The Elusive Netherlands. The question of national identity in the Early Modern Low Countries on the Eve of the Revolt
The identity of the Low Countries was also muddied by contemporary debates about the correspondence between ‘Gallia’ and France and between ‘Germania’ and ‘Deutschland’.
The Idea of Natural Rights – Origins and Persistence
Before turning to this early history there is one more aspect of the contemporary situation that I need to mention. Even in the Western world, the original homeland of natural rights thinking, there is no consensus—and sometimes overt skepticism—about the existence and grounding of such rights.
Troubadours and their heritage in the edges of Europe – Singing and rapping experiences of being in a minority in Southern France and in Sámiland
What is common to these artists is the way how they define and express their belonging to their own ethnic group. The characteristics of their ethnic identity 2 are above all else language, home territory, and history.
The politics of factional conflict in late medieval Flanders
In his influential study on political factions in medieval Europe, Jacques Heers demonstrated the importance of factionalism in the political life of the middle ages, at the level of cities and regions as well as at the ‘national’ level.
Medieval heteronomy, modern nationalism: Language assertion between Liège and Maastricht, 14th-20th century
The result has been a protracted debate on the existence and nature of pre-modern nationalism or national sentiment.1 That debate has by now ground into an entrenched stalemate. I think we can rescue the underlying historical issue from this stagnation, and the present article is intended to give a little shove to that effect.
Nations and National Identities in the Medieval World: An Apologia
Let us start with the concept and term ‘nation’ itself. In much modern discourse ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ have been given period-specific and pre- eminently political forms.
The foundational rape tale in Medieval Iberia
When one reads Medieval historiographic texts—whether written in Latin, Arabic or Romance—it appears that both the Moorish invasion and the Christian Reconquest of Spain are linked to a rape episode.
That country beyond the Humber”: the English North, regionalism, and the negotiation of nation in medieval English literature
The English North is “Not London” but is “before Scotland,” a strangely liminal space between the familiar
South and those undesirables north of the River Tweed.
What’s in a name? Britons, Angles, ethnicity and material culture from the fourth to seventh centuries
The emergence of various ‘ethnically’ based polities in early medieval Britain has long been a source of debate and confusion. I explore how ethnic self-identity is constructed and how the identities of the former Roman citizens of Britain changed.