Peace of Westphalia

Examples of Peace of Westphalia in the following topics:

• The Peace of Westphalia

  • The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster that ended the Thirty Years' War.
  • The end of the war was not brought about by one treaty, but instead by a group of treaties, collectively named the Peace of Westphalia.
  • Many of the imperial territories established in the Peace of Westphalia later became the sovereign nation-states of modern Europe.
  • A simplified map of Europe in 1648, showing the new borders established after the Peace of Westphalia.
  • the Treaty of Münster between the Holy Roman Emperor and France was one of three treaties that made up the Peace of Westphalia

• The Peace of Westphalia and Sovereignty

  • Although the Peace of Westphalia did not end wars in Europe, it established the precedent of peace reached by diplomatic congress and a new system of political order in Europe based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states.
  • The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster.
  • The Peace of Westphalia established the precedent of peace reached by diplomatic congress and a new system of political order in Europe based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states.
  • Historical map of Europe after the Peace of Westphalia.
  • Explain the significance of the Peace of Westphalia on European politics and diplomacy.

• Fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire

  • The Peace of Augsburg ended the war in Germany and accepted the existence of the Protestant princes, although not Calvinism, Anabaptism, or Swiss Reformed.
  • Germany would enjoy relative peace for the next six decades.
  • The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, gave the territories almost complete independence.
  • Francis' House of Habsburg-Lorraine survived the demise of the empire, continuing to reign as Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary until the Habsburg empire's final dissolution in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I.
  • The Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648.

• Administration of the Empire

  • This process began in the 11th century with the Investiture Controversy and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.
  • Without the presence of the king, the old institution of the Hoftag, the assembly of the realm's leading men, deteriorated.
  • The first class, the Council of Electors, consisted of the electors, or the princes who could vote for King of the Romans.
  • In 1356, Emperor Charles IV issued the Golden Bull, which limited the electors to seven: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier.
  • The number of territories in the empire was considerable, rising to about 300 at the time of the Peace of Westphalia.

• Cardinal Mazarin and the Fronde

  • During the negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War, Mazarin (together with the Queen)  represented France with policies that were French rather than Catholic.
  • However, France's signing of the Peace of Westphalia allowed the French army to return from the frontiers and put Paris under siege.
  • The two warring parties signed the Peace of Rueil (1649) after little blood had been shed.
  • The peace lasted until the end of 1649.
  • A few months of hollow peace followed and the court returned to Paris.

• The Hohenzollerns

  • The cadet Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Conrad I, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1186-1261).
  • The House of Hohenzollern came to the throne of Brandenburg in 1415.
  • The electors of Brandenburg spent the next two centuries attempting to gain lands to unite their separate territories (the Mark Brandenburg, the territories in the Rhineland and Westphalia, and Ducal Prussia) to form one geographically contiguous domain.
  • In the Peace of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Brandenburg-Prussia acquired Farther Pomerania and made it the Province of Pomerania.
  • Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg, also called Frederick VI of Nuremberg

• The Rise of Charlemagne

  • Charlemagne is considered the greatest ruler of the Carolingian Dynasty because of the actions he took to bring Europe out of turmoil.
  • Charlemagne was the oldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon.
  • Nearest to Austrasia was Westphalia, and furthest away was Eastphalia.
  • He returned to Saxony in 775, marching through Westphalia and conquering the Saxon fort at Sigiburg.
  • Charlemagne returned through Westphalia, leaving encampments at Sigiburg and Eresburg, which had been important Saxon bastions.

• Introduction to Nation-States

  • Although the definition, origins, and early history of nation state are disputed, nation state remains one of the central categories of the modern world.
  • Anthony Smith, one of the most influential scholars of nation state and nationalism, argued that a state is a nation state only if and when a single ethnic and cultural population inhabits the boundaries of a state, and the boundaries of that state are coextensive with the boundaries of that ethnic and cultural population.
  • Most commonly, the idea of a nation state was and is associated with the rise of the modern system of states, often called the "Westphalian system" in reference to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
  • The creation of national systems of compulsory primary education is usually linked with the popularization of nationalist narratives. 
  • Hardly any of the entities on the map would meet the criteria of the nation state.

• The Pax Romana

  • The Pax Romana, which began under Augustus, was a 200-year period of peace in which Rome experienced minimal expansion by military forces.
  • The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman peace") was a long period of relative peace and minimal expansion by military forces experienced by the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
  • Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (the set of gates to the Temple of Janus, which was closed in times of peace and opened in times of war) three times: first in 29 BCE and again in 25 BCE.
  • The Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace, is one of the best examples of Augustan artistic propaganda and the prime symbol of the new Pax Romana.
  • The theme of peace is seen most notably in the east and west walls of the Ara Pacis, each of which had two panels, although only small fragments remain for one panel on each side.

• The Investiture Controversy

  • In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of popes challenged the authority of European monarchies.
  • It was the fulfillment of the early Middle Ages because in it the acceptance of the Christian religion by the Germanic peoples reached its final and decisive stage…The greater part of the religious and political system of the high Middle Ages emerged out of the events and ideas of the investiture controversy.
  • In 1059 a church council in Rome declared, with In Nomine Domini, that leaders of the nobility would have no part in the selection of popes, and created the College of Cardinals as a body of electors made up entirely of church officials.
  • Once Rome regained control of the election of the pope, it was ready to attack the practice of investiture and simony on a broad front.
  • The Concordat of Worms brought an end to the first phase of the power struggle between the papacy and the Holy Roman emperors, and has been interpreted as containing within itself the germ of nation-based sovereignty that would one day be confirmed in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).