The ideal of lasting peace has been…

1518 CE

The ideal of lasting peace has been especially advocated by Christian church officials throughout the centuries.

During the Middle Ages, the church had tried to advocate the idea of fighting the non-Christian world only, and to stop fighting between Christians.

The Crusades had been the focal-point for fighting against non-Christians.

However, Christian identity has waned during the Renaissance.

People in Europe after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had begun to identify primarily with Europe instead of Christianity.

Peace during the fifteenth century had been established for fifty years in Italy, which is divided into many small city-states.

Only a small war between Venice and the Papacy for the control of Ferrara caused a temporary lapse in the peace.

This peaceful period had come to an end in 1494 with the French invasion.

A succession of small wars has followed.

Pope Leo X in 1517 had sought peace in Europe to form a crusade against the Ottoman Empire.

Cardinal Wolsey in 1518 is made Papal Legate in England, enabling him to work directly for the Pope's desire for peace by organizing the Treaty of London.

All European countries except for Islamic Turkey are invited to London (Russia is not considered to be a part of Europe, but of Asia at this time).

The treaty hopes to bind the twenty leading states of Europe into peace with one another, and thus end warfare between the states of Europe.

It is initiated in October 1518 between representatives from England and France.

It is then ratified by other European nations and the Pope.

The terms bind states with an active foreign policy to not only commit to a stance of nonaggression, but to promise also to make war upon any state that breaks the terms of the treaty.

Contemporaries view it as a triumph for Wolsey, who seems to have viewed the treaty as a first step towards a greater integration between the states of Christian Europe.

The treaty, which represents the first serious attempt at achieving European integration through diplomacy, also allows Henry VIII to greatly increase his standing in European political circles, to the extent that England comes to be regarded as a third major power.

The treaty puts England at the forefront of European diplomacy and draws her out of isolation, making her a desirable ally.

This is well illustrated by the Anglo-French treaty signed two days afterwards.

In any event, the peace lasts for a very short time: wars will break out in a few years including armed conflicts between Denmark and Sweden, and between an alliance of England and Spain against France.

The peace movement, however, will continue in the succeeding centuries and become part of the Enlightenment movement in the eighteenth century.