WESTPHALIA, Peace of. the treatycon eluded in 1648 at Minister and Os-nabrfick, West phalia (q.v ), which ended the Thirty Years' War and established a new political system in Europe. After preliminaries had been settled at Hamburg toward the end of 1641 the actual negotiations werebegun in at Osnabrfick, between the empire, Sweden and the Protestant states, at Munster between the empire, France and other foreign powers. Two treaties were drawn up, one at Osnabriick, signed 6 Aug. 1648, and one at Munster, signed 24 Oct. 1648, Peace was restored with the signing of the lat ter. By this peace the religions and political state of Germany was settled. The &over• eighty of the members of the empire was ac knowledged. They received the right of con cluding treaties among themselves and with for eign powers, only not against the emperor and empire. Their consent was made necessary to enable the emperor to put any of the members under the ban. The concessions that had been made to the Protestants since the religious peace in 1555 were confirmed. The form of public worship and the right to secularize ecclesiastical benefices acre to return to what they were at the beginning of the so-called normal year 1624 The Calvinists (Ftefo•mirten) received equal rights with the adherents of the Augsburg Con fession or the Lutherans. The elector-palatine
had the palatinate of the Rhine and the elector ate restored to him; Alsace was ceded to France; Sweden received western Pomerania, Bremen, Vet-den, Wismar and a sum equal to $3,750,000; Brandenburg, Meekkosburg, Han over and Brunswick were coin compensated by the secularization of numerous esiastical foun dations. Germany lost altogether more than 40,000 square miles of territory and about 4500,000 Inhabitants. The independence of the United Provinces was recognised by Spain, and that of Switzerland by the empire. The sol emn protest of Pope Innocent X against these terms, particularly in respect of the seculariza tion of bishoprics and abbeys, etc., was not re garded; but the complete execution of the treaty was obstructed by many difficulties.