Community, Identity, Individuals: Shaping the (Political) Nation in Premodern Europe

ABSTRACT: This introductory article argues for the relevance of studying the medieval (political) nation in order to better understand medieval society, as well as ideas of the nation in general. It argues that the nation did not appear ex nihilo at the end of the eighteenth century, and that it is essential to identify the ways that nations were described and constituted during the Middle Ages in order to understand both medieval and modern developments. What holds a nation together is the awareness of its unity and the will to live together on the part of its members. To exist, the nation needs individuals to identify themselves with it; yet why did some individuals begin to want this, to identify with a nation? While embedded in the social and political struggles that accompanied its emergence, the nation was also based on hope and a promise of social and political change. This essay analyzes this dynamic and its implications for understanding why, at a specific point in history, the nation emerged as a desirable mode of socio-political organization before becoming the norm in the nineteenth century.