THE HEIGHT OF EUROPEAN NATION-STATES (1815-1914)

 

The Vienna Congress (1815)

1. Introduction                                                                              

The 19th century is the European century. And the reason for this state of things is that the nation-State model reaches its peak between the Fall of Napoleon and World War I. Thanks to this the European Nation-States control the world in 1900. The Nation-State model did not prevail easily. From 1814 to 1848 the history of Europe is characterized by the fight between the Absolutists sovereigns reunited in the Congress of Vienna (1815) and signatories of the Holy Alliance that is implemented through the Metternich's policy of counterrevolutionary military intervention, and the supporters of the Laissez-faire (liberal) regime, that try to consolidate the principles of the French Revolution: a Constitution, a Representative parliamentary regime, a set of Fundamental rights and a deeply orientated market economy with an absolute rejection of any Government intervention.

  Klemmens von Metternich (1773-1859)

 Thanks to Metternich's system European sovereigns agreed on a common policy to fight successive Liberal revolutions. First  the ones  that tried to be imposed by military uprisings, like the one started by Riego in Spain in 1820, or the Decembrist Revolt in Russia (1825).

The Decembrists in Saint Peterburg (1825) 

 The last one was leaded by military officers that got acquainted with the French revolutionary principles during the wars against Napoleon, masterfully described by Leon Tolstoi in War and Peace, published in the Journal The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 21867, before being published as a novel in 1869.  

                                                                    

Leon Tolstoy in 1908

Unfortunately for the Absolutists the Metternich's system ends when the UK walks away from the Holy Alliance because Her Majesty's Government accepts the fact that the British ruling classes do not want to back the repression of the rebellion in Spanish America. Not because they sympathize with the liberal Spanish rebels, but since they saw a great potential for British Colonial interests in Central and South America. For not exactly the same reasons the Western European States fight the absolutism of the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of independence (1821-1832), a more Romantic movement in which notorious European intellectuals participated, like Lord Byron (1788-1824) who died in Missolonghi fighting for the land where the Western culture was born.

Lord Byron

The Metternich System collapses also in France with the 1830 revolution that brings as a corollary the Belgian Revolution against the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The result is the creation of the Belgian State.

The 1830 French Revolution by Eugène Delacroix

These movements would also have an extremely important repercussion in England, as they led to the crucial electoral reform of Lord Grey in 1832 that transformed the nature of the English Parliamentary system in the sense of rendering it more representative. A movement that opened up the way to the democratization of the British Political System, though this process would not be completed entirely until British women were granted the right of vote in 1928.    

The British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst protesting

                       

The whole order established in the Congress of Vienna crumbles definitely in the rest of Europe with the wave of 1848 revolutions. This crucial movement would end up changing the political history of Continental Europe, starting with the Unification movements that happened in Italy and Germany. It also enables the creation of the French Second Republic, which is the first "social" regime in European history.

        The 1848 Revolution in Berlin

By the way, 1848 is significantly also the year in which Marx and Engels publish their "Communist Manifesto". And I want to mention this because Socialists’ ideas would become the main enemy of the European bourgeois liberal regimes.

Marx and Engels publishing the Communist Manifesto

 The first permanent consequence of 1848 Revolution is the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, through the movement called the Risorgimento (“Resurgence”) headed, among others, by the Comte of Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Italian unity would only be completed in 1870 when Italian troops occupied the Papal States and Rome became the Capital of Italy. The popes would not have again an independent State until 1929, and thanks to Mussolini who agrees on creating the Vatican City state.  

                                  

 Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)

                           

For understanding what the liberal revolution meant to the Italian Nation you should read the indispensable novel The Leopard (1958), of Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa (1896-1957), published posthumously. In the book this Italian noble tells the story of a Sicilian Aristocrat, the Prince of Salina, who is fully conscious of the changes that the Risorgimento revolution is bringing, and  realizes that old nobility has to adapt to the new times, accepting the change "so that everything could remain the same". 

  Giovanni Tomaso di Lampedusa (1896-1957)

Let me point out that this novel created a neologism, el gattopardismo, which we might define as any political action consisting of presenting as revolutionary an idea that, in reality, does not seek to change economic or social foundations but rather to maintain the status quo. If you want to understand this key concept better, I encourage you to read the book, or, at the very least, watch Luchino Visconti movie (1963) with the same title, starring Burt Lancaster, in one of his most memorable performances. It is a beautiful film that effectively conveys the novel's themes of decline and impermanence.  Do not miss it. 

 

  A scene from The Leopard by Luchino Visconti (1963)

                                                       

 The other essential process of national unification happens in Germany. The German unification promoted by Bismarck, is the result of the Prussian overwhelming victories over Austria (1866), and especially over Napoleon III (1870-1871). It is interesting that the defeat of the French Second Empire gave way to the creation of the German Second Reich (remember that the First Reich lasted from 962 to 1806), with the proclamation of William I of Prussia as Kaiser in Versailles. This was a huge humiliation for the French, and certainly a cause of French anger towards Germans and explains why French were willing to start World War I that would end with the disaster of the Peace of Versailles in 1919. A “Diktat” that will lead to Hitler and World War Two.

