The Origin of the European “Nations?”

It is significant that most of these different kingdoms adopted the name of the Germanic people which had settled the territory. Over the course of the Middle Ages, these denominations ended up designating either kingdoms or regions.

In the early thirteenth century, the kingdom of the Franks would end up becoming the kingdom of France. The Alamanni (Drinkwater 2007), ended up giving their name to what in Spanish is Alemania, in Portuguese Alemanha, in French Allemagne (Germany). England is so named as it was the “land of the Angles”. Burgundy, meanwhile, is the region where the Burgundians settled; Bavaria, the land of the Bavarians; and Lombardy, the land of the Lombards. The names of other regions in Europe, however, retained evidence of their Roman heritage, probably because they were settled by multiple peoples: this was true of Spain (originally Hispania, Espana in Spanish) settled by the Romans, Byzantines, Suebi and Visigoths before the Muslim takeover in the eighth century; and with Italy (Italia), occupied by the Romans, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines and the Lombards. In both cases, the geographical denominations prevailed. Thanks to this, legal historians in the nineteenth century influenced by the Romantic and Nationalistic Movements, jumped to the conclusion that these peoples formed a “nation” (Smith 2004, 236-257). Therefore, they considered that the territory of the old Western Roman Empire was now occupied by the Visigothic, Ostrogothic, Frankish, Burgundian or Lombardian nations, and that every Germanic nation tended, therefore, to have its own “national” law.^{^[179]} As Wormald (2003, 21) points out, the possession of a lex came to be a highly significant element in the forging of any acknowledged political unit in the West.

It is true that two communities initially existed in all these kingdoms: the dominant Germanic minority and the remaining population, of Roman origin, as occurred, for instance, in Gaul when the Visigoths arrived (Goffart 1980,103-126).

These two “nations”, however, melded into one people over time, as the categories of Roman and non-Roman were not always sharply defined, and the coming to power of the latter may have a less decisive event than formerly thought (Moorhead

2001, 3). For example, in the case of Visigothic Spain the merging of these two communities had taken place by the middle of the seventh century.^{^[180]} Eventually, the Germanic kingdoms tended to become genuine territorial states in which Germans and Romans ended up forming a single body of citizens. However, were these Germanic kingdoms really European nations?

This is not clear and, as Geary (2002, 15) has rightly indicated, the real history of the nations which populated Europe in the early Middle Ages begins not in the sixth century, but in the eighteenth, as modern history begins then, and through the nineteenth century, developed as an instrument of European nationalists^{^[181]} following the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions, in 1776 and 1789, respectively, when a “nation” came to be understood as a “body of citizens whose collective sovereignty constituted them into a state which was their political expression”,^{^[182]} as subsequently stated by John Stuart Mill in 1861,^{^[183]} and Ernest Renan in 1882.^{^[184]} This meaning of the term would persist after the end of the First World War, when U.S. President Woodrow Wilson argued at Versailles that the new European order should be based on a strict respect for the “principle of nationalities”,^{^[185]} a posture which gave rise to the appearance of new states and sparked a resurgence of nationalism, leading directly to World War II.^{^[186]}

With reference to the Early Middle Ages, it seems unwarranted to employ the term “nation” to refer to the Germanic peoples which ultimately developed independent kingdoms; as Smith (1999, 8) has explained, anything which appears to resemble a nations or nationalism, either in antiquity or the Middle Ages, must be understood as purely incidental and exceptional.

It should be noted, however, that in the later Middle Ages the same term “nation” was used, but with another meaning: Europe’s medieval universities were made up of “nations”, a term which designated a group of students from the same region or province who spoke the same language.^{^[187]} These “nations” made their appearance in Bologna at the beginning of the thirteenth century, as subdivisions of the collegia of foreign law students, and formed for mutual protection and collective security against local authorities (Kiber 1948, З).^{^[188]} It is significant that the term “nation” would also be used to refer to the areas settled by merchants from the same region or kingdom, who did business in Europe’s different trading squares; that is, associations of “foreign” merchants whose function was to defend the interests of their “nationals”.^{^[189]}

In any case it should be noted that the historical meaning of the term “nation” should be considered carefully when wielded by “nationalist” historians in states featuring separatist movements, such as in Quebec (Canada); in Belgium, where the state is on the verge of disappearing because of the irreconcilable division of the Flemish and the Walloons; in Russia’s Georgia and Chechnya; and, to a lesser extent, in Spain’s Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and the Basque Country, where there exist regional autonomy parties which, to varying degree, endorse independence. The same dynamic has appeared most recently in Scotland. In these cases, “nationalism” usually becomes a secular form of religion as well as an ideological movement. As such, it is hardly compatible with historical objectivity. As Geary (2002, 6-11) observes, a historian of the Middle Ages who listens to the rhetoric of nationalist leaders, and who reads the scholarship produced by officials or quasi-official historians is immediately struck by how interpretations of the period of the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the barbarian migration have become, once again, the fulcrum of political discourse across much of Europe.

