Talk:Peace of Westphalia

message: About the instigation of modern diplomacy, what about Cardinal Richelieu? His actions during the Thirty Years War were for raisons d'état. Indeed, I believe he coined the phrase.
I didn't want to change this until I was sure what your thrust was in adding your statement to the article....--Paul Drye
: Richelieu didn´t do the whole thing by himself but was a major player. However, Richelieu died in 1642 and the actual Congresses started on 1634-1645. Cardinal Mazarin was the one who carried his works. Doidimais Brasil 01:03, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Clarification is required about Cardinal Richelieu, since the first paragraph in "location" says "France blocked negociations in 1648, the next paragraph begins with "Cardinal Richelieu", this makes it look like he himself blocked the negotiations for the reason provided, this is impossible since he was already long dead in 1648. User:Fernando Medina De la Torre 16:41, October 29, 2014 (-6 GMT)   — Preceding undated comment added 22:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Cardinal Richelieu

message: What does the "comprehend" in this sentence mean:
:The treaty signed October 24, 1648 comprehended the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand III, the other German princes, France, and Sweden.
Does "comprehend" mean recognize? I don't think so because they were already recognized. Does in mean "comprehended by"? If so, then "accepted by" would be more sensible.
WpZurp 15:18, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It simply means they were party to the treaty...--MWAK 05:24, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It means "applied to," i.e. what MWAK said.  Comprehend basically means "include."  It is a poor choice of words here, I think.67.170.176.203 14:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meaning of comprehend as used in article

message: The Westphalia system began the modern notion of soveriegn nation-states, which has not only remained the status quo in Europe but also the entire world. To argue the political EU, after its electorial defeat in France and Netherlands, could challenge the Westphalian system is fallacy in my opinion, and I think the Westphalian system would proof itself still the predominant and robust system of the world.
-Chin, Cheng-chuan
:The EU is a challenge to the Westphalian system? Do sovereign states not have any power to surrender any part of their sovereignty (as would be necessary for a union)? What's the difference between the EU and the North German Confederation, besides size?68.19.232.147 (talk) 21:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  After EU 

