How did modern European identity came about after the fall of the Roman Empire? Specifically in Western Europe where you had the Franks, Visigoths, and Lombards running around; how did these groups create a "French" or "Spaniard" identity?
Phillip II of France stylized himself as King of France for no reason when all the previous monarchies were King of the Franks, for example.
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The short version is when a ruler controls enough of a region and has enough security he can "King of ___". Prior to that he might associate with a group of people (King of the Franks) or acknowledge a higher power (King in Prussia).
After that, that monarch and his descendants go about purging the state of religious minorities and establishing a common language.
This is, of course, a vast generalization. But in general geopolitical entities start as a state and then become a nation.
Basically they existed peacefully until Napoleon came around and Nationalized shit.
This is, of course, a vast generalization.
>how did these groups create a "French" or "Spaniard" identity?
Those identities were more loyalty to a King and the idea of common interest. This wasn't ethnically based. Once that shit started France was smart enough to kill regional linguistic groups ... Spain wasn't.
Spain didn't really need to, it already had a fairly cohesive nation whereas before France pulled French culture out of their arse the country was only like 20% French speaking.
Of course Franco had to be a nationalist idiot and ruin this by making Basques and Catalans butthurt.
> "French" or "Spaniard" identity
Didn't really exist until the 19th century.
Hell, Spanish identity is kind of a meme even now. Nobody is really Spanish, they're Castillian, Catalan, Galician, Basque etc.
The Spanish aspect makes me laugh because it is so medieval
Then what did they call themselves after the Kingdom of Spain was created? I mean at the least a demonym had to be established.
identities were more localized and based on languages and dialects, but the pan-national thing that was common across Europe was Christianity. that led to the concept of Christendom over time. and since monarchies weren't based on national will but genealogical claims, governments/the state could be entirely separate from the people they ruled.
national identities as we know them today came about more post-westphalia as governments became more tied to their specific territories, christendom gave way to more secular states, and then the nationalist movements of the 19th century topped it off
It was called "the Crown of Spain" but it actually consisted of a bunch of small Kingdoms, up until 1785 iirc.
Not specific to post-Rome, but this is the kind of information that I always feel would be most useful to my understanding and yet is never given clearly and succinctly. I just want a dynamic time-lapse map of the whole planet that relabels areas of land according to who held power at the time.
Any decent websites in this vein? That Ian Mladjov site is certainly excellent but doesn't quite combine the information in this way
French national identity was the first to appear (around 1200), it happened in conjunction with the building of the French state, centralised in the person of the king, and it's originally strongly tied to the royal House of France. The first overt manifestation of French nationalism is considered to be the battle of Bouvines.
In England it happened during the Hundred Years War (second half of the 14th century), mostly under Edward III who tried to imitate French kings and create a separate English identity so that he could be king in his own right, rather than just a French vassal. Dutch nationalism probably also appeared as a common cause against French occupation in the 17th century.
Spain was relatively isolated from the rest of Europe, and its sense of national identity grew out of the Christians vs Moors dichotomy. Though it remained rather loose and never really led to a truly unified Spanish nation, as you can see today with Catalans, Galicians, Basques etc.
The other nations of Europe are mostly creations of the 19th century. The French Revolution turned the nation-state ruled by its sovereign people into a universal principle that could be exported anywhere, and it quickly spread to all the lands conquered by Napoleon. This led to the rise of nationalism in places like Germany, Italy, Poland or Croatia, and indirectly the whole world.
Charlemagne
Kill yourself, ignorant
>'modern' and 'visigoth' in the same sentence
What are you doing.
>visigoth languages didn't survive into the modern era
You can use any two words together.
Honest question: are you a genuine retard?
Pan-European nationalism is based on common unifiers, Christianity, shared historical experience, the influence of Greek and Latin antiquity. A european identity has really only been fostered in the last century, between that and the vast empires of Rome etc it has been in the shadows
I'm calling shenanigans. The King of France was the king of the franks, France was the land of the franks. Likewise with England, land of the angles. Your first point is false. Your second point is also false; a man claim to be king of something while still claiming subservience. Odoacer declared himself king of Italy while still claiming to be subservient to the last western roman emperor Julius Nepo who resided in Dalmatia. William the conqueror claimed to be subservient to the king of France while still being king of England.
The various Spanish kingdom inherited the idea of a single Gothic Realm, identified with Spania, while they used the Gothic lavel, it fell out of favour.
The various medieval identifications were not mutually exclusive, Spain is the most obvious example of that with Castilians and Aragonese (for example) being both Spaniards, and simultaneously including Asturian or Valencian too.
But the plurality of the kingdoms of Spain, could also be compared with that of the old Frankish Realm, while the pluraritly of kingdoms, Neustria or Austrasia, were included in a single Francia.
>How did modern European identity came about after the fall of the Roman Empire?
It didn't.
The closest thing to a shared identity, a common sense of kinsmanship, is merely the result of hundred of years of neighbourly interaction via politics, trade and war.
The ethnic groups of Europe reached their final phases during the high middle ages
This, the only nationalists at time were the kings.
>still people going on about nationality as a 19th century creation
Says no one whose ever opened up a primary source older than them.
