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7 - Peacemaking in Renaissance Europe

from Part I - International Law in Renaissance Europe (1492–1660)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2025

By
Randall Lesaffer
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
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Summary

In the great treatises of Gentili and Grotius, the law regulating the ending of war and the restoration were discussed as the third, chronological and logical part of the laws of war. Their conceptualisation of peace was premised on their conceptualisation of war either as an instrument for the vindication of justice or as the settlement of disputes about right. The chapter explains how these theories, and in particular the latter conception, reflected the practices of peacemaking in peace treaties well, focusing on such major issues as the temporal and spatial dimensions of peace, territorial disputes and the place of communitarian interests in a logic that was geared towards the settlement and appeasement of bilateral disputes over dynastic rights.

Keywords

Renaissance Europelaw of nationsjus post bellumpeace treatiesjurisprudence
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 232 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Dickmann, Fritz, Der Westfälische Friede (6th edn, Münster: Aschendorff 1992).Google Scholar
Dingel, Irene, Rohrschneider, Michael, Schmidt-Voges, Inken, Westphal, Siegrid and Whaley, Joachim (eds.), Handbuch Frieden im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit/Handbook of Peace in Early Modern Europe (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020).Google Scholar
Fisch, Jörg, Krieg und Frieden im Friedensvertrag. Eine universalgeschichtliche Studie über Grundlagen und Formelemente des Friedensschlusses (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1979).Google Scholar
Fisch, Jörg, Die europäische Expansion und das Völkerrecht. Die Auseinandersetzungen um den Status der überseeischen Gebiete vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Steiner 1984).Google Scholar
Haan, Bertrand, Une paix pour l’éternité. La négociation du traité du Cateau-Cambrésis (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez 2010).Google Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, ‘Peace treaties from Lodi to Westphalia’ in Lesaffer, Randall (ed.), Peace Treaties and International Law in European History. From the End of the Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004) 7–41.Google Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, ‘Alberico Gentili’s ius post bellum and early modern peace treaties’ in Kingsbury, Benedict and Straumann, Benjamin (eds.), The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations. Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010) 210–40.Google Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, ‘The lore and laws of peacemaking in early-modern and nineteenth-century peace treaties’ in Weller, Marc, Retter, Mark and Varga, Andrea (eds.), International Law and Peace Settlements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021) 46–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, and Broers, Erik-Jan, ‘Private property in the Dutch-Spanish Peace Treaty of Münster (30 January 1648)’ in Jucker, Michael, Kinzinger, Martin and Schwinges, Rainer Christoph (eds.), Rechtsformen internationaler Politik. Theorie, Norm und Praxis vom 12. bis 18. Jahrhundert (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 45, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2011) 165–95.Google Scholar
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Wijffels, Alain, ‘The Anglo-Spanish Peace Treaty of 1604: a rehearsal for Belgian diplomats?’ in Lesaffer, Randall (ed.), The Twelve Years Truce (1609). Peace, Truce, and War in the Low Countries at the Turn of the 17th Century (Leiden and Boston: Brill/Nijhoff 2014) 69–86.Google Scholar
Wijffels, Alain, ‘The jus post bellum: cornerstone of Gentili’s De iure belli?’ in Lacchè, Luigi and Lavenia, Vicenzo (eds.), Alberico Gentili e lo jus post bellum. Prospettive tra diritto e storia. Atti del convegno della XVIII Giornata Gentiliana, San Ginesio, 21–22 settembre 2018 (Macerata: EUM 2020) 17–35.Google Scholar
Wilangowski, Gesa, Frieden schreiben im Spätmittelalter. Entstehung einer Vertragsdiplomatie zwischen Maximilian I., dem römisch-deutschen Reich und Frankreich (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, Karl-Heinz, ‘The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties’ in Lesaffer, Randall (ed.), Peace Treaties and International Law in European History. From the End of the Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004) 147–61.Google Scholar

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