Thirty Years' War
As a matter of course, the mercantile policy of each one of the German Governments, which the Peace of Westphalia had rendered to so large an extent independent, of the Imperial authority, was regulated entirely by what it conceived to be its particular interests, or by the arbitrary choice or whim of its ruler. This applied to systems of communications, and to tariffs of duties and tolls. While there was no question of combination or union between several Governments for the advancement of trade or industry, the development of internal traffic in any particular principality was liable to be impeded or stopped by greed, ignorance, or stupidity. The worst of all the bad financial expedients to which any of the three hundred or more Governments into which the Empire was split up could resort was that debasement of the coin already noted; fortunately, however, this evil practice reached its height so early in the War that measures for arresting it could not be delayed.
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But the political losses and gains which the Peace of Westphalia entailed upon the Empire and its Princes sink alike into insignificance, and even the undeniable advance towards religious freedom marked by the adoption in that Peace of the principle of equality between the recognized religious confessions is obscured, when we turn to consider the general effects of the War now ended upon Germany and the German nation. These effects, either material or moral, cannot be more than faintly indicated here; but together they furnish perhaps the most appalling demonstrations of the consequences of war to be found in history.
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It was a religious war, in which even the most high-minded of those who took part in it could not so much as pretend to be guided solely by the inspirations of religious enthusiasm, while the deadliest promptings of religious hatred were designedly fostered and the whole savagery of religious fanaticism was deliberately let loose upon its prey. It was a civil war, fought between members of the same nation, at times between subjects of the same Princes, between kinsmen and brothers; but it inflicted upon the greater part of Germany invasions of foreign troops from almost every corner of Europe
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James VI in all his ecclesiastical innovations had studiously gone through the form of procuring the sanction of the General Assembly and the Estates, but solely by his own fiat Charles now imposed his Book of Canons on the country. Moreover, the implications of the book itself considerably transcended the limits of the authority which his father had ever claimed in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. James had never declared in so uncompromising a fashion his headship of the Church and his sovereignty in the State. In its prescription of rites and ceremon
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THE execution of Charles I was followed by votes of the House of Commons for the abolition of the House of Lords (February 6, 1649) and of the kingship (February 7). Although the formal Acts for putting these votes into execution only passed on March 17 and 19, the votes themselves were instantly effective. The Lords did not meet again after February, 1649. The new executive was vested in a Council of State of 41, with full authority in the management of home affairs. But the Council of State was intended to be subordinate to the Parliament which nominated it, and to that end its duration was fixed for one year only. Further, the members of it were to declare their approval of the execution of the King and of the abolition of the monarchy.
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The Peace was actually signed at both Münster and Osnabruck on October 27, 1648; but, though the Emperor's edicts for its execution were issued a fortnight afterwards, the ratifications were not exchanged till February 8, 1649.
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The Princes, with certain exceptions no doubt, had unlearnt, with the sense of loyalty towards the Empire, the consciousness of duty towards the States over which they severally claimed sovereign authority; their eyes were turned westward in admiration of the splendors of a Court which was seeking to make itself the centre of all public and private effort; and it is in this period, rather than in the much-decried age preceding it, that there grew up the notion, anything but German in its essence, of a rigidly exclusive princely dignity and authority
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The protest which the Papal Nuncio had offered against the Peace immediately after its conclusion, was reiterated a month later by Pope Innocent X in the Bull Zelo domus Dei (November 26, 1648); but its validity had been denied beforehand in the Peace itself, and no proceeding could have demonstrated more palpably the complete estrangement which now prevailed between the Imperial and the Papal authority. As a matter of fact, the Papal protest is not known to have been ever invoked by any Power against any stipulation of the Peace of Westphalia.
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he decline of German commerce and industry could not but lead to the domination of the foreign trades in the ports, along the river-ways, and through entire regions, of the interior of the country.
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After the Peace of Westphalia, commercial rather than religious motives regulated the policy of the chief states of Europe.
ARBY, GRAHAM. "Westphalia, Peace of (1648)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Nov. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Catholicism. The Peace of Westphalia marked the end of the enforced Counter-Reformation and thus the end of the church's supremacy and papal authority. German Unity. Germany was kept disunited and was divided into hundreds of individual, sovereign states governed by princes.
ARBY, GRAHAM. "Westphalia, Peace of (1648)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Nov. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
The agreement also denied the papacy the right to participate in central European religious affairs
ARBY, GRAHAM. "Westphalia, Peace of (1648)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Nov. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
The constitution of the Empire was so adjusted as to render its already loose structure utterly incoherent, with a particular laxity imposed in matters of religion.
ARBY, GRAHAM. "Westphalia, Peace of (1648)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Nov. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
religiously, Germany was divided roughly into a Protestant north and a Catholic south
ARBY, GRAHAM. "Westphalia, Peace of (1648)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Nov. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Thirty Years War was a German civil war. The principalities which made up Germany took up arms for or against the Habsburgs or, most commonly, both at different times during the war's 30 years.
