War of the Reunions well as the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 (which ended the Thirty Years War), ceded a number of towns to France. By tradition, when a town changed hands, so did the surrounding rural areas, which provided it with food and other such supplies. Often, the borders of these dependent regions were ill-defined. Thus, Louis and his court, from 1670, introduced several Chambers of Reunion to investigate whether France had been granted all the territory that it had been owed. The Chambers of Reunion, loyal to the king, ruled, after a review of conflicting medieval documents, that a number of outlying
History of the Catholic Church in Germany for predominance in Europe. The war resulted in large areas of Germany being laid waste, a loss of approximately a third of its population, and in a general impoverishment. The war ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, signed in Münster and Osnabrück: Imperial territory was lost to France and Sweden and the Netherlands left the Holy Roman Empire after having de facto seceded 80 years earlier. The imperial power declined further as the states' rights were increased. "Aided by the personal charm of its young king Louis XIV, who had assumed the government in 1661, France appeared to