Though the piece was signed on October 24, 1648, the last military action concluded on November 1.

In the months leading up to the signing, one final Swedish offensive had made it all the way

to Prague and put the city under siege. The Swedes were unable to take the old town of the city

as the resilient Czech militia filled out by citizen volunteers and university students

valiantly held the Charles Bridge against wave after wave of attacks.

And so the Swedes set to do what may as well have been the singular purpose of the offensive,

a mass pillage of the city of Prague. Up to the moment the news of the peace reached them,

the Swedes reveled in what the war had mostly been about, a squalid orgy of loot.

This ransacking included much of the wonder collection of the old orb pondering emperor

Rudolph II, including such items as the Kodex Giggus, the largest extant medieval manuscript

in the world. To this day the Kodex is still displayed at the National Library in Stockholm.

It's notable for its unusual, massive illustration of Satan. So after all the speeches and

pamphlets and cross-bearing processions, the real purpose of the war is revealed in its dying days,

a Protestant army raiding churches to make away with candle labors and reliquaries.

This was the real work of the Reformation, carrying off and melting down the wealth of the Catholic

Church, turning the fixed symbols of a fated religious authority into tradable tokens for

use in increasingly overbearing commercial economy. From a gold crucifix to a pile of gold coins,

the transubstantiation of the modern world.