Abstract

The peace of Munster, signed between the Catholic Monarchy and the United Provinces in 1648, went, at least apparently, against the political culture of both polities. The fact that the Hispanic Monarchy accepted definitively, without the restrictions implied in the signing of the Twelve Years' Truce (temporality of the agreement), the independence of its former subjects (who rejected not only the obedience due to the natural lord, but also to the Roman Catholic Church) went clearly against the policy put forward by the Monarchy during the “eighty” years that the war lasted and, in general, to its declared main goals. For the United Provinces, signing a peace with the archenemy without having brought liberty and Calvinism/religious freedom to ten of the seventeen th provinces that formed part of the ancient Burgundian circle was also considered , at by important groups in the “rebel” provinces, as a defection.

The main goal of the present dissertation is to analyse in to which extent the views held in both territories differed concerning the varied points which were discussed in the pamphlets and treatises published during the peace negotiations, their origins and their implications in the diplomatic negotiations. Another objective is to see in to which extent the peace was really a withdrawal from the general policy put forward previously in both territories, especially in the case of the Catholic Monarchy, and if the peace was expected to last when it was signed , as it did in fact do .

The negotiations themselves have already been studied in the already classical work by J. Poelhekke, De Vrede van Munster, but this work does not investigate in depth the parallel discussion held in the public sphere during the negotiation s , despite the fact that in a paper published in 1897, P. Blok already hinted at the importance of the vlugschriften around the Peace of Munster. In Spain the peace has received much less attention, in part because it lacks the importance as a founding moment of the polity and also because apparently it has been considered as the acceptance of the impossibility of the Imperial dream. In the present work, I will explore the different arguments of both sides, analysing their origin and how they were transformed during the period under study, as well as their influence, or presence, in the diplomatic negotiations held between the plenipotenciaries of the United Provinces and the Catholic Monarchy.

The first chapter will concentrate on the general political and intellectual context of the time. This analysis will mainly rely on secondary sources such as the numerous monographs published in the German entourage about the Peace of Wesphalia. Only taking into account the warfare events, as well as the evolution that both the Catholic and Protestant political theorists, that were taking part in Western Europe, especially in the Empire, but also in France, underwent can the negotiation held by the “Spaniards” and the “Dutch” be understood completely.

The second chapter will explore the relationship of the different authors , whose treatises and pamphlets form the core of the sources of the dissertation , with the political groups and main persons who had a say (the key actors?) in the diplomatic negotiations. The spread of different(various, or perhaps leave out) political works in different territories (an example of the circulation of ideas in Christendom?), the quite different relation (relationship between leading actors/ the authorities (newly added suggestion) / and the printed press) with the printed press in the Dutch Republic and the Hispanic Monarchy will also be studied. The case of the Catholic Monarchy can be explored thanks to an interesting source in which the Consejo de Estado, (the) main governmental body of the Monarchy, analysed the possible strategies to adopt in order to (perhaps respond to instead of answer back/to?) answer one pamphlet spread out in the (depend on what you mean, is Southern Provinces something like the USA, North Holland or the United Provinces, than you would probably use a capital if you use it as the provinces in the south of the netherlands than you probably don't) S outhern Provinces (which is one of the ones (pamphlets) kept in the KB collection, catalogued by Knuttel). This source offers the possibility of verifying who had a say in the general strategy of the Monarchy and how the ministers of the King faced the “printed poison”.

In the following chapters, the main concepts that appeared in the political discussion will be studied.

First of all, the different concepts of authority in the Catholic Monarchy and the United Provinces will be looked at. The necessity of/for the Dutch Republic of organising/to organise its political functioning through (due to? Depends on what you're saying) a number of internal strives and negotiations, offers an insight into its development. The way in which the Hispanic concept of the King's authority was rejected by the United Provinces and the different attempts of the Monarchy to play with the lack of a clearly established “division of competences” within the Republic between the States General and the Stadholder, which the Catholic Monarchy tried to use in its own advantage, as well as the relation of(/between?) political and religious powers, were also main aspects in the different stages of the peace negotiations and, especially in the case of the United Provinces, in the polemic literature produced around them.

Afterwards, the different understandings of “rebellion” will be analysed, integrating the case of the Catalans, who, stirring up against the Habsburg dominium in 1640, took a completely different path of action than the “rebels” of the north. The different answers of the Catholic Monarchy to both cases, in the theoretical works as well as in the practice of the negotiations will allow me to see/ analyse? in to which extent the Monarchy was ready to change its conception of the inhabitants of the United Provinces. The way in which rebellion in general was considered both in the Dutch Republic and in the Principality of Catalonia will also be studied, showing in to which extent rebellion was a concept generally rejected in all the political languages of the time and, in case it took place, who were the authorities entitled to develop the resistance to the “natural lord”.

The following chapter will deal with the opposite argument, the “tyranny”, as it/which was the main way of justifying the rebellion. However, the Catholic Monarchy also developed a conceptualisation of tyranny and tyrants , that clearly shaped the way in which the different claims made/ done by the provinces turning (which turned) down the Hispanic rule, were rejected. The division elaborated by Bartolo de Sassoferrato, developing Aristotelian and Thomist considerations, offers the base to distinguish these different (conceptions of tyrants and tyranny?) considerations of what had to be understood as a tyrant, possibly making feasible a division according to religious confession. The way in which the different governmental bodies were depicted , shaped also the way in which the peace - negotiations were addressed and where and how they could take place.

The problem of sovereignty was another important aspect of the struggle between the Catholic Monarchy and its former subjects. Each of them relying on the/ a different understandings of the same term, one firmly based on the medieval use of the concept and the other relying more on the elaboration of the term done(perhaps delete) by Jean Bodin and quickly adopted (and adapted) by Dutch polemist and political thinkers (St Aldegonde, Grotius), one of the most vivid discussions during the peace negotiations can be assessed. (what are you saying in this sentence? Perhaps it's best to split it into two, by realising the different meanings given to these central term(s) one of the most vivid discussion........assessed). The problems for (associated with?) granting of full sovereignty to the Dutch Republic by the Hispanic Monarchy, especially in the negotiations that took place at the beginning of the 1630s, as well as the discussion around the cession of “temporal and spiritual sovereignty” over the Majerij of Hertogenbosch in Munster can only be understood in view of these different traditions.

Finally, the issue of religion has also to be discussed as well. As one of the main reasons for the development of the Dutch revolt, it was one of the aspects constantly present during the “eighty years” that the war lasted. Moreover, the fact that both polities conceived themselves and their war in religious terms, maybe in a more definite way (sense?) than others in the Christendom, shaped the way the different political options could be expressed, defended and justified. The way in which it was possible in that situation to deal with policies of (limited) tolerance, as well as the presence of attempts of religious imposition will also be studied and put in relation with (related to?) the peace negotiations, in which the status to be granted to Catholics in the different Provinces was a candent topic.

Through this work my aim is to portray the political culture of both the Catholic Monarchy and the United Provinces, inserting them in the wider framework of a Christianity that had to reassess its own values as a consequence of the Confessionalisation process, a situation made especially dangerous through the Thirty Years' War, that affected not only the Empire but, in one way or another, all Central and Western Europe.