Peace of Westphalia

Map showing European borders in 1648

Holy Roman Empire in 1648

The power asserted by Ferdinand III was stripped from him and returned to the rulers of the Imperial States. The rulers of the Imperial States could henceforth choose their own official religions. Catholics and Protestants were redefined as equal before the law, and Calvinism was given legal recognition as an official religion.[15][16] The independence of the Dutch Republic, which practiced religious toleration, also provided a safe haven for European Jews.[17]

The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" in the bull Zelo Domus Dei.[18][19]

The main tenets of the Peace of Westphalia were:

• All parties would recognise the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio). The options were Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism.[15][16]
• Christians living in principalities where their denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in private, as well as in public during allotted hours.[20]
• France and Sweden were recognised as guarantors of the imperial constitution with a right to intercede.[21]

It is often argued that the Peace of Westphalia resulted in a general recognition of the exclusive sovereignty of each party over its lands, people, and agents abroad, as well as responsibility for the warlike acts of any of its citizens or agents.

• The Old Swiss Confederacy was formally recognised as independent from the Holy Roman Empire, after decades of de facto independence.
• The Dutch Republic, which had declared its independence from Spain in 1581, was formally recognised as a fully independent state from both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
• France retained the Bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun near Lorraine, received the cities of the Décapole in Alsace (except for Strasbourg, the Bishopric of Strasbourg, and Mulhouse) and the city of Pignerol near the Spanish Duchy of Milan.
• Sweden received an indemnity of five million thalers, which it used primarily to pay its troops.[22] Sweden further received Western Pomerania (thenceforth Swedish Pomerania), Wismar, and the Prince-Bishoprics of Bremen and Verden as hereditary fiefs, thus gaining a seat and vote in the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire as well as in the Upper Saxon, Lower Saxon and Westphalian circle diets (Kreistage).[23] However, the wording of the treaties was ambiguous:

• To escape incorporation into Swedish Bremen-Verden, the city of Bremen had claimed Imperial immediacy. The emperor had granted this request and separated the city from the surrounding Bishopric of Bremen. Sweden launched the Swedish-Bremen wars in 1653/54 in a failed attempt to take the city.[24]
• The treaty did not decide the Swedish-Brandenburgian border in the Duchy of Pomerania. At Osnabrück, both Sweden and Brandenburg had claimed the whole duchy, which had been under Swedish control since 1630 despite legal claims of Brandenburgian succession. While the parties settled for a border in 1653, the underlying conflict continued.[25]
• The treaty ruled that the Dukes of Mecklenburg, owing their re-investiture to the Swedes, cede Wismar and the Mecklenburgian port tolls. While Sweden understood this to include the tolls of all Mecklenburgian ports, the Mecklenburgian dukes as well as the emperor understood this to refer to Wismar only.[25]
• Wildeshausen, a petty exclave of Bremen-Verden and fragile basis for Sweden's seat in the Westphalian circle diet, was also claimed by the Bishopric of Münster.[25]

• Bavaria retained the Palatinate's vote in the Electoral College of the Holy Roman Empire, which it was granted by the imperial ban on the Elector Palatine Frederick V in 1623. The Prince Palatine, Frederick's son, was given a new, eighth electoral vote.
• The Palatinate was divided between the re-established Elector Palatine Charles Louis (son and heir of Frederick V) and Elector-Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and thus between the Protestants and Catholics. Charles Louis obtained the Lower Palatinate, along the Rhine, while Maximilian kept the Upper Palatinate, to the north of Bavaria.
• Brandenburg-Prussia received Farther Pomerania, and the Bishoprics of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Kammin, and Minden.
• The succession to the Jülich-Cleves-Berg, whose last duke had died in 1609, was clarified. Jülich, Berg, and Ravenstein were given to the Count Palatine of Neuburg, while Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg went to Brandenburg.
• The Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück would alternate between Catholic and Lutheran bishops, with the Protestant bishops chosen from the cadets of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
• Barriers to trade and commerce erected during the war were abolished, and "a degree" of free navigation was guaranteed on the Rhine.[26]

Scholars of international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern international relations, including the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. This system became known in the literature as Westphalian sovereignty.[27] Although scholars have challenged the association with the Peace of Westphalia,[28] the debate is still structured around the concept of Westphalian sovereignty.

However, scholars have challenged the view that the modern European states system originated with the Westphalian treaties. The treaties do not contain anything in their text about religious freedom, sovereignty, or balance of power that can be construed as international law principles. Constitutional arrangements of the Holy Roman Empire are the only context in which sovereignty and religious equality are mentioned in the text, but they are not new ideas in this context. While the treaties do not contain the basis for the modern laws of nations themselves, they do symbolize the end of a long period of religious conflict in Europe.[29]