WESTPHALIA, PEACE OF.

The Bohemian Succession (§ 1).

The Counter-Reformation (§ 2).

Gustavus Adolphus; the Peace of Prague (§ 3).

Territorial Awards (§ 4).

Amnesty and Restitution (§ 5).

Grievances and Religious Relations (§ 6).

Political Readjustments; Execution (§ 7).

The Peace of Westphalia is the treaty concluded in 1648, in the then Westphalian cities of Münster and Osnabrück, which terminated the Thirty-Years' War (q.v.). The immediate cause for the war was the state of religious affairs in Bohemia. r. The Taking advantage of the discord be

Bohemian tween Emperor Rudolph II. and his

Succession. brother Matthias, the Evangelical

leaders there had secured from the

former a letter-patent, July 9, 1609, in which they were assured the free exercise of religion according to their submitted confession, and specially the right to build new churches and schools in the royal towns and dominions. After the emperor had been forced to cede the possession of Bohemia to his brother, Matthias solemnly confirmed the liberties of the estates, together with the imperial patent.

But the question whether new churches and schools were also lawfully to be erected in the ecclesiastical jurisdictions soon stirred up strife; and when the imperial commissioners decided against the Evan gelical party, the anxiety sprang up that the em peror was designing to revoke the patent. An in surrection arose; the imperial counselors, Martinitz

and Slawata, were thrown from the window of the

castle chamber at Prague (May 23, 1618); and the insurgents organized a national government of their own, expelled the Jesuits, communicated with the

Protestant estates in the other Austrian lands, and,

aided by the Union, even attacked Austria. This

Union was a defensive alliance, formed, in 1608, of

the Evangelical estates of Electoral Palatinate,

Palatinate-Neuburg, Brandenburg-Ansbach and

Bayreuth, Württemberg, Baden-Durlach, Electoral Brandenburg, Hesse-Cassel, Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm. Upon the death of Emperor Matthias (1619), Ferdinand II. became his lauccessor. The Bohemians elected Elector Palatine, Frederick V. as their king. To the Support of Ferdinand rallied the Holy League of Roman Catholic estates organ ized by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria in 1609. Under his leadership Frederick was defeated at the battle at Prague Oct. 29 (Nov. 8), 1620, ''unaided by the Union, which had preferred to maintain peace with its fellow estates; and the greater part of Bohemia and Moravia were won back. After Frederick's flight and his sentence under the ban (1621), the Palatinate was gradually subdued by the imperial armies. Upon the investiture of Maximilian with the Electorate Palatine (1623), thel,court of Mans feld and Christian of Brunswick undertook the war in northwestern Germany in behalf of the Palati nate, thus drawing the .lower Saxon j estates into the conflict. These chose King Christian IV. of Den mark (1625) for their joint commander. He allied himself with England and Holland,',, but in view of the successful results attending the armies of the League and the empire under Tilly~n d VPallenstein in 1629, he concluded the treaty of lftback with the emperor.

The Counter-Reformation went hand in hand with the military results. Speciall$ from the time of their victory at Lutter (1626), the adherents of the League began to voice their demands for the enforced restitution of the ecclesiastical properties (see Reservation, Ecclesiastical), which the Evangelicals had seized, as was alleged, contrary to the religious Peace of Augsburg (q.v.); anA this was to be

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Westphalia, Peace of

effected by a general imperial decree instead of leg lslation by the diet or due process of law. Incipient

scruples against strengthening the The power accruing to the members of the Counter- League at the expense of the imperial Reforms- strength were gradually overcome,

tion. partly by the presumption that some of

the properties might possibly be applied to strengthen the imperial family prestige, and partly by the persuasive representations of such a measure offered by the imperial confessor, Lammermann, and the papal nuncio, Caraffa, as a new and imposing advance on the side of the Counter-Reformation. Ferdinand II. issued the edict of restitution Mar. 6, 1629. Besides the provisions for the restoration of the spiritual possessions, it abrogated the -declaration of Ferdinand I. at the religious peace of 1555, securing to Protestant subjects in the ecclesiastical provinces religious peace, and proclaimed, in general, that the religious peace was to apply only to the Roman Catholics and the adherents of the unaltered Augsburg Confession, and that every other sect was prohibited in the empire.

