Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe

by Simon Winder

The Pope’s bull attacking the Treaty of Westphalia’s religious toleration clauses was simply ignored and he was increasingly viewed as just the inept ruler of a backward Italian state. The anomaly of the Pope’s still being an elected and generally quite elderly figure also caused problems – in the seventeenth century the papacy appeared almost a revolving door for semi-cadavers, with twelve popes in the saddle as against only five Emperors. These men avoided the low comedy of corruption, stabbings and poison enjoyed by their predecessors and were in some cases intelligent and thoughtful figures, but they seldom had much control over events and the world twisted and turned in ways which they were unable to catch up with. None of this is to deny the spectacular vibrancy and aggression of Catholicism itself in the century and a half between the Treaty of Westphalia and the French Revolution, but this was achieved with the Pope’s acquiescence rather than through his leadership.