Westphalia: The Peace That Made the Modern State System

The 1648 settlement ended the Thirty Years War and is credited with inventing sovereignty as we know it, states supreme within borders, equal in law, free from external authority.

Historians debate how new it truly was, the papacy was already weakened and cities had long practiced autonomy.

But the myth and the machinery, resident ambassadors, balance of power, secular law among states, all trace to Westphalia.