AP European HistoryNation or Monarchs

What is a Nation?

1. People with shared ethnic identity, with geographical ties to a specific location. – ethnic is from the Greek word “ethnos” for clan. Ethnicity is non hereditary characteristics

• Religion• Language • Food• Dress• Art…..

So where are the nations?Europe 1400

Here they are…..sort ofEurope 2000

So where were the nations in 1400?

• Who were the Papal States?• The Ottomans – did they call themselves that• What about the Italians – I can see the boot. So where are the

Italians???• My goodness. No Germans, Greeks, • Greeks, for goodness sake, no Greeks???• Shuirley shome mishtake.

Reality….• They were always there…• However, so was their king/prince/bishop/psychotic hard-case

who was given the land by a king or violently deposed the last one. (delete where appropriate)

• Countries more often titled by dynasty that ruled them, rather then the people they ruled over. E.G. Ottomans ruling over Turks (and lots of others)

• Gradually, groups of people, with ethnic commonalities and historical ties to geographic spaces become nations

• This is ongoing, and has caused MILLIONS of deaths.

1500• By 1500 three “nation” states have emerged from the chaos

and change that occurred after the fall of Rome (476 C.E.). • Still most of Europe was heavily fragmented. • Modern historical review states this as one of the long-term

advantages of western Eurasia over East Asia….

Scotland• One of the first nation

states to emerge. Small, isolated, but interesting.

• Borders matched ethnicity for a longtime

• Language – Gaelic or Scotts English

• Union of crowns 1603• Union (into UK of GB) 1707• starts as a nation state,

ends up part of a larger multi-nation state

England• Not so tidy on the

borders – overlaps into distinctly different nations like Wales, Ireland and a bit of France• Germanic/French

hybrid• Path to nationhood was

tricky….but helped by the geographic isolation

England• Nobles ran the

show….from magna carta in 1215• Wars of Roses Lancaster

Vs. York• Ultimate Tudor victory• Adroit Henry VII – ran

things really well (shame about his son and heir) • Star Chamber • Centralized

France • A cohesive shape in the

west side of Europe. Some scattered, non-ethnically French places elsewhere.

• Enlarged and secured through war, marriage, and treaty.

• Nobles bought under control

• Army established – one of the first standing armies under a head of state

France cont….

• Taxes – The Gabelle (Salt which is a regressive tax that is harder on the poor)

• Francis I & Concordat of Bologna: Choose your own bishop…….a great example of symbiosis between church and state.

• France becomes a powerhouse of Europe by the 1500s with a very well controlled, centralized leadership

Spain

Spain cont…• Unified by Marriage : Isabelle of Castile & Ferdinand of

Aragon• System of regional autonomy remained (Cortes). Foreign

policy though was united• Spain remains Federal to this day! • Curbed aristocratic power• Gaines the right to appoint bishops at home and in colonies• 1492 (hmm) makes the Reconquista• Inquisition – mainly anti-Semetic