To prevent Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who in 1630 had occupied the estuaries of the Oder, from forming an alliance with the Protestant estates, the execution of the edict was suspended, and a diet ap-

pointed to meet at Frankfort, Feb., 3: Gustavus 1631, to negotiate a mutual understandAdolphus; ing. But the emperor revoked some of the Peace his concessions; rebuffed the League of of Prague. Leipsic, concluded by Elector Johann

Georg of Saxony, 1631, with various Evangelical estates for the peace of Germany; and even suffered Tilly to invade Saxony (1631), after the destruction of Magdeburg. 'The result was an alliance of the elector of Saxony and the remaining Protestant princes with Gustavus Adolphus. After the victorious battle at Breitenfeld Sept. 7 (17), 1631, the Swedish troops roamed over Germany; but in 1632 Gustavus Adolphus was forced by Wallenstein to vacate Bavaria, and after his fall at Lutzen (Nov. 6, 1632), the allies dispersed. When, in 1634, the main army of the Swedes was defeated at Nördlingen, the elector of Saxony abandoned the alliance with the Swedes, and concluded with Ferdinand II. the Peace of Prague, May 20 (30), 1635. By the terms of this treaty, all mediate foundations, cloisters, and estates which had been confiscated by the Protestants prior to the Passau treaty of 1552 were to remain in their hands; but the immediate endowments and all possessions confiscated after the said treaty were to be left for a term of forty years, and, if before the expiration of'that term no other adjustment should be made, then they were to remain permanently in the status in which they were Nov. 27, 1627. Full amnesty was pledged between the emperor and the Roman Catholic estates on the one hand, and electoral Saxony and the states adhering to the Augsburg Confession on the other, from the year 1630, Bohemia, the Palatinate, and some princes, lords, and counts excepted. According to the imperial patent of June 12, 1635, this peace was to be extended over all Germany; but the restriction of the amnesty, the declaration of war by France against Spain and Austria, and the

new advantages gained by the Swedes prevented the cessation of hostilities. In 1640, Ferdinand III. summoned another diet at Regensburg which (1641) made no essential progress beyond the Treaty of Prague. Preliminaries were signed at Hamburg Dec. 15 (25), 1641, providing that negotiations were to be conducted at Münster and Osnabrück. The emperor and the. imperial deputation hesitated to sign the protocol until 1644, so that negotiations were not opened until Apr., 1645: At Osnabrück affairs were negotiated between the emperor's delegates, the imperial estates, and Sweden; at Münster, between the emperor, France, and the other foreign powers. The negotiations at Osnabrück were concluded with the peace instrument of Aug. 8, 1648; at Münster, in that of Sept. 17, the.same year. The joint subscription occurred at Münster Oct. 14 (24). Simultaneously Spain and the German empire negotiated at Münster for peace with the United Netherlands and with France. While the negotiations with France led - to no result, a treaty was concluded with the United Netherlands, on Jan. 20 (30), 1648, by which the independence of the Netherlands and their detachment from Germany were formally conceded. The independence of the Swiss Federation, as defined by the Peace of Basel, Sept. 22, 1499, was reconfirmed. In both treaties, only the emperor and the crowns of France and Sweden are named as contracting parties, each with its constituents, since the imperial estates disclaimed having waged war against the empire. Those provisions pertaining to church affairs only are subject of detail here.

For war indemnities and restitution of strongholds in the hands of foreign powers, the awards were as follows: (1) Sweden obtained all coastwise Pomerania and Rügen, together with a portion of interior Pomerania, the town of Wismar, belonging hitherto to Mecklenburg, and the church foundations of

Bremen and Verden, as temporal duch4. Terri- ies, and all these as hereditary imperial torial tenures, with seat and vote at imperial

Awards. and district assemblies. (2) France was

vested, without the privilege of investiture or imperial estate, with the sovereignty over the bishoprics and cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which had been occupied from 1552, yet under guaranty of the three bishoprics to the archbishop of Treves. It received, further, the sovereignty over Pignerol, the town of Breisach, the landgraviate of Upper and Lower Alsace, the district of Suntgau, and the government of ten imperial towns in Alsace. On the other hand, the other imperial estates in Alsace, in particular also the bishops of Basel and Strasburg, were expressly secured in their immediate relation to the empire, and their former freedom. The Roman Catholic religion was to be preserved in the ceded possessions and all religious innovations during the war removed. (3) Hesse-Cassel was indemnified with the secularized abbey of Hersfeld. Estates which lost territory by these cessions or had to forego their claims had to be recompensed, which involved further.. changes in the ecclesiastical apportionment, affecting specially Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and Luneburg.

