Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Westphalia, Peace of

WESTPHALIA, PEACE OF, the name given to the peace concluded in 1648 at Münster and Osnabrück, by which an end was put to the Thirty Years' War. By this peace the sovereignty of the members of the empire was acknowledged. The concessions that had been made to the Protestants since the religious peace in 1555 were confirmed. The elector-palatine had the palatinate of the Rhine and the electorate restored to him; Alsace was ceded to France; Sweden received western Pomerania, Bremen, Verden, Wismar, and a sum equal to $3,750,000; Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Hanover, and Brunswick were compensated by the secularization of numerous ecclesiastical foundations. The independence of the United Provinces was recognized by Spain, and that of Switzerland by the empire. See Thirty Years' War.