Jörg Jenatsch, also called Jürg or Georg Jenatsch (1596 – 24 January 1639), was a Swiss political leader during the Thirty Years' War, one of the most striking figures in the troubled history of the Grisons in the 17th century. Protestant leader He was probably born in Lohn, or Samedan in the Upper Engadine. His childhood was spent in Silvaplana, before studying theology at Zürich and Basel, and in 1617 he became the Protestant pastor of Scharans (near Thusis) on the Protestant-Catholic border. Almost at once he plunged into active politics, taking the side of the Venetian and Protestant party associated primarily with the Salis family in the region, against the pro-Spanish Habsburgs and Catholic policy supported by the rival faction, headed by members of the Planta family. He became one of the board of Protestant 'clerical overseers' and a leader of the anti-Spanish faction. In 1618 he supervised the torture to death of the arch-priest Nicola Rusca of Sondrio. The popular court in Thusis associated with the overseers also outlawed many leading men from the Spanish faction, notably Rudolf von Planta and his brother Pompeius von Planta. A subsequent popular court in the region's capital, Chur, rejected the Thusis verdicts, and the Republic of the Grisons slid towards anarchy in what became known as the Bündner Wirren or the Confusion of Graubünden. In 1620, an uprising coordinated with the Spanish governor in Milan resulted in the massacre of a number of Protestants in the Republic's subject territory in the Valtellina, a fertile valley of considerable strategic importance (for through it the Spaniards in Milan could communicate by the Umbrail Pass and the Stelvio Pass with the Austrians in Tirol). From 1620 to 1639, control over the Valtellina became a bone of contention among Spain, Venice and France, with the Republic of the Grisons unable to reassert its control. Murders Jenatsch took part in the brutal murder (1621) of Pompeius von Planta, the head of the rival party, at his castle, Rietberg. Planta was left pinned to the floor with an axe, though the actual murderer was most likely Niklaus Carl von Hohenbalcken. Soon after, Jenatsch and many others associated with the Reformed church, Venice, or the Salis family had to flee the country. After the murder of Planta and several other violent incidents, Jenatsch also lost his position as a pastor, and henceforth acted solely as a soldier and