Treaty of Ryswick

The Peace of Rijswijk is the treaty of 1697 by which the Palatine War of Succession was terminated.

By the invasion of Louis XIV in the Palatinate in 1688, founded with a Allodialerbanspruch, broke from the Palatine War of Succession. Against him were 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 Empire and the Upper Rhine circle. In May 1689 went through accession of William of Orange - King of England, and governor of the Netherlands - from the Augsburg League the Grand Alliance forth.

Overview of the treaty

The Peace of Ryswick called contract work includes the individual contracts between the former warring parties.

The Rijswijk clause

In the peace treaty between France and the Holy Roman Empire, on 30 October 1697 Item 4 is considered the so-called Rijswijk clause. The article deals with territorial concessions on the part of France to the Reich. More specifically, it is right bank areas which France returned to the kingdom. Regarding the returned on the right bank of the Rhine to Germany places represents Louis XIV, the condition, so that it remains with the Roman Catholischen religion in which Orthen to be refunded which such shape again as iezo, which means that in these places the Catholic religion must be obtained in the state in which it is located at the time the contract is concluded. By repealing clause in 1734 by Emperor Charles VI. was thus enshrined the religion of these areas as a Catholic.

So the clause concerned areas of the Palatinate and parts of present day states of Rhineland -Palatinate and Saarland, where had existed since the 16th century according to the Peace of Augsburg Lutheran or Reformed churches.

Effects in the Palatinate

The majority of the population of the Palatinate was attached to the Reformed faiths, but the sovereign Johann Wilhelm was a Catholic. By Rijswijk clause it was the Elector now possible to support the Catholic Church and its claims and claims official.

This support went far beyond the causal component security of the Catholic faith also. On October 26, 1698 the Simultaneum was generally introduced, whereby Catholics contractual rights of all religious institutions and possessions, such as churches and cemeteries, which were originally only the Reformed congregations were peculiar. In contrast, the Reformed were denied the right to use Catholic possessions. Furthermore, in June the following year, 1699, the Administration Commission shall be established, which abolished the autonomous Church property management of Reformed congregations and placed under sovereign control. Through these administrative- sovereign decisions of the Reformed churches were forced into a subordinate position by the sovereign benevolence.

In 1695 a Lutheran conference with the participation of the parish priest Johann Philipp Schlosser Although reaching a relaxation of the rules, however, which led to the division and opposition of the Reformed Church in the Palatinate. The Lutheran Church has received the independent church administration back detected and also financial independence from the Reformed Churches. This was the ruler of Churches Johann Wilhelm guilty accountable and also dependent on its goodwill. The other Reformed churches were subject to further review by the elector.

1705 was the elimination of conflicts between Protestants and Catholics by the so-called Kurpfälzische Religion Declaration, which came about at the instigation of Brandenburg-Prussia. This was the Simultaneum, made ​​the division of the Palatine church property back. However, the Lutheran Church had to forego in return for concessions granted (see 1695), thus favoring the Catholics and the Reformed discrimination in the Reformed Palatinate had more inventory.