European wars of religion new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty. The conflicts began with the Knights' Revolt (1522), a minor war in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 against the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated Germany and killed one-third of its population. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) put an end to the war by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Although many European leaders were 'sickened' by the religious bloodshed by 1648, religious
Treaty of Stettin (1653) Pomerania became Brandenburgian Pomerania. During the war, Sweden had occupied the Duchy of Pomerania in 1630. The last Griffin duke Bogislaw XIV died in 1637, his duchy was supposed to be inherited by Brandenburg, who based her claims on in the Treaty of Grimnitz. This however was hindered by the Swedish presence. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the war, and Pomerania was to be partitioned between Brandenburg and Sweden. The 1650 Treaty of Nuremberg roughly defined the areas that should be under control of Sweden and Brandenburg, respectively. The precise border was drawn in the 1653 Treaty of Stettin,