Diplomacy and Confession. Religious language in the political communication at the Westphalian Peace Congress (1645–1648)

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While the peace treaties of Münster and Osnabrück are considered to be among the intensively researched sources of the early modern period, the Congress that preceded them has only received attention in recent diplomatic historiography and cultural-historical peace research. Instead of concentrating on macro-historical figures such as states and rulers, the multi-perspectival approaches increasingly focus on the diplomatic actors on site, which in a striking way also leads to the reception of impulses from neighboring disciplines. However, a theological monograph based on the current state of cultural-historical research has not yet been published to this day. In particular, the genesis of religious law (Art. V and VII IPO) and the role of denominational corpora in the diplomatic negotiations are among the most urgent research desiderata. Against this background, the project reconstructs the negotiations with regard to religious language, biblical references and perception of confessional difference on the basis of relevant congress files in order to make a theological contribution to the historical assessment of the Westphalian Peace Congress. It combines research approaches from the field of cultural history of the political with an integrative understanding of church history that is able to include extra-church realities of Christianity and their secular transformations. On this basis, confessional-political legitimation strategies and religious-ethical concepts of peace can be analyzed in a differentiated manner and understood as contributions to the early modern culture of conflict and peace that made the Westphalian Congress a historical milestone.