message: The 1648 Peace of Westphalia simply confirmed the balance of power in Germany as it has been struck in 1555.  It was definitely not a final European settlement, or even an end to the Wars Of Religion outside of Germany.
The pattern of states west of Vienna was not hugely different after 1648 than it had been in 1548, or 1448.  In fact Europe changed more between 1448 and 1548 than between 1548 and 1648.  In 1448, Constantinople still held a remnant of the Roman Empire, while the pope was secure as top authority in the Latin-Christian tradition.  The Chinese invention of printing had not yet been boosted by Gutenberg’s system of moveable type.  Beyond Europe, no one had got very far down the coast of Africa; the idea of lands to the west was still a hazy rumour.
1648 confirmed the pattern of previous centuries, with Germany fragmented and much of Italy tied to 'Spain'—actually the Western Hapsburg dynasty.  These ties lasted until the War of the Spanish Succession, which ended any possibility of a joint Spanish-Italian realm and which easily could have altered the balance struck in 1648.
The two treaties signed in Westphalia were just half of the actual peace process.  A peace agreement became possible at Westphalia, only after the Dutch made peace with Spain.  Rather, the unconquered northern half of the Netherlands made peace with their former rulers, the multi-national dominions of the Western Hapsburgs.  By settling with the Dutch, the Western Hapsburgs secured about half of their former Netherlands territories, the lands that eventually became Belgium. The Dutch accepted that they'd never get this land back, while the Western Hapsburgs conceded that the Dutch rebellion had succeeded and had established a legitimate republic.
The 'Peace of Westphalia' was stages two and three in the process, beginning with the Treaty of Osnabruck between the Swedes and the Eastern Hapsburgs or House of Austria.  The House of Austria were long-time possessors of the Imperial title, but no emperor could be certain of getting their heir elected to the Imperial power, whereas their claims to the other possessions of the House of Austria were secure.  And though Westphalia saw the gathering of most of Europe, no principle of ‘multilateral mediation’ was established by this.  The states present at Westphalia were those that were involved in the wars of the two Hapsburg dynasties, or the immediate neighbours of those states.  Britain was marginal to the Thirty Years War and Britain was absent.
Britain in 1648 had just completed its main civil war and was edging towards executing King Charles 1st, creating a constitutional crisis that wasn’t really resolved until 1688.  Small differences in the weather, personal choices or individual life-spans might have resulted in a British return to Catholicism, or alternatively a hard-line Puritan Britain under Cromwell’s heirs.  Cromwell’s son-in-law Ireton would probably have kept power for a dynasty of Lord Protectors, or become Lord Protector himself, but he happened to die young.  And, in Middle-Europe, the Turks nearly captured Vienna in 1683.  The fall of Vienna after its emperor abandoned it would have utterly changed Europe, quite possibly giving Louis 14th the chance to make himself Holy Roman Empire and ruler of a unified Christian Europe.  Louis 14th might also have triumphed if the pro-French King James 2nd had used his large British army against William of Orange, whose initial position was uncertain.  
Alternatively, had Louis 14th failed in some of his anti-Spanish and anti-Austrian campaigns after 1648, the House of Austria might have been able to resume its campaign to make themselves true rulers of the Holy Roman Emperor.  Had history gone that way, 1648 would have been just a blip in the ‘inevitable’ formation of a unified Hapsburg-Catholic Empire for Germany, maybe for all Europe and the New World.
Sovereignty is basic to human identity.  But there have always been ambitious empire-builders trying to overturn this principle, both before and after 1648.  The popes had claimed the right to preach crusades and to displace sovereign rulers: Popes had given official sanction to William of Normandy’s conquest of Saxon England, and later to Norman England’s conquest of Ireland.  Popes also tried to depose Elizabeth Tudor, though this was not enforced.  Note that it was popes rather than emperors who claimed this power and sometimes managed to exercise it.  In most of Europe, the emperor was a foreign ruler with no more rights than any other foreign monarch.
The Peace of Westphalia was an agreement by the emperor that he would respect a mediaeval pattern of laws, customs and privileges that limited his power within Germany.  It said nothing about his legal right to interfere in France or Sweden or England, because no one seriously supposed that he had ever had such a right.  A few intellectuals viewed the emperor as the rightful ruler of all Christians—of the whole world, indeed.  But only within the Germanic Empire did the emperor have some claim to overall authority of a genuine sort.
The right of the popes to interfere anywhere in the world was not mentioned in the Peace of Westphalia, except to specify that the pope would be ignored if he attempted to overturn this particular settlement.  Papal power was still theoretically respected by Catholics, except that in practice they had always stopped him from exercising it.  The nearest thing to 'humanitarian intervention' was the papal powers of Interdict and Crusade, including the Sack of Byzantium by the Fourth Crusade.  Various abuses of power led to the ‘Holy Father’ being seen as an ‘Unholy Fool’, open to bribes and threats.  
The pope’s protest against the Peace of Westphalia says nothing about Christendom having been dissolved into princely states, because this was not what had happened.  Christendom was princely states, and had been since the Roman Empire broke up.  Nor did the papacy desire a restored Empire; they normally opposed attempts by the Empire at Constantinople to re-conquer its lost lands (which it did with the campaigns of Belisarius, recovering Italy for a while and briefly having enough control of Rome to stop the popes opposing the process.)  The papal crowning of Charlemagne is often seen as pre-emptive, to stop him from claiming the Imperial crown in his own right and without regard for papal opinions.  Still, for some reason the papacy did keep re-creating the office of emperor when it lapsed and lost authority.  I suppose it was part of tradition.
Pope Innocent X’s actual protest against the Peace of Westphalia cited the emperor granting official toleration of heresy outside of his own holdings as Archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia.  Another issue was the creation of an eighth Electorate, since the papacy considered it had a right to supervise the process whereby emperors were elected.  The pope felt that his rights had been infringed by the 1648 agreements, and issued a Papal Bull saying so, but it was treated as Papal Bullshit by Catholic and Protestant alike.  The real power of the popes to intervene was much reduced and went on diminishing, though popes never fully abandoned the right to make rulings on the affairs of sovereign states, in the hope that Catholics would help enforce these opinions.
The Peace of Westphalia was an innovation, in as much as it brought most of the powers of Europe together to make the settlement.  It was probably unavoidable: most states in Latin-Christian Europe were involved in the fighting, or were close enough to the Holy Roman Empire to be deeply interested in its politics.  
--GwydionM 22:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like the Peace of Westphalia just dismembered the Holy Roman Empire and set back German unification a few hundred years. You could just as easily say that France and other foreign European powers who would benefit from a power vacuum in central Europe were intervening in the sovereignty of the HRE as you could that the HRE was intervening in the sovereignty of its member states.68.19.232.147 (talk) 21:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  It just confirmed there was no German state 

