Phystarstk said:
So the English nation includes Wales and cornwall? So the French nation includes french flanders, basque territory, and brittany?
Yes and no. Brittany was never a part of England, it was a fief held with different custom, law and ultimately vassalage to a foreign King, it had nothing to do with England, neither did the rest of the Angevin posessions. It was perfectly normal for a King to hold other lands as a vassal, so possession in France are never to be confused with England.
I think you've unwittingly proven my point. The Angevin Empire spanned nations, same as the HRE.
Wales and Cornwall were as English as Essex or Northumberland during the period; not at all. You see, the people of importance were all homogeneously Norman. Following William's harrowing of the North he established an entirely new social order. To examine the language of serfs in Essex, Cornwall, or Wales would be as relevant as examining the bleating of farmyard animals.
This is a period of Norman colonialism where the new social elite enforced heterogeneous order upon their new lands. The English administration went from semi-centralized to the most centralized state in Western Europe within a generation.
And you say that Germany had lots of different dialects? How about France? If you don't think France had tons of different dialects and massive decentralization, then you better check your sources pal because France was very similar to the HRE at this time.
I would say that neither Breton nor Occitan speakers would consider themselves to be French during the 11th century. I would imagine they couldn't care less what we classify them as. The difference between this and Germany however is that the ruling class did speak French (sometimes as a second language) and depending upon which year we are talking about did owe nominal fealty to the French crown.
Over the next several centuries the French kingdom moved towards a more unified and centralized state, thus the differences we can point to during the 11th century eventually evolve into France. This never happened with the HRE. Milan did not morph into Germany any more than Moravia did, thus to blanketly claim "Germany" was a kingdom in the 11th century is the myth of German nationalists during the 19th and 20th centuries. It's hard to imagine any of the Emperors of this age believing themselves to be the First Reich, at this point they are the heirs to the Roman Empire. Emperors were coronated in the name of the
Roman Empire and not until Barbarossa was the term "Holy" applied. If this is Germany then why is it not the German Empire?
Had France remained fractured until the last century we might well be having this arguement over lands nominally within France during this period. It's the accident of history which leads France to early unification and Germany to seperation but seperate it is.
You know, I'd love it if I was the inventor of some radical medieval theory, but it's pretty much mundane established history
The centralization of the state is a COMPLETE non-issue. The question is whether or not the HRE was considered "Germany". HRE was definitely considered Germany even in the 1700's when it had absolutely no power.
Unfortunately you're wrong about the 1700's though let's stick to the point where we are discussing the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.
Centralization is important, it's one of the reasons why Germany waited in the wings until the 19th century while England and France became nations far earlier. Fractured, heterogenous states where independent Duchies and Princedoms elect a nominal Emperor don't tend to easily form nation states.
Unfortunately your ideas are similar to a Wagnarian wet dream which was invented post Napoleon. It's a similar ideal as those who delight in Richard the Lionheart being "English."
Oh yeah, and homogeneous? Read some of the books from the period about the "5 languages" of the nation: (Scottish) Gaelic, British (aka Welsh, Cyrmic, Celtic, etc), English, Scandinavian, Pictish. Although Gaelic and Pictish were chiefly in Scotland, there was definitely not a homogeneous society here. Also, different dialects of English were so different as to be nearly unintelligible to other English speakers of the time. Don't believe me? Read Chaucer: easy eh? Now read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in its original writing: gibberish isn't it?
Chaucer is hardly gibberish and requires only slightly more thought to read than reading Shakespeare. Again though, the language of the fields is hardly relevant to the Norman, then Anglo-Norman administration. Society was homogenous, the same laws would be found in Northumbria as Kent with the same feudal obligations. This is not true of the HRE where local custom sustains.
In England and later France, all authority stems from the crown. This is one of the reasons why it's so much easier for those states to coalesce. Where does authority reside in Danzig, Milan or Friesen? It's not the Emperor and this confederation of states shows none of the features of nationality.
The fact of the matter is that the HRE was considered a "german" state throughout its existence. It wasn't very good at fulfilling this idea, to be sure, but thats not the point of the argument.
Who considered it so? Nietze? Where are the 11th and 12th century sources for a German state? Where is the evidence of the non-German HRE fiefs considering themselves German, or being ruled by Germans?
Notice that they translate Gawain but not Canterbury.
There are some who will need a translation for Blake
Middle English does not mean that England did not exist. For at least the early part of this era it's a Norman colony, that slowly changed with the evolution of a seperate "English" conciousness, but I'd argue it to be a very late one, 14th or 15th century in fact. Regardless, the Norman ascendancy was a unified central organization. Compare that to the situation in Ireland at the time where the mix of cultures occurs within the ruling class while the peasantry is practically identical throughout the island.
