Many believe that mediation has come from the United States, and exemplary prove that this term is mentioned e.g. in 1947 in the context of the regulation of conflicts of the labor union. However, a more detailed examination shows that the term of mediation has been used much earlier in Europe, so at the most, it could have been re-imported recently.

In the final document for the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, it has been written, that the diplomat Fabio Chigi, sent by Pope Urban VIII, has worked successfully for five years as a "peace broker" ("mediator pacis") for five years "... without partiality, hard and sedulously ...". Already 30 years ago, in the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation", the Elector of Saxony, tried to act, with three co-mediators on his side, as a "mediator" between the Bohemian Estates and Habsburg. In the "Danske Lov", a Danish codification of law from the year 1683, you can find the original term as well. In this law, the freedom of the parties for a peaceful conflict solution by "mediation" is mentioned. An additional decree from 1795 contains directives and detailed reasons to carry out mediations instead of court proceedings.