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The amnesty granted under the Peace of Prague in 1635 was now declared to be universal in principle. It was further ordered that, so 5. Amnesty far as possible, all spiritual and temand poral matters should be restored to Restitution. their former status. Accordingly the state of affairs as existing in 1618 should have been resumed; but against the overtures to this effect on the part of Sweden, France, and those imperial estates which had formed an alliance with them, the emperor and the Roman Catholic party insisted on regarding the year 1630 as the limit; nor would they relent until certain exceptions from this date were stipulated and the appointment of certain regulative times, respectively, for specific prospective restitutions was conceded. For . instance, Bavaria would have had to restore to the descendants of Frederick V. the Electoral Palatinate, thus taking away from the Roman Catholics the balance of power in the electoral college; . it would also have raised a claim of 13,000,000 thaler in favor of Bavaria against Austria for war indemnity. By the limit of 1618, Baden-Durlach lost the Upper Mark. Most unfavorably did the terms of settlement affect the Protestants in the hereditary lands of Austria. The efforts of Sweden in their behalf, to make the amnesty apply on the basin of 1618, remained fruitless.' Exceptions were accorded only to the dukes of Brieg, Liegnitz, Münsterberg and Oels, and the city of Breslau. To the other Silesian duchies was conceded merely the erection of three new Evangelical churches, the so-called "peace churches" near Schweidnitz, Jauer, and Glogau. Besides, the inhabitants of the Silesian domains and the nobles of Lower Austria were not subject, on account of their adherence to the Augsburg Confession, to confiscation of possessions or to banishment, and they were to be permitted to-attend the Evangelical worship outside their territory in neighboring places. In the event of a voluntary emigration, they were allowed freely to visit their unsold real estate for supervision and attention to cultivation.

The peace negotiations also vitally turned on the point of eliminating the confusions and grievances which had grown out of the previous relations of the religious parties, or of forestalling a recurrence of the same. The imperial and the Swedish envoys negotiated the Evangelical grievances

6. Griev- in general; pertaining to the relations ances and of the Lutheran and the Reformed, Religious Sweden conducted the transactions for Relations. the former; and for the latter, Bran denburg, seconded by the Dutch and the Swiss. (1) The religious Peace of Augsburg and the Passau treaty were confirmed anew. (2) The peace instrument of Osnabrück expressly recognized the parity of the Reformed with the Roman Catho lics and the adherents of the Augsburg Confession. However, the proviso in § 17 of the religious peace was reaffirmed, that no other religions than those mentioned were to be tolerated. (3) The legal equality of the two religious parties, in the empire was expressly declared; and in application of this principle, it was ordered that a quota of members from both confessions should be chosen for the reg-

ular imperial deputations and for the imperial courts of justice. In matters affecting religion, or in a division of opinion between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant estates, the usual parliamentary vote by majority was to make way for an amicable adjustment among the estates of both religious parties. The terms thus stated, especially the principle of equal legal status for both religious parties, was to become practically applicable in accordance with the constitution and laws of the realm, and the'eonsistent provisions of the treaty itself. Their execution was dependent on various actual antecedent conditions, subsisting in the diversity of relations between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and, within the latter, between Lutherans and Reformed. This led to the adoption of measures intended to regulate their mutual relations with reference to the standard principles first adopted. (1) With reference to ecclesiastical properties and institutions, Jan. 1, 1624, was agreed upon as the regulative day. The religious party having possession on that date were permanently to retain it, and all possessions of that date of which it was later deprived .were to be restored. The advantages obtained through this measure by the Protestants were inconsiderable. Similar arrangements were made regarding the mediate foundations and cloisters. (2) .On the "right of reformation," the religious Peace of Augsburg had sanctioned the right of temporal estates of the realm both to go over to the Evangelical religion and to allow the same to their subjects. This right had not been conceded to the subjects individually; but, at that time, the principle was recognized that the territorial lord was to decide on the religious confession of his domain inclusive of that of his subjects. Now the following extensions were added: (a) Evangelical subjects under Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholic subjects under Evangelical sovereignty were to be left free to exercise what manner 'of religion they had practised until some time in 1624, and in this they were to be left unmolested in the future.

From this it followed that Evangelical subjects in a Roman Catholic territory or Roman Catholics in an Evangelical territory who had exercised religion neither publicly nor privately in 1624, now remained amenable to the jus reformandi; and the same pertained to any who, after the publication of the treaty of peace, would be converts to any other religion than that of the territorial sovereign. In, both instances the latter had the alternative right of tolerance or enforcing emigration. In the former instance, the subjects were to be allowed freedom of conscience, the right of household worship, and of attending worship abroad, as well as legal equality with the adherents of the authorized confessions. If, on the contrary, the territorial sovereign should command, or the subjects voluntarily choose, emigration, then all' molestation was forbidden, and a five years' respite (or three years in case of a change of religion after the publication of the terms of peace) for emigration was conceded; neither should the testimonials of position and character be denied nor unusual reversions be demanded or emigration taxes be imposed. (b) With reference to the relation between Lutherans and Reformed, the status