Otto von Bismarck

The new German Empire (the Second Reich) was not a totally unified state (as France, for instance was). In fact it was called the North German Confederation and was headed by Prussia. On top of that it was not a Parliamentary Regime as the Government was designated by the Kaiser and not by the Reichstag. The full German unification and the instauration of the Parliamentary Regime would not occur until the foundation of the Weimar Republic in 1919.                                         

  Proclamation of the Second Reich in Versailles (January 18, 1871)

   As far as the Liberal revolutions cycle is concerned Imperial Russia would be the last bastion of autocracy. The Czars would be the last European absolutists monarchs, and remained so until the 1905 Revolution, that was provoked by the humiliating defeat of Tsarist Russia by Imperial Japan, the new Eastern Power developed as a result of the Meiji Revolution (1868).

 

        Russia: 17 October 1905. Painting by Ilya Repin

              

 Thanks to the 1905 movement Russia did have a sort of Liberal regime from 1906 to 1917.  But it would not reach its definitive consolidation because of the Soviet Revolution of October 1917 that not only abolished the monarchy, but physically exterminated the royal family that was murdered on the night of the 16-17 July 1918 in Yekaterinburg by order of Lenin. 

The last Imperial Russian family   

                The 19^th century however was the peak of European history, as European Nation-states ended up controlling most of the World, through an exorbitant colonial expansion. If you want to understand how Europe became the leading continent in the World you should not miss Orlando Figes book The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture (2020).  

   

 The Europeans is a richly enthralling, panoramic cultural history of nineteenth-century Europe, told through the intertwined lives of three remarkable people: a great singer, Pauline Viardot, a great writer, Ivan Turgenev, and a great connoisseur, Pauline's husband Louis. Their passionate, ambitious lives were bound up with an astonishing array of writers, composers and painters all trying to make their way through the exciting, prosperous and genuinely pan-European culture that came about as a result of huge economic and technological change. This culture - through trains, telegraphs and printing - allowed artists of all kinds to exchange ideas and make a living, shuttling back and forth across the whole continent from the British Isles to Imperial Russia, as they exploited a new cosmopolitan age. (Extracted from AMAZON web page). 

 From a Legal perspective, it is important to remember that all the revolutionary movements that happen in Europe in the course of the 19th century in the name of the Liberal state principles, end up bringing essential legal tools like constitutions, sets of fundamental rights and, above all, a national narrative that consolidates the independence of every European State. The result of this rising nationalism is the amazing colonial expansion that will make European Nation-States extremely wealthy and powerful to the point they would control the whole World that was distributed among the colonial European states in international conferences, like the one held in Berlin in 1884 for distributing the African continent among the different European nations. 

 

 And the same happened in Asia, where Europeans controlled most of two of the oldest and most prestigious civilizations in history: India and China. 

 

 Asia in 1898

                                                                                         

 The result of it is that Europe ends up controlling a lot of territories worldwide. This is why the 19th century is undoubtedly the European century. The only non-Western world power is Japan, a country that fully accepted the nation-State model in 1868, thanks to the Meiji Revolution backed by emperor Mutsuhito (the 122nd Japanese emperor) that reigned from 1867 to 1912. The result of the Westernization of Japan resulted in Japanese imperialism that enabled the Japanese Military expansion in China and the Pacific area.

 

 

 Nevertheless, the European colonial expansion increases gradually the tensions among the different colonial powers, which rearm themselves very strongly trying to get as many colonies as possible, following the classic Roman principle "Si vis pacem para bellum" (If you want peace prepare for war). This is why the last third of the 19th century is known as the Armed Peace period. The military equilibrium based in alliances would finally be broken in 1914. And European Nation-States would commit suicide in the horrid and absurd World War I.  

Cartoon representing the tensions of the Armed Peace

The most important idea that you must retain from Teaching Guide 5 is how through the adoption of the Nation-State model European states became powerful and wealthy, until nationalists’ excesses drove them to commit suicide in an annihilating war. An important lesson that proud European States will not learn until the end of World War II, when a destroyed Old Continent had totally disappeared from the world scene. To the point that European governments realized that they should unite for surviving.  

