Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Constructing Europe after Utrecht (1713-1740)

Dhondt, Frederik

Publication date:2016

Link to publication

Citation for published version (APA):Dhondt, F. (2016). Constructing Europe after Utrecht (1713-1740). Paper presented at Imag(in)ing Europe:Perspectives on a Contested Continent, 800-2000, Utrecht, Netherlands.

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Download date: 11. Aug. 2020

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1

Constructing Europe after

Utrecht (1713-1740)

Imag(in)ing Europe,

Utrecht University/UCL/Trier, 14 Sep 2016

Seminar Session I

Prof. Dr. F. Dhondt

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Ghent University-Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)

IMAGE AND IMAGINATION

L’Union des princes

par la paix générale

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Louis XV donnant la paix à l’Europe

CONSTRUCTING EUROPE,

1713-1740

Defining “Europe”

The Peace of Utrecht

Europe after Utrecht

Defining “Europe”

• Europe as an integrated whole � Europe as

an arena � Europe as a metaphor

• Law and normativity

• Elite integration, Society of Princes

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The Peace of Utrecht

• Façade >< bilateral Fr-GB agreement

• Core: balance of power• Anti-French (1701)

• Anti-Austrian (1710)

• Two-way split of the Spanish inheritance (1659-1715)• Bourbon

• Habsburg

� Redefinition of the general interest

Continuous negotiations

• Power struggle

• Factual complexity

• Missing layer: normative

essentials of the law

• Interpretation < practice,

as well as production

• Sovereignty in a

horizontal perspective

Law of nations, Ius inter gentes

• Between two extremes (Koskenniemi, CLS) � history of lawyers (Halpérin)� history of ideas (Tuck)

• Application: sociology (Bourdieu, Arendt)

• Continuous conversation � rules of agreement and disagreement

• Interaction between legal orders

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Core: renunciations

• Private law

• Public law

• Law of nations

� Political motivations dressed in legal terms

� War = modification of the 1713 compromise

� Fr-GB interest and general interest

Hierarchy

Parliament of Paris, 15 March 1713

“Ny le Prince peut aliéner l’Estat ni l’Estat ne

peut perdre son Prince”

“Une telle renonciation étoit absolument

opposée aux lois fondamentales de l’Estat”

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Rhetorical strategies

and legal priorities“Aprés tant de batailles gagnées et perdues, aprés tant de saccagemens de pilleries et de miseres, les puissances de l’Europe lassées et fatiguées de tant de maux font un reglement, où le Roy d’Espagne comme les autres, renonce formellement a toutes ses pretentions sur le Royaume de France, et cependant non-obstant qu’il ne jouit de la couronne d’Espagne, de quelque maniere qu’on considere la chose qu’en vertu de ce bien public qui ne permette pas que l’Empereur ni le Roi de France, qui sont incontestablement, l’un ou l’autre, legitimes pretendants à ce royaume, l’aient.”

James Craggs to Guillaume Dubois, Whitehall, 26 November 1718 OS, NA, SP, 78, (162, f. 394r°)

Common

good

Rhetorical strategies

and legal priorities

“les traittez religieusement observez […] l’amitié

[…] la bonne foi et les bons offices reciproques”

(James Craggs to Guillaume Dubois, Whitehall, 26 November

1718 NS, NA, SP, 78, 162)

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Contravenors v. Mediators

• Tranquillity � continuity (Fr/GB)

• Droit public de l'Europe (Fr)

• Balance of Power (GB)

• Law and its (scholarly) language: Latin � imperial law

• Shared codes and practices >< Spanish and Austrian transgressions Friedrich Karl von

Schönborn

(1674-1746)

Collective management ?

• Guarantors

• Contracting Parties

• Allies

� Congress of Cambrai (1722-1725)

• Failure ? Non-event ?

>< revealing for negotiating practices

>< construction of a common discourse

Lorenzo Verzuso Marquese

Beretti Landi (1654-1725)

Vertical and horizontal discourse

A. Feudal law– Spain: vassalagium

– Emperor: prodominium – ligus

– Parma: sovereignty� Reichshofrat

B. Treaty law– Spain� Emperor: partition

– Spain� Emperor: investiture of Siena

– Tuscany � Emperor: duchy of Massa

– Savoye-Sardaigne: préséance and sovereignty

� Mediators: synthesis and guidance

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“les Traittés qui font maintenant Loy dans

l’Europe”

(Morville to Rottembourg and Saint-Contest,

Versailles, 4 February 1724, NA, SP, 78, 173, f.

167r°)

Reasoning by analogy

• Art. V, Traité de Londres (2 August 1718)

CONCLUSION

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Europe as an arena

• Common legal culture

– Roman law, canon law, law of nature

– °Common training, common discursive space

• Common diplomatic culture and sociability

• Principles underpinned by troops and ships

= Balance of Power, partition, international

solution to succession problems

Further reference