Afterward
Research sources:
For the general history of the Upper Palatinate during the Thirty Years War, the best available (and also available for free online) is: Matthias Schöberl, “Vom pfälzischen Teilstaat zum bayerischen Staatenteil: Landesherrliche Durchdringungs- und Religionspolitik kurpfälzischer und kurbayerischer Herrschaft in der Oberen Pfalz von 1595 bis 1648” (University of Erlangen, Doctoral dissertation, 2006).
Johannes Laschinger, who served for decades as Amberg’s municipal historian, has a useful online article concerning the Estates (legislative body) in the Oberpfalz: https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Landst%C3%A4nde_der_Oberpfalz. Providing much more detail in the way of names and the impact of events on individual families is August Sperl, Der oberpfälzische Adel und die Gegenreformation (Berlin, 1900), now also available online: https://www.worldcat.org/title/oberpfalzische-adel-und-die-gegenreformation/oclc/163040963.
In English, there is Trevor Johnson, Magistrates, Madonnas and Miracles: The Counter Reformation in the Upper Palatinate (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History) 1st Edition (Routledge: 2009).
For the University of Ingolstadt, the best source was Thomas Kossert and Marian Füssel, eds., Universitäten im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Perfect Paperback: 2012), with additional information to be found online in Howard Hotson, “Catchment Areas and Killing Fields: Towards an Intellectual Geography of the Thirty Years’ War,” in Geographies of the University (University of Oxford, 2018), pp. 135-192 (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75593-9_4).
The historical Oberpfalz, indeed, all of the territories included in the 1632-verse Province of the Upper Palatinate, are in the contemporary German Bundesland of Bavaria, which does outstanding work through its historical preservation office (Denkmalschutz). For this book, the material placed online by this office for Amberg and Ingolstadt was an invaluable resource.
List of architectural monuments in Amberg - Liste der Baudenkmäler in Amberg (https://second.wiki/wiki/liste_der_baudenkmc3a4ler_in_amberg).
Johannes Laschinger, Amberg: Kleine Stadtgeschichte (2016) was also helpful, although a general history rather than focused on the era of the Thirty Years War.
List of architectural monuments in Ingolstadt - Liste der Baudenkmäler in Ingolstadt (https://second.wiki/wiki/liste_der_baudenkmc3a4ler_in_ingolstadt).
Gerd Treffer, Ingolstadt: Kleine Stadtgeschichte (3rd ed., 2018), another in the now-numerous Kleine Stadtgeschichten series on German cities published by Friedrich Pustet Verlag GmbH, had a good-sized section on the late sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries.
There are entries concerning the neo-Latin poet and playwright, Jacob Balde, S.J., in both the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopedia. Jephtias was first produced in 1637 and first printed in the 1654 edition of Balde’s collected works. In the 1632-verse, the encyclopedia articles would have been available in Grantville to researchers who looked him up. The encyclopedia articles contain a few titles, but not comprehensive lists.
At the time of the Ring of Fire, he was at the beginning of his career; he will, thus, not experience the trauma that, for example, John Milton, did, of seeing what he would have written and wondering what he’s going to do now. He can simply go ahead and write whatever the spirit moves him to do. None of his works have been translated into English and none would have been available in the Grantville libraries. Most academic studies of Balde’s baroque neo-Latin dramas and poetry are in German.
For the twenty-first century writers using him as a character, as of 2020, there is a current edition of the Latin play with a French translation available: Dominique Millet-Gerard, ed., Jephtias Tragoedia / La Fille de Jephte, Tragedie (Bibliotheque Du Xviie Siecle).
See also:
Heidrun Führer, “Studien zu Jacob Baldes Jephtias. Ein jesuitisches Meditationsdrama aus der Zeit der Gegenreformation,” 2003. Lund University (Sweden), Doctoral Thesis (monograph). Gulsångarvägen 10, SE-24735 Södra Sandby (https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/studien-zu-jacob-baldes-jephtias-ein-jesuitisches-meditationsdram).
Anna Linton, “Sacrificed or Spared? The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter in Early Modern Theological and Literary Texts,” German Life and Letters (University of Oxford) 57 (3), 2004 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229558357_Sacrificed_or_Spared_The_Fate_of_Jephthah%27s_Daughter_in_Early_Modern_Theological_and_Literary_Texts).