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  • 24 - Papal Diplomacy during and since the Ancien Régime

  • from Part IV - Theopolitics and Religious Diplomacy
  • Edited by Joëlle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island, Robert A. Ventresca, King’s University College at Western University, Melodie H. Eichbauer, Florida Gulf Coast University, Miles Pattenden, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Papacy
    Published online:
    28 February 2025
    Print publication:
    20 March 2025, pp 618-644

  • Summary

    European diplomacy changed significantly during the Ancien Régime. Sovereign powers made increasing use of different categories of ambassadors while grappling with religious division, international conflict, and emerging globalization. Papal diplomacy was itself hardly new, although it too evolved in these challenging circumstances. In various respects, the structures of papal diplomacy mirrored those of Europe’s dynastic states. Popes were nevertheless supposed to abide by certain ideological values as paternal figureheads, maintaining peace amongst warring Catholic powers while extending authority beyond Europe. This was problematic, as the papacy sought to square its own political interests with its moral duties. Given early modern Europe’s changing political landscape it is also unsurprising that the papacy’s supranational power was under increasing pressure. That was evident by the mid-eighteenth century, and the upheavals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, although today it retains its traditional identity as a neutral diplomatic actor.