Decline of nations in Middle Ages
In the previous article I described that nations has existed for thousands of years and the national identity and even national cleanliness was a very important factor amongst developed antique states. The idea that nations are merely a social construct of the 19th century is therefore completely mistaken. Yet it seems that after the fall of the Roman Empire the national awareness disappeared only to be found again centuries later. Aim of this article is to describe the social situation during the Middle Ages in order to understand, which players shaped the form of a society back then and why the national awareness almost completely disappeared.
The biggest issue leading to a decline of national states after the fall of Rome (or the Western Roman Empire to be precise) was the lack of education and educated teachers who could spread the Roman knowledge. The Roman culture focused on antique ideas of education produced hundreds of historians, writers, lawyers and politicians who preserved the Roman knowledge in their scrolls. After the Roman Empire was taken over by the Germanic tribes, the Roman culture fell apart. People, whose ancestors lived in a relative peace, were suddenly left in a world without any rules or government. It is natural that in times when people struggled for their lives, education was not their top priority. Lack of education, lack of sources of study and the worsening life conditions eventually led to a decay in national awareness of the former Romans, as the fall of the empire must have necessarily deeply impacted their national perception.
The Ostrogoths, who replaced the Romans as the rulers of Italy, came from a completely different background. The had not come from a safety of the empire, they had been fierce warriors hardened by a countless battles against the eastern hordes and against themselves. And while the Romans lost their focus on education and knowledge after the empire had fallen, the Ostrogoths never really stressed the importance of the education at all.
Now imagine we live in the 5th century. Empire has fallen, new Ostrogoth kingdom is being built and with that arises new issue. How to maintain the new state. The Romans maintained their empire by combining great military strength ensuring safety, advanced governing and legal system and cemented these elements together by nationalism – the pride of being a Roman kept the society together no matter the great social differences. This crucial element holding the state together was missing in the early Middle Ages. And this is when the future biggest political player comes into light – church, the catholic church to be exact.
The church had something that no one at these times could provide – the means to cement the society again. Nationalism used by the Romans was swiftly replaced with religion and the catholic church, which solidified its position as leader of the Christendom, slowly started to ascend in power.
Now it is necessary to describe, why it is so important to maintain the cementing element of the society that I have mentioned above.
Most of the people tend to believe that they are independent, rationally thinking beings who are capable of caring for themselves. Most of the people also, on the other hand, need to believe that there is something bigger in this world. Something they cannot often name but they believe in it nevertheless, because in the end they fear being in this world completely on their own, relying only on themselves and their decisions. This abstract belief in something bigger, if shared by most members of a society, eventually holds that society together, because the people have something which is common to all of them and such belief creates the bounding element of a society.
The Romans had nationalism – no matter if you were rich or poor, pretty or ugly, intelligent or stupid – you were always a Roman. That was something that all Romans could rely on. The nation was this element, bigger than life of every single person. All Romans knew that their work contributes to the survival of their nation and such knowledge helped them relieve their fear of being on their own in this world.
Nationalism is, however, an element of an advanced society. The Ostrogoths lacked the national awareness, the only reason they worked and fought together was that the cooperation was beneficial for them. But when the benefits stopped, they started fighting each other instead of a further cooperation. They were not advanced enough to understand the advantage of nationalism, but they were clever enough to know that society without any bounding element will crumble and fall apart eventually, so they started using religion as a bounding element instead of nationalism.
Having a functioning national society is a hard process. It is necessary reminding people of their ancestors, educating them to make them understand that nation only survives if they stay together and that no one in this world will accept them the way they are accepted by their own nation.
Controlling the society by religion is much easier. The only necessary thing is a group of educated people who will not spread their education, because that might be dangerous, but who will instead brainwash the people in believing that following certain rules in life will grant them a place in heaven afterwards.
I cannot blame the rulers of the early Middle Ages for accepting religion as bounding element of their society. They came mostly from societies that were far under the Romans in terms of advancement, government, law and culture. It is not hard to imagine that they had to choose between accepting religion or destruction of their domains. Unfortunately, their lack of education and poor decisions at the field of state affairs led to the rise of the biggest criminal organization in the history – catholic church.
