Polycentric diplomacy in practice
Secretary-diplomats and other diplomatic actors of the Habsburg-Spanish Netherlands during and after the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1659).
The project analyse the diplomatic practices of “secondary” actors (mainly secretaries and advisers) of the Spanish Netherlands during and after the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1659). Adopting an embodied approach to the functioning of early modern Habsburg rule, this study sheds light on the little-known group of “secretary-diplomats” while deepening our understanding of the power mechanisms that characterised the polycentric Habsburg monarchy in the seventeenth century.
At the crossroads of several historiographical fields, it focuses on long-term peace negotiations, the role of secretaries and advisers in the consolidation of the early modern State, and the history of the Spanish Netherlands as a so far underestimated diplomatic “centre”.
From an archival point of view, the project is supported by the use of little-studied documents, mainly diplomatic correspondences and papers. The methodological and thematical axes include the study of the institutional framework, the analysis of the daily diplomatic practices of “secondary” actors such as the “secretary-diplomats”, both during and outside the peace conferences, and the trans-regional reassessment of their role, both within the Habsburg territories and beyond.
Illustr.: Detail of Gerard ter Borch, The swearing of the oath of ratification of the treaty of Münster in 1648, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.