part went to Brandenburg); but enhanced Swedish strength in this area ensured
continued conflicts with Russia and Poland. Swedish possessions remained fiefs
of the Empire, but in the later seventeenth century a weaker Sweden was unable
to exploit further her foothold in Germany. Brandenburg, Saxony and
Mecklenberg all gained territories, Brandenburg emerging strengthened as a
result of French desires to check Sweden and Austria by means of a ‘third force’
in north Germany. Switzerland and the Netherlands were both mentioned in the
Peace, but excluded from the Empire, clarifying a previously somewhat
ambiguous status; and in January 1648 Spain finally acknowledged the legal
independence of the United Provinces.
Map 4.
Germany after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648
With some exceptions, ‘restitutions’ were based on the status quo of 1618,
although the position was different in the Habsburg hereditary domains: the new
Catholic nobility which had been installed in Bohemia after the Battle of the
White Mountain retained its position. The ‘ecclesiastical reservation’ was
extended to Protestant bishoprics. Rights to exercise religion were based on the
‘normal’ year of 1624. Calvinists were now included, but not sects. Many
western and southern German states accorded a limited degree of toleration to
religious minorities, but religious uniformity was imposed in Austria. Austrian
Habsburg possessions became more unified and consolidated as a result of the
imposition of Catholicism and firm rule from Vienna. The religious boundaries
created by the Peace of Westphalia lasted essentially until the population
upheavals unleashed by the Second World War.
The settlement marked a step in secularisation in the sense of separation of
religion and politics. It had become clear in the course of the conflicts that
religious and political interests did not always neatly overlap: territorial estates
and princes were sometimes more concerned to resist Imperial ambitions than to
adhere to strictly confessional alignments. In future European conflicts, the
balance of power would be a more important consideration than the confessional
complexion of potential allies or enemies. (Mercenary soldiers hardly cared, in
any case, for whose cause they were fighting, so long as they were paid; and
peasants cared not at all whose army it was that ruined their crops, burnt their
houses, and raped the village women.) In a wider sense, too, 1648 marked the
end of the age of confessionalism. Within states, concomitant processes of
centralisation and bureaucratisation of rule partially demoted the earlier
importance of religious-cultural self-definition.
Territorial rulers significantly increased their powers and rights, including
the right to undertake individual alliances and conduct foreign policy
independently of the Empire (subject to the empty restriction that such alliances
must not be directed against the Emperor). They did not quite achieve full
theoretical sovereignty, but rather gained supreme power (
Landeshoheit
) within
their territory, and collective power in the Diet to determine certain matters
(defence, laws, taxes) without Imperial intervention. Certain medium-sized
territories in particular gained in strength. Bavaria secured an electoral vote
(giving a clear Catholic majority in the electoral college), as well as gaining the
territory of the Upper Palatinate, indicative of Bavaria’s enhanced status and role
in the later seventeenth century. Brandenburg and Saxony also emerged as more
important territories. While the Thirty Years War had ensured Habsburg control
of Bohemia, and a strengthened Austria was able to benefit from its wealth and
resources, in the context of other enlarged and politically consolidated states the
authority of the Habsburgs as German Emperors was more fragile.
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