Asch, Ronald G. The Thirty Years' War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-48. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
all the princes within Germany had the right to declare their provinces as either Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist. This allowance created divisions throughout Europe based on religious affiliation with the Catholics in the south of Europe, the Lutherans in central Germany, and the Calvinists in the northern part of Europe. While this is not to say that the close of the war mended relations between those of diverse faiths, this separation made it so that this was the last real religious war fought.
Asch, Ronald G. The Thirty Years' War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-48. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
balance of power shifted from Rome and religion to a more secularly-based set of nations that were more interested in trade, economics, and non-religious affairs.
Asch, Ronald G. The Thirty Years' War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-48. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
40% population loss in the countryside; 33% in the cities Swiss Confederation and the United Provinces officially recognized The first European state system, it lasted until Napoleon.
Balfour, Michael. Germany: The Tides of Power. London: Routledge, 1992.
All the rulers, even the petty ones in southern and western Germany, were declared sovereign in the internal government of their territories with certain exceptions. Moreover, the right to have diplomatic relations with foreign countries and to make treaties with them was granted to every estate. In reality this regulation only gave legal recognition to conditions that actually existed.
Balfour, Michael. Germany: The Tides of Power. London: Routledge, 1992.
The Peace of Westphalia largely settled German affairs for the next century and a half. It ended religious conflicts between the states and included official recognition of Calvinism.
Berghahn, Volker Rolf. Imperial Germany, 1871-1914: Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics. Providence, Rhode Island: Berghahn Books, 1994.
The rightly ordered government of a father over his children lies first in the proper exercise of that power which God gives to a father over his natural children, and the law over his adopted ones, and second in the obedience, love, and reverence that children owe their father. Authority properly belongs to all those who have recognized power to command another.
Bodin, Jean. SIX BOOKS OF THE COMMONWEALTH (Les Six Livres De La République). Trans. M.J. Tooley. Oxford: BASIL BLACKWELL OXFORD, Great Britian. Constitution.org. BASIL BLACKWELL OXFORD, 1995. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://www.constitution.org/bodin/bodin.txt>.
The whole body of the citizens, whether citizens by birth, by adoption or by enfranchisement (for these are the three ways in which citizen rights are acquired) when subjected to the single sovereign power of one or more rulers, constitutes a commonwealth, even if there is diversity of laws, language, customs, religion, and race.
Bodin, Jean. SIX BOOKS OF THE COMMONWEALTH (Les Six Livres De La République). Trans. M.J. Tooley. Oxford: BASIL BLACKWELL OXFORD, Great Britian. Constitution.org. BASIL BLACKWELL OXFORD, 1995. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://www.constitution.org/bodin/bodin.txt>.
Ferdinand II, crowned king of Bohemia in 1617, has been educated by Jesuits. It is no secret that he intends to impose on his territories the rigorous Catholicism
Gascoigne, Bamber. "History of The THirty Years' War" HistoryWorld. From 2001,<http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac18>
The crisis escalates in 1619 when the Protestant party in Prague declares that the Bohemian crown is elective. They choose as their king one of the few Calvinist princes in the Holy Roman empire, Frederick V
Gascoigne, Bamber. "History of The THirty Years' War" HistoryWorld. From 2001,<http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac18>
The most significant concessions are those over which the series of wars has primarily been fought. The Holy Roman emperor (by now Ferdinand III) no longer claims to be the ruler of the German principalities. They are recognized as independent states with the right to engage in their own international diplomacy.
Gascoigne, Bamber. "History of The THirty Years' War" HistoryWorld. From 2001,<http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac18>
he conglomeration of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War
Gascoigne, Bamber. "History of The THirty Years' War" HistoryWorld. From 2001,<http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac18>
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Gerstein, Josh. "NRA Gunning for Kagan." POLITICO. Capitol News Company LLC, 2 Aug. 2010. Web. 12 Nov. 2012. <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39306.h
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Jeff Haynes, "Transnational religious actors and international politics," Third World Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (2001): 145, http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/kenwald/pos6292/haynes.pdf (accessed February 25, 2012).
In 1618, over half a century of festering religious, dynastic, and strategic tensions erupted into civil war in the Holy Roman Empire, subsequently engulfing the entire European continent in thirty years of exhausting and utterly devastating warfare
Kevin Cramer, The Thirty Years' War and German Memory in the Nineteenth Century, (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE., 2007).
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Kritdikorn Wongswangpanich, "Peace of Westphalia, Secularism and the Rise of Modern State," April 5, 2012 http://kritdikornwongswangpanich.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/beyond-westphalia-essay-1 (accessed June 5, 2012).
