Laura Manzano Baena,Conflicting Words: The Peace Treaty of Münster (1648) and the Political Culture of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Monarchy

Reviewed by: René Vermeir, Ghent University, Belgium

Over the past few decades the negotiations that led to the 1648 Peace of Münster have been the subject of thorough historical investigations. However, anyone who believes that they have read everything that can be said about the talks that brought an end to a conflict that lasted eighty years should pick up Laura Manzano’s book and think again. Manzano uses an original approach and succeeds in presenting the peace process from a new point of view.

The aim of her volume is to analyse why the Peace of Münster was signed, considering, says the author, that it went against the declared political and transcendental goals of both the Spanish Monarchy and the Dutch Republic. She argues that the political-ideological undercurrents in Spain and in the rebellious provinces were – in essence – such that a treaty was inherently impossible, and that it was therefore quite remarkable that The Hague and Madrid nevertheless reached an agreement. Internally, the debate was conducted in both states through a wide range of media such as pamphlets, treatises, private or political correspondence and plays – all of which present similar, congruent arguments. According to Manzano, these articulations expressed widespread assumptions and political belief systems, understood as a set of values defining the self-positioning of a polity and its room for manoeuvring in the political arena, and they served to condition politics.

In order to reconstruct the value systems of both sides, Manzano analyses their respective understanding of concepts such as ‘rebellion’, ‘tyranny’, ‘authority’, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘religious coexistence’. The ways in which Spanish and Dutch divergent convictions regarded these terms had an impact on how the negotiations were carried out – to the point, according to Manzano, of endangering their successful outcome. In this sense, her approach is similar to that employed in Nederlandse begripsgeschiedenis, a series of five works about fundamental concepts in the history of the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands published by Amsterdam University Press between 1999 and 2009.

However, we must question whether the religious-ideological framework that Manzano so minutely mapped, was indeed the expression of an important social undercurrent that could not be ignored, or if it was simply a reflection of an official creed. This can certainly be asked with regard to the Spanish, since in the Spanish-Habsburg world, unlike in the Dutch Republic, the press was strictly controlled and both official censorship and self-censorship weighed heavily on public discourse. Confronting the political rhetoric employed at the time with the concrete positions taken at the negotiating table may have shown that ideas and deed did not always coincide. This is perhaps one of the weaker aspects of this book: Manzano has not always paid sufficient attention to the insights provided by previous research and as a result she sometimes fails to recognize the problems inherent in her own assumptions.

Manzano’s contention that the Spanish Monarchy was not prepared to negotiate on the issue of public worship for Catholics in the Generality Lands and in the United Provinces as a whole – effectively the opposite stance from that of Jonathan Israel (170, 223) – and her firm emphasis on the religious aspect on the part of Spain more generally does not stand up to scrutiny. If, for example, the author had paid more attention to the negotiations that led to the Twelve Years’ Truce and its implementation, and the concessions that Philip III had already made regarding the position of Catholics in the Republic and the Generality Lands, she may have produced a more nuanced assessment of the role that religion played in the Spanish camp. Manzano appears to be unaware of the work done by W. Eysinga on the Twelve Years’ Truce. Nor did she employ the results of other recent studies on the Truce and on the final phase of the Eighty Years War and the parallel peace talks in her analysis – truly a missed opportunity.

There is now clear evidence that the Spanish struggle to protect the interests of Catholics in the Republic and the Generality Lands was not conducted for the sake of the one true faith alone. In 1637, when the head of the church in the Southern Netherlands expressly called on Madrid to accept a religious compromise, so that the many Catholics in the Generality Lands could enjoy minimal rights, Philip IV and his first minister Olivares did not even consider it. Olivares’s confidant and factotum in Brussels, the chief-president of the Privy Council, Pierre Roose, made no secret of the fact that he was resolutely opposed to religious toleration in the Republic, precisely because it would cause the hatred that northern Catholics had for the Calvinist authorities to weaken – and by extension, their support and sympathy for the Spanish cause.

The deciding factor in Spain’s policies concerning war or peace with the Republic is undoubtedly the Spanish monarchy’s desire to preserve its great power status. The successive governor-generals that ruled the Habsburg Netherlands since 1621 – including some prominent scions of the House of Habsburg – experienced the negative consequences of this policy at first hand, especially after France appeared on the battlefield in 1635. Without exception, they advocated the conclusion of a peace treaty, even though that would require far-reaching concessions from Spain, but Madrid refused to listen until, of course, it was too late.

Although this book is certainly not overly long, its arguments might have been strengthened had certain aspects been more concisely presented. At times, the author devotes many pages to discussing aspects that have already been extensively covered in previous studies by other researchers, such as Poelhekke and Israel. Nevertheless, this does not distract from the essence of this work, namely, the analysis of the religious-ideological context in which the Münster peace negotiations took place. The book constitutes an innovative and valuable addition to the insights that previous studies focusing on military, political and diplomatic aspects have provided. Laura Manzano’s study allows us to reconsider known facts and developments from a new perspective, and that is its merit.