message: Just curious: weren't the Swiss, like the Dutch, officially recognized as outside the HRE for the first time in 1648, despite a few hundred years of functional independence/self-determination?  Think I got this from Colin McEvedy, but it could have been another historian.  It's been years since I wrote a one-time paper on the political geography of the Peace of Westphalia, e.g. the expansion of the Margravates eastward and consolidation of German principalities and duchies, the separation from the HRE of the Swiss and Dutch, etc. but I seem to recall it was in the peace equation; and it was in that year that current Swiss boundaries with neighbouring states were established, I think; or formalized anyway.Skookum1 23:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See History of Switzerland and Swabian War. The members of the Swiss Confederation did not participate in any imperial affairs after 1499, nor did they pay imperial taxes. But they formally remained part of the Empire until the Peace of Westphalia. Chl 18:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Results section re Switzerland

message: :By settling with the Dutch, the Western Hapsburgs secured about half of their former Netherlands territories, the lands that eventually became Belgium. The Dutch accepted that they'd never get this land back, while the Western Hapsburgs conceded that the Dutch rebellion had succeeded and had established a legitimate republic.
"accepted that they'd never get this land back"....not that they didn't try, post-Napoleon....Skookum1 23:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And indeed succeeded, see: United Kingdom of the Netherlands. But please, don't call us Holland... --MWAK 11:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Holland and Belgium

message: I just rewrote much of the Principles section, (it was unclear and did not use the correct tone), but I'm still not completely happy with it.  That and the 'Significance' paragraph seem a little redundant, and I'm not sure if it is best to have the conceptual impact discussed before the specific historical facts.  Any ideas of how to address these issues? --Ec- 15:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing 'Principles' section 

message: The map showing the results of the peace treaty indicates that swedish possesions Pomerania, Wismar, Bremen and Verden were not parts of the HRE. This however not true. Pomerania, Wismar, Bremen and Verden remainded whithin the HRE - but with the swedish King as their semi-independent prince.
:this has been fixed now. (it had been shown like that in the penguin atlas of medieval history, along with not including the spanish netherlands & burgundy) --Astrokey44 13:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks much better! B****n 10:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedish possesions whithin HRE 

message: I have added the "totally disputed" template to the top of the article for a number of reasons.
I dispute the NPOV of this article because it gives no reference at all to the large body of academics who do not believe the Peace of Westphalia to have had any of the stated effects or consequences.  While the existence of a phenominon called "The Westphalian System" can probably not be disputed, what can be disputed is the assertion that the Peace actually caused this system.
The article lists the following under the heading "Significance":
#The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination 
#The principle of (legal) equality between states 
#The principle of internationally binding treaties between states 
#The principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state 
None of these were mentioned in the texts, or came out of the agreement.  The Peace was an affirmation of current practice, rather than a revolution in the affairs of states.  I will give a quick run down of the arguments against all these statements.  I intend to re-write offending sections, of course with footnoted references to scholarly journals.
1) The Principalities of the Holy Roman Empire remained subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor.  The Emperor could and did depose individual rulers both before and after the Peace - as was his right.  Sovereignty is not mentioned once in either of the treaties.  Why would it be?  The sovereignty of France (Munster) or Sweden (Osnabruck) was not at stake, neither was that of HRE, so it makes no sense to have put it in.
2) The Holy Roman Empire had legal jurisdiction over the principalities both pre- and post-1648.  Although every principality had its own legal system, they had to fit with the constitution of the HRE, and the Empire had courts of appeal higher than each principality's system.  The Court of Final Appeal was the Emperor himself.
3) This was already a principle.  If this refers to the allowing of principalities to make treaties with other states themselves rather than through the Empire itself, it should be noted that this is not the exercise of sovereignty since they were banned from making treaties which were to the detriment of the Empire, and all treaty proposals had to be reviewed by the Empire as a result.
4) The Treaty of Osnabruck (France-HRE) specifically states that France my intervene in the internal affairs of HRE if it deems the terms of the Treaty to be broken.
There are various other factual innacuracies which have been taken issue with on this talk page.  The whole article is written with the point of view that the accepted view of Westphalia is correct, and that no dissent has been recorded.  Nothing could be further from the truth.
Chrisfow 00:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of totally disputed tag 

message: I am going to put the td temp back, please keep it there for the following reasons:
Your edit summary says this: 138.23.58.219 (Talk) (I'm removing the Totally Disputed tag because: Of course the article is written with the PoV that "the accepted view of Westphalia is correct." The view is accepted, isn't it?)
:So you accept that it is written with a PoV?  Therefore, it does not have NPOV!  The view is not accepted anymore, but has been in IR theory history.  This article is not current and therefore not of any use to someone who wants a general overview of the subject today.  In addition, it is totally unacceptable to someone who knows about the subject or wishes to know about it in greater detail.
I am currently rewriting the article, it should be finished by the end of this week.  Unlike this article, it has NPOV and is balanced to include both the old accepted view and the contemporary revisionist one.  So please 138.23.58.219, leave it be until I post the new one, which you can rip to your heart's content :P Chrisfow 13:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of totally disputed 

