The chief articles of this important treaty may be made to fall under two heads: ( 1 ) those relating to territorial boundaries, and (2) those respecting religion.
As to the first, these cut short in three directions the actual or nominal limits of the Holy Roman Empire. Switzerland and the tinted Netherlands were severed from it; for though both of these countries had been for a long time practically independent of the empire, this independence had never been acknowledged in any formal way. The claim of France to the three cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine, which places she had held for about a century, was confirmed, and a great part of Alsace was given to her. Thus on the west, on the southwest, and on the northwest, the empire suffered loss.
Sweden was given cities and territories in Northern Germany which gave her control of a long strip of the Baltic shore, a most valuable possession. But these lands were not given to the Swedish king in full sovereignty; they still remained a part of the Germanic body, and the king of Sweden as to them became a prince of the empire.
The changes within the empire were many, and some of them important. Brandenburg especially received considerable additions of territory.
The articles respecting religion were even more important than those which established the metes and bounds of the different states. Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were all put upon the same footing. The Protestants were to retain all the benefices and Church property of which they had possession in 1624. Every prince was to have the right to make his religion the religion of his people, and to banish all who refused to adopt the established creed: but such non-conformists were to have three years in which to emigrate.
The different states of the empire were left almost independent of the emperor. They were given the right to form alliances with one another and with foreign princes; but not, of course, against the empire or emperor. This provision made Germany nothing
