Peace talks and treaties in periodical news reviews, 1598–1614

After decades of civil and international warfare with a large element of religious or confessional justification, the years 1598–1614 saw a series of agreements knit together a short-lived European peace that would unravel after 1618. The most significant such agreements were the Peace of Vervins (1598), the Treaty of London (1604), and the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609). The period saw many other peace treaties: that of Lyon (1601), ending the French-Savoyard conflict over Saluzzo; Mellifont (1603) ending the Nine Years’ War in Ireland; Zsitvatorok (1606) ending the Long Turkish War in south-eastern Europe; Vienna (1606) ending Bocskay’s Revolt in Hungary; Libeň (1608) that sought to end the intradynastic quarrel between Archduke Matthias and Rudolf II; the Polish-Swedish truce (1611) that suspended hostilities over Livonia; Knäred (1613) that ended the War of Kalmar; and Xanten (1614) that concluded the wars for Jülich and Kleve. Given the confessional nature of many conflicts, treaties were often accompanied by agreements regarding religious toleration or coexistence (in France, Hungary, Austria and Bohemia), or (in England and Spain) the moderation of religious persecution with a rejection of principled toleration. This paper will consider how news of such peace-making was covered in a type of periodical often mentioned but that has received very little sustained consideration in English-language historiography: the annual or biannual news review, such as the Mercurius Gallobelgicus that began publication in 1592, or the Historicae Relationis that began publication in 1583. In the years around 1600, several such reviews were launched in Cologne, Frankfurt, and elsewhere, some competing under near-identical titles, with older library catalogues not always careful to distinguish them. Their different confessional allegiances are sometimes apparent in their coverage not only of war, but also of peace-making. A comparison of reports on the 1606 treaties of Vienna and Zsitvatorok show both confessionally motivated obfuscation and intercultural miscommunication at work in Dutch, French, English and German summaries of the articles agreed.