Article Extract:

The toleration and recognition won by the Protestant states of Europe after prevailing over Catholic forces in the Thirty Years War (1618-48) meant the rejection of the hierarchy that stemmed from the authority of the pope and Catholic Church and the establishment of a system “characterized by the coexistence of a multiplicity of states, each sovereign within its territory, equal to one another, and free from any external earthly authority.” This political and doctrinal development did not take place in a vacuum; it represented the outcome of medieval reflections on the relationship between individuals and the natural and divine order…