Grindsted

Grindsted was a poor sandy parish in inland Jutland, included with Grene, Hejnsvig and Vorbasse in the new Slaugs district in 1552. Its households faced demands that their land could scarcely support. A 1636 letter allowed certain crown tenants to replace the pigs owed under their land register with a cash payment, reflecting the decline of the district's woodland resources.

The wars of 1657–1660 brought a sharper disaster. Swedish troops and Denmark's Polish and Brandenburg allies alike plundered the countryside. In their account of losses in 1660, Grindsted's inhabitants reported two men shot, hundreds of cattle and horses taken, grain seized and months spent fleeing their homes. Large parts of the parish lay deserted. Later eighteenth-century descriptions still complained that compulsory transport and cavalry fodder weighed heavily on farmers whose principal crops were buckwheat, rye and potatoes.