sentences:  Aschbach was quite a small village throughout the Middle Ages, but had broad and fertile fields, which meant that the inhabitants had to pay more in taxes than those in neighbouring villages of comparable size.Nevertheless, the village's livelihood was threatened, foremost by epidemics, but also by wars.Neighbouring Niederaschbach's destruction by marauding soldiers of the Count of Armagnac proves that the Thirty Years' War was not the only war that could burn whole villages down and utterly lay them waste.