had been part of the Habsburg Empire, which ruled much of central Europe. The ruling family, the Habsburgs, were Roman Catholic, which caused some amount of worry among Protestant Bohemians. In 1609, in a document known as the Letter of Majesty, Emperor Rudolph II guaranteed religious freedom. His gesture would only briefly quell tension in Bohemia. Five years after Rudolph II’s death, Roman Catholic officials halted the construction of two Protestant chapels in 1617. This turned out to be a terrible idea.
Enraged Protestants tried two imperial regents, William Slavata and Jaroslav Martinic, for violating the Letter of Majesty. Finding them guilty, they tossed the two men (and, for good measure, their secretary) out of a window of the Prague Castle on May 23, 1618. Miraculously, the three defenestratees sustained no serious injury due to landing in a moat full of manure (or at least a pile of manure in a moat.)
This act of defenestration was no small to-do. It sparked a rebellion in Bohemia which boiled over into surrounding areas. By the time this rebellion was crushed in 1621, the war was beginning to spread, having already embroiled Spain and to a lesser extent to Ottoman Empire. It would continue to spread, involving most of Europe and becoming known to history as the Thirty Years War. (Thirty years, coincidentally, is how long it lasted.)
While the war should have ended with the defeat of the rebels, the Bohemians did not know the word quit. The remnants of the rebellious forces under their leader Frederick V, the Winter King, continued to battle Spanish forces in Frederick’s German territories. Although defeated by 1623, Frederick’s continued fight made clear the power of Spain and the Habsburg Empire to the rest of Europe. Now the French, English, Dutch, would unite to convince Christian IV of Denmark to fight against the two powers while they watched. In 1630, after watching the Danish forces get thoroughly trounced, Sweden’s king Gustavus Adolphus decided to step in.
Sweden, subsidized by France, did well for a time. They conquered numerous German territories and seemed to have the Habsburgs on the run until Gustavus Adolphus died in battle in 1632. After that their efforts faltered. By 1634, Sweden’s army was on the ropes and ready to say uncle.
After meddling for almost entire conflict, France finally entered the war in ernest. From this point on France and Sweden were largely successful on the battlefield while Spain and the Habsburg Empire were less so. On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was declared, ending the Thirty Years War in what basically amounted to a draw. The only real losers would be the German people who, being caught between the Habsburgs and everyone who hated them, lost a devastating 20% of their population, roughly 7,000,000 people.
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1. Contrary to my prior belief, antidisestablishmentarianism wasn’t just a word coined to be stupidly long (although those do exist.) It has its roots in British religiopolitical debate. The term was first used in 1838. The Church of England at the time was “established” in England, Wales, and Ireland, meaning it was the official state church. Those who opposed the union of church and state were disestablishmentarians. Those who opposed them were, rather redundantly, known as antidisestablishmentarians (they could have just as easily, and much less awkwardly, been called establishmentarians.) While the Church of England was disestablished in Ireland and Wales, the debate is is still all the rage in England, as demonstrated by this amusing article from The Times.
If you feel like wasting about one second of your day, you can always visit antidisestablishmentarianism.com.
2. Except for fisticuffs. Fisticuffs is awesome.
3. This was actually the Second Defenestration of Prague. The lesser known First Defenestration of Prague took place on July 30, 1419, when an angry crowd of religious dissidents threw seven town councillors to their deaths from the windows the New Town Hall.
You can view Lego recreations of the First Defenestration of Prague and of the Second Defenestration of Prague. No. Really. I’m not kidding.
