5408 AM · 1648 CE · world history
The Peace of Westphalia
The treaties of Münster and Osnabrück end the Thirty Years' War and fix the equality of states.
The negotiations run five years in two Westphalian cities — with the Catholic and Protestant sides treated separately — and end a war that had depopulated much of Germany. The princes' right to determine the confession of their lands is confirmed, with Calvinists added to Catholics and Lutherans; Switzerland and the Netherlands leave the empire. Imperial authority weakens; France and Sweden grow stronger. Later generations would see in these treaties the beginning of an order in which states recognise each other's borders and do not meddle in each other's internal affairs.