message: The articles intro:
:The Peace of Westphalia, 1648, also known as the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, refers to the pair of treaties signed in October 1648 which ended the Thirty Years' War. The treaties were signed on October 24, 1648, and involved the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the other German princes, France, and Sweden. 
Why is there no (or who removed the) reference to the Eighty years war? Rex 16:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We should have a separate article about the other Treaty of Münster, which was signed in January 1648, I think.  It should be mentioned here, but wasn't really part of the Peace of Westphalia. john k 18:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it, because "the Peace of Westphalia" refers to the October treaties.  The Treaty of Munster (Jan) should be a seperate article.  Neither the Dutch or Spanish were involved in IPM/IPO. Chrisfow 00:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I have never felt any "obligation" to Wikipedia, I don't believe that that is the ethos of this site.  Surely its the encyclopedia that everyone is free to edit, not the encyclopedia which, once a contributor, you must edit.  I am not interested in the January Treaty of Munster, and do not wish to spend my time looking up information about it for an article when my Wikitime is stolen from time I should be working anyway.  The line did not say that the two were synonymous, but that the Treaty of Munster linked here, which was true.  When I see that written above an article, I find out a) why and b) more about the subject from another source.  I do not assume that they are synonyms, since the line does not say that.  Chrisfow 17:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are the Dutch and Spanish? 

message: Until just now, for some reason the article tried to claim that the Peace of Westphalia "formally recognized" the independence of northern Italy (including Savoy!) from the Holy Roman Empire.  I have no idea where such a notion would come from.  The duchy of Savoy was very much part of the empire after 1648; the duke of Savoy even had a seat in the Imperial Diet and the Imperial Circle Estates of the Upper Rhine.  The rest of the Italian states had more iffy connections with the empire (they were not part of any imperial circle, notably, and, except for the Spanish/Austrian possessions, and Tuscany when Francis I was reigning there, had no representation in the Reichstag), but nothing about their status changed in 1648.  Well into the eighteenth century the various states of northern Italy are referred to as imperial fiefs, and treaties dealing with the succession thereof and the like had to be approved by the Diet and the Emperor.  François Velde's site has good examples of primary documents from the eighteenth century that clearly view these areas as fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire - see here, here, and here. john k (talk) 19:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This is true.  I think it would be reasonable to say that northern Italy was not really part of the Empire in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries except in the most nominal sense.  But it's not reasonable to say that the independence of northern Italy was "formally recognized" by the Peace of Westphalia, because it wasn't.  The imperial connections to Italy just gradually atrophied despite the lack of any formal legal changes.  john k (talk) 21:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  northern Italy 

message: I don't understand why the article would say "the Pope reportedly calling it" with a reference to the letter itself from the Pope.  In other words, this is not a "report" from anyone, it's his own words.  Or it isn't.  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 04:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pope reportedly calling it 

message: Where are te parts about Luxembourg and the Balkans?212.179.111.210 (talk) 10:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other parts 

message: There does not appear to be much mention of the Thirty Years War in the article, but perhaps there should be.Vorbee (talk) 09:44, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The very first sentence says that it - the Peace of Westphalia - largely ended the European wars of religion.  And the second para includes a nice clickable link to the Thirty Years War.   Given that the Thirty Years War gets plenty of wiki-coverage - much of it quite good IMHO - in its own wiki-en entry, I am not sure you gain too much by replicating more meaty chunks of that here.   But that is only my opinion.   If you elegantly slip in a couple more mentions of the Thirty Years War in ways which unambiguously make (or clarify or strengthen) a point of direct relevance to the Peace of Westphalia, it may well be that no one will think to question the soundness of your judgment.   Success Charles01 (talk) 10:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Thirty Years War

message: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1146&context=the_histories
The last paragraph of the lede cites this source, which has a grammatical error in its title ("it Affects") and numerous other mistakes in the text.  For example: 
The negotiations known as the Congress of Westphalia began in 1642 and lasted another 4 years [sic] until the end of the 30 Years War in 1648.
 
Should we take this source seriously? 2600:1702:6D0:5160:F064:885A:AF74:4258 (talk) 17:25, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reputable source?