The problem is that it is not only nationalistic political leaders who exploit history for political reasons, but reputable scholars are also drawn into polemical uses of the past as well. This is why Geary believes that any historian who has spent much of his career studying this earliest period of ethnic formation and migration, can only look upon the development of politically conscious nationalism and racism with apprehension and disdain, particularly when these ideologies appropriate and pervert history for their justification.^{^[190]}

TIMELINE

First Wave: The Visigoths (378-382)

378 The Visigoths defeat Emperor Valens at Adrianople.

382 Theodosius signs a first foedus with the Visigoths. They may settle in the Empire if they pledge to defend it.

The Second Wave: The Suebi, Vandals and Alani (406-425)

406 The Suebi, Vandals and Alani cross the Rhine, defeating the federated troops defending the Empire’s border.

407 The Romans abandon the British Isles.

410 August 24. Alaric I sacks Rome.

414 Ataulf’s marriage to Placidia.

416 Second foedus between Rome and the Visigoths, signed this time between

Honorius and Valia.

425 Signing of the third foedus between Theodoric and Aetius.

Third Wave: Franks, Burgundians, Alamanni, Angles and Saxons (434-451)

434 Attila (+453) becomes leader of the Huns.

436 Aetius’ victory over the Burgundians. Rome, however, cannot prevent the Burgundians from permanently settling in the Rhone Valley, nor keep the Angles and Saxons out of Great Britain, nor the Franks from Gaul.

451 Attila is defeated at the Battle of the Catalonian Fields (Chalons, northern France). The Hun leader fights alongside a series of Germanic tribes paying homage to him (Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Gepids, Heruli and Thuringians, etc.). Fighting against the Huns was Rome’s General Flavius Aetius, supported by Rome’s Germanic allies (Visigoths, Franks, and Alani).

453 Death of Attila.

454 Assassination of Aetius.

455 Capture of Rome by the Vandals. The emperor takes refuge in Ravenna.

463 The Burgundians settle in the Rhone Valley.

The Early Germanic Kingdoms: The Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse and the Frankish Kingdom (451-507)

466 Euric (+484) becomes the King of the Visigoths.

476 Following the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer, King of the Heruli, the Visigothic kingdom of Tolosa, having arisen in 416 with Valia, becomes the largest Germanic kingdom in the West.

481 Clovis (+511), of the Merovingian clan, becomes King of the Franks.

486 The Franks, led by Clovis, defeat the Gallo-Romans, led by Afranius, at Soissons.

The Last Germanic Invasions: The Ostrogoths and Lombards Occupy Italy (493-568)

493 The Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great (+526) creates a powerful Germanic kingdom in Italy.

496 Clovis converts to Catholicism. Soon after he defeats the Alamanni at Tolbiac.

500 The Burgundians are defeated by the Franks.

507 Clovis annihilates the Visigoths at Vouille (Campus Vogladensis) in southern France. Death of the Visigoth King Alaric II.

511 Death of Clovis.

516 The Burgundian King Sigismund converts to Christianity.

526 Death of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great.

550 Rechiar, King of the Suebi, converts to Christianity through the influence of St. Martin of Dumium.

552 Byzantine troops sent by Justinian (527-565) fail to conquer the entire Italian Peninsula after a brutal war.

568 The Lombards, led by King Alboin, invade Italy when pressured by the Avars, soon driving the Byzantines out of northern Italy (Po Valley, which comes to be called “Lombardy”).

The Visigoth Kingdom of Toledo and the Muslim Expansion (573-711)

573 Leovigild (573-586) ascends to the Visigoth throne and is considered the founder of the Kingdom of Toledo, which would last until 711.

585 Authari, King of the Lombards, converts to Catholicism.

589 Reccared I renounces Arianism.

622 Muhammad flees from Mecca and takes refuge in Medina (Hijra).

631 The Byzantines are expelled from the Iberian Peninsula by Suintila.

632 Muhammad dies in Medina.

642 The Muslims manage to conquer Alexandria.

647 The Byzantines are defeated by the Muslims at Sbeitla. However, Emperor Constant II buys the Muslims’ withdrawal from North Africa.

655 The Byzantine fleet is defeated by the Muslims at Lycia.

676 After 4 years the Arabs lift their siege of Constantinople. The caliph Ahmed- ben-Moavia signs a 30-year peace.

695 The Muslims conquer Carthage (Tunisia) and manage to permanently drive the Byzantines out of the Maghreb.

709 The Visigoths lose Ceuta to the Moors.

711 The Visigoths’ King Roderic is defeated by the Muslims.

Christianity and the Germanic Peoples (Fifth and Sixth Centuries)

325 Council of Nicaea. Condemnation of Aryanism.

380 The Edict of Thessalonica, issued by Theodosius (379-395), decrees the official nature of Christianity.

383 Death of Ulfilas (born in 311).

392 The Edict of Constantinople prohibits all pagan practices. Christianity is the only religion tolerated.

431 St. Patrick commences the evangelization of Ireland.

496 Baptism of the Frankish king Clovis by St. Remigius.

516 The Burgundian King Sigismund converts to Christianity.

529 Foundation of the first monastery in the West. Monte Cassino (Italy) of the Benedictine Order (St. Benedict of Nursia [480-547]).

550 Rechiar, King of the Suebi, converts to Christianity, thanks to the influence of St. Martin of Dumium.

585 Authari, King of the Lombards, converts to Catholicism.

589 The Visigoth King Reccared I renounces Arianism.

590-604 Pope Gregory the Great significantly bolsters the authority of the Church of Rome over all of Christendom.

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The Origin of the European “Nations?”

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