The Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis)
The peace between the emperor Ferdinand III and Queen Christina of Sweden, with their allies, dated at Osnabrück on 14/24 October 1648. Its fifth and seventh articles settle the rights of Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed in the Holy Roman Empire.
Read the text at germanhistorydocs.org ↗Complete Latin text of both treaties (Wikisource), with an anchor for each article ↗
The treaty was negotiated at Osnabrück while the emperor treated with France at Münster, and the two instruments bear the same day. The preamble recalls that the war arose first between the emperor Ferdinand II and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and continued under their successors. Its date is given in both calendars, 14 October in the old style and 24 October in the new.
Article 5 deals with the religious grievances. It confirms the Treaty of Passau and the Religious Peace of 1555, lays down equality between the estates of the two religions, makes 1 January 1624 the date for the restitution of church property, and protects subjects whose religion differs from their ruler’s. Article 7 extends the same rights to the Reformed and excludes every other religion from the Empire. Article 17 makes the treaty a perpetual law of the Empire and forbids anyone to plead canon law, council decrees, the edict of 1629 or concordats with the popes against it.
The treaty is the law itself and is cited in the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia for its terms. How far and how quickly they were carried out is a separate question.
Cited in
- 1618 to 1648, firm date