You can find extremely ancient writings (from ancient egypt through the hellenes to even the norse) talking in the exact kind of terms of people, their kingdom and land.
The Roman Catholic Church
It was
>Roman
>Catholic
>and a Church
unlike something like.. Say...
>
>
>
>talking in the exact kind of terms
Eisegesisist detected.
lol no. The kings were often not nationalists at all and were generally cosmpolitan types who considered other people's lands in their dominion, it was the people who objected to that kind of horseshit. (see for example the legend of Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker threatening to have Olof Skotkonung drowned, like five kings before him at the Mula-thing, if he insisted on making war on the Norwegians and their kingdom instead of retaking their domains in the Eastern Country i.e. Finland)
What I was saying is that there's no "modern" pan-European identity, but merely a common sense of kinmanship inbetween different peoples.
Of course, man. But talking about "France" or "Spain" is different, is heterogeneous.
And you're not of course seeing as you so desperately cling to a long discredited Marxist perspective.
Question user: If everyone who disagrees with you is a marxist, how is that view discredited?
Modern European identity didn't exist until the Napoleonic era, that's when the idea of "Europe" as an identity rather than a geographical term came about.
Much the same with specific identities like "English" and "French" came about after centuries of defined borders.
That's what Im saying. The king is the state, but medieval people didn't have state.
Not everyone disagrees with me, just everyone who clings to the labour theory of value and considers the French Revolution to be the genesis of different peoples, nations and everything else under the sun.
Ask any Marxist and you'll quickly find out that we were apparently all Tabula Rasa before Robespierre and the other assorted scum made modern man.
>but medieval people didn't have state.
Medieval people had their people and land, just like pre-Medieval people had.
Which is what a nation is.
No, man, that's not a nation. You require much more than land.
>Dutch nationalism probably also appeared as a common cause against French occupation in the 17th century.
French? In the Netherlands? In 17th century?
could it be that he simply got the words mixed up?
no, he must be an autistic retardo lord
So let me put it like that:
>there were Spanish(or more accurately - Habsburgs), not French, you can mix it up
>they owned that land, never really occupied it, I understand, simplification
>80 years war started in 16th century and the events that led to it(and forming of Dutch national identity) started few decades later, I understand you can mix it up and oversimplify at the same time
But to do 3 of those at once?
t genocidal loony
nl.wikipedia.org
Also Franks and Frisians had a bunch of wars
>In northern European and German historiography, the French period (French: Période française, German: Franzosenzeit, Dutch: Franse tijd, Luxembourgish: Fransousenzäit) was a late 19th-century term for the era between 1794 and 1815, during which most of Northern Europe was directly under French rule or within the French sphere of influence.[1] It is often confused with Napoleon I's rule, although, in the states west of the river Rhine, it began with their occupation by troops of the French Revolutionary Army in 1794.[2] However, in some parts of Germany it lasted roughly from 1804 to 1813 or (used in a stricter sense) from the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 to the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
Depends on the kingdom itself. Castille being the core one and carrying most of the weight became the prime realm since Charles V and as such was cucked out of his particular identity for one of 'spanish'. The crown of Aragon lost his particular status after 1715. Navarre lost its kingdom status after the 1st Carlist war, but that was a nominal thing, it kept its privileges until nowadays. Same goes for the Basque Country, which as a part of the Kingdom of Castille, specifically the Lordships of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, had a special charter called the fueros, dating from the Middle Ages, that basically still stand today.
None of those peoples created any Spanish, Italian or French identity back then. The nation building process and national identity is basically a modern thing. The appeal to Franks or the Visigoths was only done a posteriori as a mean to put forward a case for unity and identity and stuff.
In the case of France, it's basically a creation of the Revolution, in the national sense. Politically there's a case for a united French state since the reforms of Richelieu and Mazarino, and Louis.XIV success in putting down the territorial nobility after La Fronde des Princes.
For Spain, the visigothic thing was used as a mean to present the reasons for Reconquista and unity of the christian kingdoms. It was basically an ideology.
The case of Italy is probably the weakest one. There never was any lombard propaganda thing for presenting the cause of a united Italy or establishing the basis of national identity. Probably because the lombards were a) cucks and b) only ruled northern italy. The Roman heritage was a much more attractive narrative, but in the end it was about economy, with Piedmont organizing the whole thing, and making Italy for italians ( i.e fuck off austrians, french, pope with clay, etc) what united the italian people.
I admit I was making an over-generalization. But the fact remains that the monarchs ruling over West Francia only began calling themselves Kings of France starting with Philip II, who also took great pains to subdue his vassals and it was only when he had enough power could he call himself King of France. Certainly, anyone could do this but as an official title you want to be able to defend it.
While France is Land of the Franks there's a difference between being King of the Franks and King of France. Calling yourself King of France associates you with the land rather than the people, meaning you can expand France. You can't really expand Franks except by having more kids.
I never said a King couldn't be subservient, rather that he just needs to have the security to claim a region as his own. William wasn't the French-appointed overlord of England; he was de facto ruler of the region. Like the >H >R>E; the Kings underneath the Emperor were nominally his subjects, but they wielded authority over their own lands and could, and often did, get away with defying the Emperor.
Anyway, the important part is that national identities are created from the top down.
That lithuanian-latvian border is so fucking wrong.