As I will elaborate in a future article, a church (does not really matter which one) can never accept national states, because national states are in contrary to their political targets. As for this article, the most important outcome that we learned from the history of the early Middle Ages is, that given the political and social instability of these times, maintaining a national state was impossible. Mostly because many of the newly established states were led by an uneducated leader who could not understand the importance of a national awareness and because of that they inclined towards religion as the bounding element of the society. This unfortunate turn of events led to the centuries long decline of a society together with almost complete disappearence of already existing nations. Those who understood the importance of a nation did not care anymore, because their empire was in ruins and the new rulers could not understand such a complex concept.
The Ostrogoths, who replaced the Romans as the rulers of Italy, came from a completely different background. The had not come from a safety of the empire, they had been fierce warriors hardened by a countless battles against the eastern hordes and against themselves. And while the Romans lost their focus on education and knowledge after the empire had fallen, the Ostrogoths never really stressed the importance of the education at all.
Now imagine we live in the 5th century. Empire has fallen, new Ostrogoth kingdom is being built and with that arises new issue. How to maintain the new state. The Romans maintained their empire by combining great military strength ensuring safety, advanced governing and legal system and cemented these elements together by nationalism – the pride of being a Roman kept the society together no matter the great social differences. This crucial element holding the state together was missing in the early Middle Ages. And this is when the future biggest political player comes into light – church, the catholic church to be exact.
The church had something that no one at these times could provide – the means to cement the society again. Nationalism used by the Romans was swiftly replaced with religion and the catholic church, which solidified its position as leader of the Christendom, slowly started to ascend in power.
Now it is necessary to describe, why it is so important to maintain the cementing element of the society that I have mentioned above.
Most of the people tend to believe that they are independent, rationally thinking beings who are capable of caring for themselves. Most of the people also, on the other hand, need to believe that there is something bigger in this world. Something they cannot often name but they believe in it nevertheless, because in the end they fear being in this world completely on their own, relying only on themselves and their decisions. This abstract belief in something bigger, if shared by most members of a society, eventually holds that society together, because the people have something which is common to all of them and such belief creates the bounding element of a society.
The Romans had nationalism – no matter if you were rich or poor, pretty or ugly, intelligent or stupid – you were always a Roman. That was something that all Romans could rely on. The nation was this element, bigger than life of every single person. All Romans knew that their work contributes to the survival of their nation and such knowledge helped them relieve their fear of being on their own in this world.
Nationalism is, however, an element of an advanced society. The Ostrogoths lacked the national awareness, the only reason they worked and fought together was that the cooperation was beneficial for them. But when the benefits stopped, they started fighting each other instead of a further cooperation. They were not advanced enough to understand the advantage of nationalism, but they were clever enough to know that society without any bounding element will crumble and fall apart eventually, so they started using religion as a bounding element instead of nationalism.
Having a functioning national society is a hard process. It is necessary reminding people of their ancestors, educating them to make them understand that nation only survives if they stay together and that no one in this world will accept them the way they are accepted by their own nation.
Controlling the society by religion is much easier. The only necessary thing is a group of educated people who will not spread their education, because that might be dangerous, but who will instead brainwash the people in believing that following certain rules in life will grant them a place in heaven afterwards.
I cannot blame the rulers of the early Middle Ages for accepting religion as bounding element of their society. They came mostly from societies that were far under the Romans in terms of advancement, government, law and culture. It is not hard to imagine that they had to choose between accepting religion or destruction of their domains. Unfortunately, their lack of education and poor decisions at the field of state affairs led to the rise of the biggest criminal organization in the history – catholic church.
As I will elaborate in a future article, a church (does not really matter which one) can never accept national states, because national states are in contrary to their political targets. As for this article, the most important outcome that we learned from the history of the early Middle Ages is, that given the political and social instability of these times, maintaining a national state was impossible. Mostly because many of the newly established states were led by an uneducated leader who could not understand the importance of a national awareness and because of that they inclined towards religion as the bounding element of the society. This unfortunate turn of events led to the centuries long decline of a society together with almost complete disappearence of already existing nations. Those who understood the importance of a nation did not care anymore, because their empire was in ruins and the new rulers could not understand such a complex concept.
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