ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the geographical or empirical Eurocentrism found in many studies of diplomatic history. It presents the classic narrative according to which extraterritoriality shaped modern territoriality through the rise of permanent embassies and ambassadorial immunity, marking the shift from personal to territorial concepts of sovereignty. The chapter focuses on the issue of embassy chapels as a catalyst for this shift. New diplomatic histories offer opportunities to go beyond this linear and homogeneous story of European diplomatic practices. The chapter discusses the narrative that ties early modern extra-territoriality strictly to embassy chapels, and, more generally, to religious conflicts. It explores the importance of agrarian capitalist social property relations and class dynamics for the shaping of different doctrines of extraterritoriality in the early modern period, one led by France and Spain and another led by England and the Dutch Republic. The chapter assesses the impact on diplomacy of the transition to agrarian capitalism in the English early modern countryside.
