Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 ON THE STUDY OF WAR
- 2 MÜNSTER AND OSNABRÜCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES
- 3 WAR AND PEACE IN THE ERA OF THE HEROIC WARRIORS, 1648–1713
- 4 ACT TWO OF THE HEGEMONY DRAMA: THE UTRECHT SETTLEMENTS
- 5 THE LETHAL MINUET: WAR AND PEACE AMONG THE PRINCES OF CHRISTENDOM, 1715–1814
- 6 PEACE THROUGH EQUILIBRIUM: THE SETTLEMENTS OF 1814–1815
- 7 CONFLICT AND CONSENT, 1815–1914
- 8 1919: PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND COVENANT
- 9 WAR AS THE AFTERMATH OF PEACE: INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, 1918–1941
- 10 PEACE BY POLICING
- 11 THE DIVERSIFICATION OF WARFARE: ISSUES AND ATTITUDES IN THE CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
- 12 WAR: ISSUES, ATTITUDES, AND EXPLANATIONS
- 13 THE PEACEMAKERS: ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER
- References
- Additional data sources
- Index
2 - MÜNSTER AND OSNABRÜCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 ON THE STUDY OF WAR
- 2 MÜNSTER AND OSNABRÜCK, 1648: PEACE BY PIECES
- 3 WAR AND PEACE IN THE ERA OF THE HEROIC WARRIORS, 1648–1713
- 4 ACT TWO OF THE HEGEMONY DRAMA: THE UTRECHT SETTLEMENTS
- 5 THE LETHAL MINUET: WAR AND PEACE AMONG THE PRINCES OF CHRISTENDOM, 1715–1814
- 6 PEACE THROUGH EQUILIBRIUM: THE SETTLEMENTS OF 1814–1815
- 7 CONFLICT AND CONSENT, 1815–1914
- 8 1919: PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND COVENANT
- 9 WAR AS THE AFTERMATH OF PEACE: INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, 1918–1941
- 10 PEACE BY POLICING
- 11 THE DIVERSIFICATION OF WARFARE: ISSUES AND ATTITUDES IN THE CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
- 12 WAR: ISSUES, ATTITUDES, AND EXPLANATIONS
- 13 THE PEACEMAKERS: ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER
- References
- Additional data sources
- Index
Summary
[The Peace of Westphalia] is null, void, invalid, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time.
Pope Innocent XThe Pope's reaction to the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück is understandable. The Thirty Years War had raged across Bohemia, Germany, Italy, France, and the United Provinces, pitting nascent states against empires, rebellious princes against the Holy Roman Emperor, free cities against imperial cities, and Catholics against Protestants. The Pope condemned the outcome of four years of negotiations that led to the Peace of Westphalia because it confirmed the religious schism begun by Luther and significantly reduced the political authority of the Holy Roman Emperor and the other great symbol of Christian unity, the papacy. The Peace of Westphalia organized Europe on the principle of particularism. It represented a new diplomatic arrangement – an order created by states, for states – and replaced most of the legal vestiges of hierarchy, at the pinnacle of which were the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.
The Congresses of Münster and Osnabrück, which produced the Treaties of Westphalia, were the first of their kind. Europe had not previously witnessed a multilateral diplomatic gathering that was designed both to terminate a pan-European war and to build some sort of order out of the chaos into which Europe had increasingly fallen since the late fifteenth century. The congresses brought together the main heterogeneous political units of Europe at that time.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Peace and WarArmed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989, pp. 25 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991