History of Europe and its lands. The European religious wars between German and Spanish rulers. The Reconquista ended Muslim rule in Iberia. By the 1490s a series of oceanic explorations marked the Age of Discovery, establishing direct links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Religious wars continued to be fought in Europe, until the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The Spanish crown maintained its hegemony in Europe and was the leading power on the continent until the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which ended a conflict between Spain and France that had begun during the Thirty Years' War. An unprecedented series of
History of religion in the Netherlands their religion in public. Judaism was allowed in public, Lutheranism only in larger cities on the condition of maintaining Calvinist church interior styles, without crucifixes as known in Scandinavian cathedrals. In 1648, the independence of the Netherlands was recognized by the Treaty of Westphalia. The Netherlands did not only include the seven relatively independent Protestant provinces of the Dutch Republic but also a Roman Catholic "Generaliteitsland", which was governed by the States-General. This area roughly includes the current provinces of North Brabant and Limburg, which remained Roman Catholic. The Netherlands became known among Anglicans, many Protestants and Jews for its