Peace of Rijswijk
The Peace of Rijswijk is the treaty from 1697 that ended the War of the Palatinate Succession .
With the invasion of the Palatinate by Louis XIV in 1688, based on an allodial hereditary claim , the Palatinate War of Succession broke out. Against him stood the members of the Augsburg Alliance , an alliance of Emperor Leopold I , the kings Charles II of Spain and Charles XI. of Sweden , the Elector Maximilian II. Emanuel of Bavaria and the members of the Frankish and Upper Rhine Empire . In May 1689, when William of Orange - King of England and governor of the Netherlands - joined the Augsburg League, theGreat alliance emerges.
Overview of the contract
The treaty referred to as the Peace of Rijswijk (in older sources also the Peace of Ryswick ) comprises the individual agreements between the former warring parties.
- Treaty between France and England (September 20, 1697)
End of the war, restitution of the respective conquests, recognition of the kingship of William III. as King of England through France, France promised not to do anything against this kingship. - Treaty between France and the Netherlands (September 20, 1697)
End of the war, renunciation of all old and new claims, restitution of Pondichéry in East India to France, conclusion of a trade agreement. - Treaty between France and Spain (September 20, 1697)
End of the war, restitution of Barcelona , Girona , Roses , Bellver de Cerdanya ( Comarca Cerdanya ), all reunions accomplished in the Spanish provinces (e.g. Luxembourg , Brabant ), near France some landscapes remain on the Catalan border, such as the west of St. Domingos , Dinant goes to the Bishop of Liège , Ponza island is given to the Duke of Parma . - Treaty between France and Emperor Leopold I and the Holy Roman Empire (October 30, 1697)
End of the war, return of all reunions and conquests of France to the empire with the exception of Alsace , provisions of the Peace of Nijmegen 1678/1679 regarding the supply of French reunions over imperial territories are canceled, after previous notification the fastest possible access must now be made possible, the bishop of Strasbourg is reinstated, renunciation of the prince-bishopric of Liège in favor of the Cologne elector Joseph Clemens , the clarification of the further procedure with the Palatinate inheritance goes to Pope Innocent XII. delegated, Strasbourg will be French forever, residents of the new French territories are allowed to emigrate within a year, no new Rhine tariffs.
The Rijswijker Clause
In the peace treaty between France and the Holy Roman Empire of October 30, 1697, Article 4 is the so-called Rijswijker Clause . The article deals with the cession of territory by France to the Empire. More precisely, these are areas on the right bank of the Rhine, which France is restoring to the Reich. Regarding the places returned to Germany on the right bank of the Rhine, Louis XIV stipulates that the Roman Catholic religion, in which Orthen which such a shape should be restored, remains as it is iezo , ie that in these places the Catholic religion Religion must be preserved in the state in which it is at the time the contract is concluded. Until the repeal of the clause in 1734 by Emperor Charles VI. the religion of these areas was thereby established as Catholic.
The clause thus concerned areas of the Electoral Palatinate as well as parts of today's federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, in which Lutheran or Reformed regional churches had existed since the 16th century according to the Augsburg religious peace.
Effects in the Electoral Palatinate
The majority of the population of the Electoral Palatinate adhered to the Reformed faiths , the sovereign Johann Wilhelm, however, was a Catholic. The Rijswijker Clause made it possible for the Elector to officially support the Catholic Church and its demands and claims.
This support went far beyond the causal security of the Catholic faith. On October 26, 1689, the Simultaneum was generally introduced, giving Catholics a contractual right to use all ecclesiastical institutions and properties, such as churches and cemeteries, which were originally unique to the Reformed communities. In contrast, the Reformed were denied the right to use Catholic property. Furthermore, in June of the following year, 1690, the administration commission was set up, which abolished the autonomous church property administration of the reformed congregations and placed it under sovereign control. Through these administrative and sovereign resolutions, the Reformed churches were forced into a relationship of dependency on the sovereign benevolence.
In 1695, a Lutheran conference with the participation of Pastor Johann Philipp Schlosser achieved a softening of the regulations, but this led to the division and opposition of the Reformed Church in the Palatinate. The Lutheran Church was recognized as having its own church administration and was also given financial independence from the Reformed Council of Churches. This council of churches was accountable to the sovereign Johann Wilhelm and also dependent on his goodwill. The remaining Reformed churches continued to be under the control of the elector.
In 1705 the conflict between the Reformed and Catholics was resolved by the so-called Electoral Palatinate Declaration of Religion , which came about at the instigation of Brandenburg-Prussia . This reversed the Simultaneum, the division of the Palatinate church property. In return, however, the Lutheran Church had to forego granted concessions (cf. 1695), whereby the preference for Catholics and disadvantage for the Reformed in the Reformed Palatinate continued to exist.
literature
- Helmuth KG Rönnefarth: Conferences and contracts. Contract Ploetz. A handbook of historically significant meetings and agreements . 3rd volume. Part 2: Modern Times 1492-1914 . 2nd expanded and changed edition. Ploetz, Würzburg et al. 1958.
- Heinz Duchhardt (Ed.): The Peace of Rijswijk 1697 . von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2522-3 , ( publications of the Institute for European History, Mainz supplement 47).
- Heinz Schilling : German history . Volume 6: Courtyards and Alliances - Germany 1648–1763 . Siedler, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-442-75523-9 , ( Siedler Taschenbuch 75523).
Web links
- The peace treaties of Rijswijk on European peace treaties of the premodern online
- Johann C. Neuhaus, (Ed.) Freiburg im Breisgau, 1873, Herder The Peace of Ryswick and the cession of Strasbourg to France ': 1697; mostly based on unprinted legation reports and meeting minutes, shown online at the Munich digitization center