The negotiation process was lengthy and complex. Talks took place in two cities, because each side wanted to meet on territory under its own control. A total of 109 delegations arrived to represent the belligerent states, but not all delegations were present at the same time. Two treaties were signed to end the war in the Empire: the
Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück.[2][3] These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, with the
Habsburgs (rulers of Austria and Spain) and their Catholic allies on one side, battling the Protestant powers (Sweden and certain Holy Roman principalities) allied with France (though Catholic, strongly anti-Habsburg under King
Louis XIV).
Several scholars of
international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern international relations,[4] collectively known as
Westphalian sovereignty. However, some historians have argued against this, suggesting that such views emerged during the nineteenth and twentieth century in relation to concerns about sovereignty during that time.[5]
Background
Europe had been battered by both the Thirty Years' War and the
Eighty Years' War, exacting a heavy toll in money and lives. The Eighty Years' War was a prolonged struggle for the independence of the Protestant-majority
Dutch Republic (the modern Netherlands), supported by Protestant-majority England, against Catholic-dominated Spain and Portugal. The Thirty Years' War was the most deadly of the
European wars of religion, centred on the Holy Roman Empire. The war, which developed into four phases, included a large number of domestic and foreign players, siding either with the
Catholic League or the
Protestant Union (later
Heilbronn League). The
Peace of Prague (1635) ended most religious aspects of the war, and the
French–Habsburg rivalry took over prominence. With between 4.5 million and 8 million dead in the Thirty Years' War alone, and decades of constant warfare, the need for peace became increasingly clear.[6]
Locations
Peace negotiations between France and the
HabsburgEmperor began in
Cologne in 1636. These negotiations were initially blocked by
Cardinal Richelieu of France, who insisted on the inclusion of all his allies, whether fully sovereign countries or states within the
Holy Roman Empire.[7][page needed] In
Hamburg, Sweden, France, and the Holy Roman Empire negotiated a preliminary peace in December 1641.[8] They declared that the preparations of Cologne and the Treaty of Hamburg were preliminaries of an overall peace agreement.[citation needed]
The main peace negotiations took place in
Westphalia, in the neighbouring cities of
Münster and
Osnabrück. Both cities were maintained as neutral and demilitarized zones for the negotiations.[8]
In Münster, negotiations took place between the Holy Roman Empire and France, as well as between the
Dutch Republic and Spain who on 30 January 1648 signed a
peace treaty ending the Eighty Years' War[9] that was not part of the Peace of Westphalia.[10] Münster had been, since its re-Catholicism in 1535, a strictly mono-denominational community. It housed the Chapter of the
Prince-Bishopric of Münster. Only
Roman Catholic worship was permitted, while
Calvinism and
Lutheranism were prohibited.[citation needed]
Sweden preferred to negotiate with the Holy Roman Empire in Osnabrück, which was controlled by Protestant forces. Osnabrück was a bi-denominational Lutheran and Catholic city, with two Lutheran churches and two Catholic churches. The city council was exclusively Lutheran, and the
burghers mostly so, but the city also housed the Catholic Chapter of the
Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück and had many other Catholic inhabitants. Osnabrück had been subjugated by troops of the
Catholic League from 1628 to 1633 and was then taken by Lutheran Sweden.[11]
Delegations
The peace negotiations had no exact beginning or end, because the 109 delegations never met in a plenary session. Instead, various delegations arrived between 1643 and 1646 and left between 1647 and 1649. The largest number of diplomats were present between January 1646 and July 1647.[12]
Delegations had been sent by 16 European states, 66
Imperial States representing the interests of 140 Imperial States, and 27 interest groups representing 38 groups.[13]
Two separate treaties constituted the peace settlement:
The Treaty of Münster (Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriensis, IPM),[15][16] between the Holy Roman Emperor and France, along with their respective allies
The Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis, IPO),[17][18] between the Holy Roman Emperor and Sweden, along with their respective allies
Results
Internal political boundaries
The power asserted by
Ferdinand III was stripped from him and returned to the rulers of the
Imperial States. The rulers of the
Imperial States could again choose their own official religions.