In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg brought an end to religious wars in Central Europe by dividing the numerous German states between Catholic and Lutheran authority. Although each prince had the right to determine the religion of his subjects, it happened that Lutheranism continued to spread into catholic-held lands. The spread of Calvinism, not recognized at Augsburg, also increased tensions. By 1609, the Holy Roman Empire had fragmented into two hostile alliances -- the Protestant Union and the Catholic League.
Maland, David. Europe at War, 1600-1650. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.
The war also had a large impact on society as it decimated a large portion of the German population, destroyed crops, aided in the spread of disease and obliterated the German economy from the small to large scale.
Maland, David. Europe at War, 1600-1650. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.
Within the German portion of the Empire, private exercise of non-conforming religion was permitted and the organs of government were rendered religiously neutral. Lands secularized by the Protestants in 1624 were generally allowed to remain so. However, in the Habsburg territories of Bohemia and Austria the Emperor was given a nearly free hand to re-impose Catholicism.
Maland, David. Europe at War, 1600-1650. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.
The Peace of Westphalia. After eight years of struggle, the series of treaties known as 'The Peace of Westphalia' was signed in Münster, by Emporer Frederick III. This was the start of the separation of church and state. Calvinists were added to the list of tolerated religions, which brought increased stability.
Philpott, Dan, "Sovereignty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/sovereignty/>
The sovereign states system that came to dominate Europe at Westphalia spread worldwide over the next three centuries, culminating in the decline of the European colonial empires in the mid-20th century, when the state became the only form of polity ever to cover the entire land surface of the globe. Today, norms of sovereignty are enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, whose article 2(4) prohibits attacks on "political independence and territorial integrity," and whose Article 2(7) sharply restricts intervention.
Philpott, Dan, "Sovereignty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/sovereignty/>
Westphalia brought an end to intervention in matters of religion, up to then the most commonly practiced abridgement of sovereign prerogatives. After decades of armed contestation, the design of the Peace of Augsburg was finally consolidated, not in the exact form of 1555, but effectively establishing the authority of princes and kings over religion. In ensuing decades, no European state would fight to affect the religious governance of another state, this in stark contrast to the previous 130 years, when wars of religion sundered Europe. As the sovereign states system became more generalized in ensuing decades, this proscription of intervention would become more generalized, too, evolving into a foundational norm of the international system.
Philpott, Dan, "Sovereignty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/sovereignty/>
cuius regio, eius religio, allowed German princes to enforce their own faith within their territory. But Augsburg was unstable. Manifold contests over the settlement's provisions resulted in constant wars, culminating finally in the Thirty Years War, which did not end until 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia.he Netherlands and Switzerland gained uncontested sovereignty, the German states of the Holy Roman Empire accrued the right to ally outside the empire, while both the diplomatic communications and foreign policy designs of contemporary great powers revealed a common understanding of a system of sovereign states. The temporal powers of the Church were also curtailed to the point that they no longer challenged any state's sovereignty. In reaction, Pope Innocent X condemned the treaties of the peace as "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" (quoted in Maland 1966, 16).
Philpott, Dan, "Sovereignty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/sovereignty/>
he first is the development of a system of sovereign states, culminating at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporaneously, sovereignty became prominent in political thought through the writings of Machiavelli, Luther, Bodin, and Hobbes. The second movement is the circumscription of the sovereign state, which began in practice after World War II and has since continued through European integration and the growth and strengthening of laws and practices to protect human rights. The most prominent corresponding political thought occurs in the writings of critics of sovereignty like Bertrand de Jouvenel and Jacques Maritain.
Philpott, Dan, "Sovereignty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/sovereignty/>
In addition, many of the mercenaries went through villages and towns taking all they could from already destitute towns and this, coupled with the increasing demands of the state, planted the seed of anger toward governments that would later emerge throughout the Enlightenment and future rebellions.
Polisenský, Josef V., and Frederick Snider. War and Society in Europe, 1618-1648. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978
The sizes of the armies required for the prolonged fighting required vast amounts of money and because the fighting went on so long with mercenary troops, the only alternative was to heavily tax the citizens of the states going to war. There were a large number of uprisings throughout Europe, particularly in France, which was a shadow of things to come.
Polisenský, Josef V., and Frederick Snider. War and Society in Europe, 1618-1648. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978
religious differences were no longer of primary importance, especially because there was an increasingly unbalanced distribution of wealth between countries in the few years to follow
Polisenský, Josef V., and Frederick Snider. War and Society in Europe, 1618-1648. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978
The Protestant nobility refused to accept Ferdinand as ruler and began to revolt.
Powell, John. Magill's Guide to Military History. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2001. Print.
The Thirty Years' War was sparked when Ferdinand II, a Catholic, inherited the throne of Bohemia and was the apparent heir to the Holy Roman Empire.
Powell, John. Magill's Guide to Military History. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2001. Print.
the war helped people separate their loyalty to their country from their loyalty to their religion.
Powell, John. Magill's Guide to Military History. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2001. Print.
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[3] Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, "The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations," European Journal of International Relations, op.cit., 241.