Margraviate of Brandenburg fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, to which the electors paid homage. The electors of Brandenburg spent the next two centuries attempting to gain lands to unite their separate territories (the Mark Brandenburg, the territories in the Rhineland and Westphalia, and Ducal Prussia) to form one geographically contiguous domain. In the Peace of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Brandenburg-Prussia acquired Farther Pomerania and made it the Province of Pomerania by the Treaty of Stettin (1653). In the second half of the 17th century, Frederick William, the "Great Elector", developed Brandenburg-Prussia into a major power. The state constructed Brandenburg's
European wars of religion wars continued to be waged in the post-Westphalian period until the 1710s, and collective memory of the wars lasted even longer. The European wars of religion are also known as the Wars of the Reformation (and Counter-Reformation). The wars were closely connected to the theological disputes within Western Christendom, which erupted after the publication of Martin Luther's "Ninety-five Theses" in 1517. The Protestant Reformation led to a schism within the Catholic Church, as Protestant churches and rulers no longer recognised the authority of the papacy. Although most of the wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religious conflicts