The Western European Powers 1500 1700

The modern diplomatic system originating in Italy spread rapidly over the rest of Europe around 1500. For ''history'' this had a two-fold result: an enormous amount of historical documentation produced by the new diplomatic machinery and a vastly important new area for historical study - the relations of modern states with each other. Two large overlapping bodies of historical materials are thus the subject of this volume: documents of diplomatic origin which might be about anything and in fact are important sources for political economic and other kinds of history besides diplomatic; and the sources essential for writing diplomatic history which include types that are neither manuscript in form nor even documentary in nature.