Catholics and
Lutherans were redefined as equal before the law, and
Calvinism was given legal recognition as an official religion.[19][20] The independence of the Dutch Republic, which practiced religious toleration, also provided a safe haven for European Jews.[21]
The
Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope
Innocent X calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" in the
papal briefZelo Domus Dei.[22][23]
Tenets
The main tenets of the Peace of Westphalia were:
All parties would recognise the
Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince had the right to determine the religion of his own state (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio). However, the ius reformandi was removed: Subjects were no longer forced to follow the conversion of their ruler. Rulers were allowed to choose between Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.[19][24]
1 January 1624 was defined as the normative date for determining the dominant religion of a state. All ecclesiastical property was to be restored to the condition of 1624. Christians living in principalities where their denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in private, as well as in public during allotted hours.[24]
To escape incorporation into Swedish Bremen-Verden, the city of Bremen had claimed
Imperial immediacy. The emperor had granted this request and separated the city from the surrounding Bishopric of Bremen. Sweden launched the
Swedish-Bremen wars in 1653/54 in a failed attempt to take the city.[28]
The treaty ruled that the
Dukes of Mecklenburg, owing their re-investiture to the Swedes, cede
Wismar and the Mecklenburgian port tolls. While Sweden understood this to include the tolls of all Mecklenburgian ports, the Mecklenburgian dukes as well as the emperor understood this to refer to Wismar only.[29]
Wildeshausen, a petty exclave of Bremen-Verden and fragile basis for Sweden's seat in the Westphalian circle diet, was also claimed by the
Bishopric of Münster.[29]
Bavaria retained the
Palatinate's vote in the
Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which it was granted by the imperial ban on the Elector Palatine Frederick V in 1623. The
Prince Palatine, Frederick's son, was given a new, eighth electoral vote.[30]
Barriers to trade and commerce erected during the war were abolished, and "a degree" of free navigation was guaranteed on the
Rhine.[31]
Legacy
The treaties did not entirely end conflicts arising out of the Thirty Years' War. Fighting continued between France and Spain until the
Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The
Dutch-Portuguese War that had begun during the
Iberian Union between Spain and
Portugal, as part of the Eighty Years' War, went on until 1663. Nevertheless, the Peace of Westphalia did settle many outstanding European issues of the time.[citation needed]
Some scholars of international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern
international relations, including the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. This system became known in the literature as
Westphalian sovereignty.[32][page needed] Most modern historians have challenged the association of this system with the Peace of Westphalia, calling it the 'Westphalian myth'.[33] They have challenged the view that the modern European states system originated with the Westphalian treaties. The treaties do not contain anything in their text about religious freedom, sovereignty, or balance of power that can be construed as international law principles. Constitutional arrangements of the
Holy Roman Empire are the only context in which sovereignty and religious equality are mentioned in the text, but they are not new ideas in this context. While the treaties do not contain the basis for the modern laws of nations themselves, they do symbolize the end of a long period of
religious conflict in Europe.[34]
^Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015. McFarland. p. 40.
ISBN978-0-7864-7470-7.
^"APW Einführung". www.pax-westphalica.de.
Archived from the original on 23 October 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
^Konrad Repgen, 'Negotiating the Peace of Westphalia: A Survey with an Examination of the Major Problems', In: 1648: War and Peace in Europe: 3 vols. (Catalogue of the 26th exhibition of the Council of Europe, on the Peace of Westphalia), Klaus Bußmann and Heinz Schilling (eds.) on behalf of the Veranstaltungsgesellschaft 350 Jahre Westfälischer Friede, Münster and Osnabrück: no publ., 1998, 'Essay Volume 1: Politics, Religion, Law and Society', pp. 355–72, here pp. 355 seq.
^Konrad Repgen, "Negotiating the Peace of Westphalia: A Survey with an Examination of the Major Problems", In: 1648: War and Peace in Europe: 3 vols. (Catalogue of the 26th exhibition of the Council of Europe, on the Peace of Westphalia), Klaus Bußmann and Heinz Schilling (eds.) on behalf of the Veranstaltungsgesellschaft 350 Jahre Westfälischer Friede, Münster and Osnabrück: no publ., 1998, 'Essay Volume 1: Politics, Religion, Law and Society', pp. 355–372, here p. 356.
^The
incipit of this brief, meaning "Zeal of the house of God", quotes from
Psalm 69:9: "For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me."
^Larry Jay Diamond; Marc F. Plattner; Philip J. Costopoulo (2005). World religions and democracy. p. 103.
^Mary Fulbrook A Concise History of Germany, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 60.
^Böhme, Klaus-R (2001). "Die sicherheitspolitische Lage Schwedens nach dem Westfälischen Frieden". In Hacker, Hans-Joachim (ed.). Der Westfälische Frieden von 1648: Wende in der Geschichte des Ostseeraums (in German). Kovač. p. 35.
ISBN3-8300-0500-8.
^Randall Lesaffer (2014). "Peace treaties from Lodi to Westphalia". Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One. Cambridge. p. 9.
ISBN978-0-511-21603-9.
Further reading
Croxton, Derek, and Anuschka Tischer. The Peace of Westphalia: A Historical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002).
Croxton, Derek (1999). "The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the Origins of Sovereignty". International History Review. 21 (3): 569–591.
doi:
10.1080/07075332.1999.9640869.
Mowat, R. B. History of European Diplomacy, 1451–1789 (1928) pp 104–14
onlineArchived 20 December 2020 at the
Wayback Machine
Schmidt, Sebastian (2011). "To Order the Minds of Scholars: The Discourse of the Peace of Westphalia in International Relations Literature1". International Studies Quarterly. 55 (3): 601–623.
doi:
10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00667.x. Historiography.