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at the time of the Peace of Westphalia subject to the treaties and privileges in power was to be prescriptive. In the future, if a territorial sovereign changed from the Evangelical state religion to another Evangelical confession, or succeeded to an Evangelical state having a different confession from his own, he was to have the right only to institute his court worship, and irrevocably to grant possible churches of his faith free religious exercise; but all this without altering the existing church order, and without disturbing the previous religious practise, church estates, and institutions. The congregations of the Evangelical state religion were to retain the appointment of their church and school officers, who should be subject to examination and ordination at the hands of a church board, subject to the approval of the sovereign, without obstruction. (3) The diocesan right and the spiritual jurisdiction of Roman Catholic officials, in cases of dispute among Protestants and between Protestants and Roman Catholics, were suspended, excepting (a) where Roman Catholics had been in obvious possession of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in 1624, this might continue to be exercised in collecting revenues, tithes, and pensions; and (b) where the Protestant subjects of Roman Catholic estates in 1624 had acknowledged the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the same should continue, without prejudice to confessional freedom and liberty of conscience. On the other hand, in the case of Roman Catholic subjects of Evangelical estates, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic bishops was to continue intact, according to the peaceable exercise of it in 1624, provided, however, that the Roman Catholics in the given territory maintained public exercise of religion in the year stated. The spiritual jurisdiction over Evangelicals in Evangelical territories received no mention; it was presumed to be a privilege of the territorial government.

The interest of the foreign powers in securing for the estates of the realm the largest possible status independent of the emperor coincided with the similar aspirations of the estates, and the difference in religion did not so separate the estates as to induce

them to work at cross purposes in this 7. Political common object. The original absoReadjust- lute sovereignty of the emperor had ments; long ceased to be unquestioned, and

Execution. the rights acquired by the estates in

the course of time no longer submitted to be defined as mere feudal investitures. Yet a distinct definition was not then attempted; under the adopted term jus lerritorialis the treaty expressly assured this right to the estates of the realm. In particular they were guaranteed the right of voting on all parliamentary deliberations concerning the affairs of the realm, and in concluding alliances with one another and with foreign powers for their self-preservation and security, reserving the rights of the emperor, the empire, and the peace of the land. The foregoing rights were also accredited in detail to the imperial cities. Likewise, the immediate imperial knighthood in point of religion was placed on a par with the estates of the realm. The peace was declared to be a permanent, universal law of the em-

pire; so that it was ordered to be embodied in the next imperial decree, as also in the imperial " elec tion capitulation," and every objection to and con tradiction of it was nullified. Violation of the treaty was made subject to the penalty for breach of the peace. If any one was to suffer injury through the violation of another, and this should not be repaired within three years, whether amicably or legally, he was authorized to resort to arms and lay claim to the help of all parties to the treaty. The formal exchange of ratifications did not take place till Feb. 8, 1649; and the terms of execution were agreed upon by a joint deputation of the three electoral colleges at Nuremberg, June 16, 1650. The inclu sion in the decree followed, Regensburg, 1654, and in the "election capitulations," as late as Francis II., pledging the maintenance of the treaty. Al ready at Münster, the papal legate, Cardinal Fabius Chigi, had protested against the treaty, Oct. 14 and 26, 1648; and Nov. 26 Pope Innocent X. promul gated the bull, Zelo domus dei, in which the meas ures of the treaty were declared null and void, be cause adopted without the approval of the papal see. This protestation, however, had no practical consequences. On the contrary, the treaty was re peatedly confirmed on subsequent occasions, al though its execution was delayed by controversies on individual points. Its provisions on the relations of the religious parties were not abrogated by the dissolution of the empire in 1806; but rather, in view of parity and tolerance, they were enlarged and am plified by the national legislation.

E. Sehling.

Bibliography: Sources are: J. G. von Eleiern, Acta pads ,r u publics, oder westphalische Friedenshandlungen and Ge schichle, 6 vols., Hanover, 17346, with Register, Got tingen, 1740; idem, Acta pacis execulionis publics, oder niirnbergische Friedens-Executions-Hsndlungen, 2 parts, ib. 1736; idem, Acts comitialia. Rstisbonensua publics de 165,E et 165/t, 2 parts, Leipsic, 1738; the documents re- ' produced in Instruments pads Cces. Suec. et Cues. Gallic., with preface by Meiern, Göttingen, 1738, and Die Ur kunden der Friedensschliisse zu Münster and Osnabrück, ', Zurich, 1848. Consult: Cambridge Modern History, iv. 395 133, and very notable bibliography, pp. 865-869, New York, 1906; J. S. Piitter, Geist des weStphdlischen Friedens, Göttingen, 1795; G. H. Bougeant, Hist. du traiEe de Westphalie, 2 vols., Paris, 1744; R. K. Freiherr von Senkenberg, Darstellung des westphdlischen Fried Frankfort, 1804; K. L. von Woltmann, Geschichte des ' westphklischen Friedena, 2 vols., Berlin, 1808; hl. Bernard, '' Four Lectures on Subjects Connected with Diplomacy, lee- -'' ·~' Lure 1, London, 1868; G. Bardot, Quomodo explsnandum sit inslrumenti pads Monaster. cap. 86, Lyons, 1899..