Ferdinand II
Emperor named in the peace of 1648 as the first party to the war on the imperial side. His Edict of Restitution of 1629 ordered Protestants to give back the church lands they had taken since 1552; the peace of 1648, made after his death, set that edict aside.
The Edict of Restitution is issued in his name as elected Roman emperor, at Vienna on 6 March 1629, in what it calls the tenth year of his reign over the Empire and the twelfth over Bohemia (Edict of Restitution (1629) opening and dating clause; order to the commissioners). In it he sets out the Catholic reading of the Religious Peace of 1555 and sends commissioners to recover the bishoprics, monasteries and church property lost since the Treaty of Passau (Edict of Restitution (1629) opening and dating clause; order to the commissioners).
The treaty of Osnabrück names him as the emperor against whom King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden went to war, and says that the war went on under his successor Ferdinand III after both men had died (Treaty of Osnabrück preamble). The same treaty fixed 1 January 1624 as the date for the possession of church property and forbade anyone to invoke the edict of 1629 against the peace (Treaty of Osnabrück art. 5, §2; art. 17, §3). See the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia.
In the timeline
- 1618 to 1648, firm dateThe Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia
A revolt of Bohemian Protestants in 1618 grows into a war that draws in all Germany and its neighbours. The treaties of Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 fix the rights of Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed in the Empire by the year 1624; the pope declares those articles void.
Primary sources
The Edict of Restitution
- Edict of Restitution (1629) opening and dating clause; order to the commissionersgermanhistorydocs.org
The Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis)
- Treaty of Osnabrück preamblela.wikisource.org
- Treaty of Osnabrück art. 5, §2; art. 17, §3germanhistorydocs.org