 

2. How to study Teaching Guide 7:

 

a) Read the corresponding text to T.G. 7 in the “Aula Virtual”. 

b) Familiarize yourself with the following basic Chronology of the period: 

 

CHRONOLOGY  

1814 (October) to 1815 (June) Congress of Vienna

 

1815

                        18 June Battle of Waterloo 

                        September: Signature of the Holy Alliance

 

1820-1823        Spanish Liberal Triennium 

1825                Decembrist Revolt 

1830 

July. French revolution. Beginning of July Monarchy in France

 

August Belgian Revolution 

1832                Lord Grey’s Electoral Reform Law in England

 

1848 

February:         Revolution breaks out in Paris. Second French Republic 

March 4:          Albertine Statute 

March 13 and 18:                     Revolution breaks out in Vienna and Berlin 

May:                Constitution of the Frankfurt Parliament (until My 1849) 

1850:                Prussian constitution granted by Frederick William IV (in force until 1918) 

1858:                Cavour meets Napoleon III at Plombières 

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour

1859:                Battles of Magenta and Solferino 

1861, March 14:           Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy 

1862:                Bismarck heads the Prussian council of Ministers (until 1890) 

1866:                Austrians are defeated by Prussians at Sadowa 

1868:                Spanish Glorious Revolution 

1870, July:        Beginning of the Franco-Prussian War (until May 1871) 

1871: 

January18:        William I of Prussia is proclaimed in the Palace of Versailles head of the Second Reich 

March –May:   Paris Commune 

1873-1874:       Spanish First Republic

 1882:                Bismarck forges the Triple Alliance (Prussia, Austria and Italy) 

1890:                Bismarck’s resignation 

1892:                Franco-Russian alliance 

1904:                Beginning of the Russo-Japanese War (until September 1905) 

1905,                January: First Russian Revolution 

1906:                Nicholas II endorses the first Russian constitution 

 

c) Complete in your Class notebook the following exercises:   

 

CONCEPTS

 Restoration / Congress of Vienna / Holy Alliance / Metternich System / Ancien Régime / Louis XVIII’s Charte / Indirect suffrage / Censitary suffrage / Ideological nationalism / Volksgeist / Liberal Oligarchy / Doctrinaires Liberalism / Revolutionary Liberalism / Riego’s Revolt (1820) and Liberal Triennium / July Monarchy (France) / Electoral Reform Act (1832) / Albertine Statute (Piedmont) / Confederation of Rhine (1805) / Germanic Confederation (1815) / Zollverein (1818) / Frankfurt Parliament / Frederick William IV of Prussia / Erfurt Union (Punctation of Olmütz) / Prussian Constitution (1850) / Camillo Benso (Count of Cavour) / Victor Emmanuel II / Risorgimento / Plombières Agreement (1858) / red shirts (Garibaldi) / Roman Question / Iron Chancellor (Bismarck) / North German Confederation (1866) / Franco-Prussian War / German Empire (IInd Reich, 1871) / Mikhail Speransky / 1905 Revolution (Russia) / Armed Peace

 

QUESTIONS

 

Concrete questions

1. Which were the European Monarchies who intervened in the Congress of Vienna? What was the position of defeated France? 

2. Explain why the word Congress has a different meaning in North America and in post Napoleonic Europe.  

3. Which was the political idea that stood behind the Holy Alliance of 1815? Thinks in terms of the legitimacy of sovereignty.

4. How did Metternich transformed the sense of the Holy Alliance that he initially disdained?

5. Why the Metternich System could be considered a Forerunner of European Integration?

6. When and why the Metternich System collapsed?

7. What is the political essence of Liberal regimes opposed to the Restoration imposed at the Congress of Vienna? Think in terms of how powerful was the State in the “Laissez Faire” regimes.

8. Explain the difference between the French “Doctrinaires” Liberalism and the Revolutionary Liberalism and which were the consequences in Europe. 9. What was the essence of the Riego’s Revolt and the Spanish Liberal Triennium? Think of how the Liberal state tried to be imposed. Mention another examples of this type of Liberal revolution from 1820 to 1830?

10. In which way the French Revolution of 1830 and the July Monarchy change the Spanish Liberals approach to the Liberal Revolution? Were there any consequences in Europe to this French revolution?

11. Which was the essence of Lord Grey's Electoral Reform Act of 1832 in England.

12.  Did the 1848 revolution triumph in Italy? Did it transformed in any way the political situation in any part of the Italian Peninsula?

13. Which was the relationship of Napoleon III of France and the Italian unification?

14. Why the Kingdom of Italy created on 17 March 1861 could not have initially Rome as capital? Explain what was the "Roman question" in the Italian unification process.

15. How did Napoleon intervene in the German territories and why his intervention was decisive from the perspective of German nationalism?  

16. What was the Frankfurt Parliament that appeared after the 1848 revolution in Prussia? How did finally Prussia became a constitutional kingdom?  

17. How did the Prussian state implemented the principle of censitary suffrage considering that every citizen had in principle the right to vote?

18. Did Bismarck created in Prussia a unified State?

19. What was Bismarck’s Kulturkampf? Compare Prussian approach to the religious question to what Unified Italy did?

20. Did Bismarck consolidated in the German empire a Parliamentary regime?

 

General questions

1. Explain what argument 1815’s Restoration leaders used against French revolutionary foundations of Power’s Legitimacy during the Congress of Vienna that led to the Holly Alliance. 

2. How did the Liberal Oligarchy controlled the State legally and politically? Think of what meant originally the term "liberal" used politically speaking to define the regimes issued from the revolutionary struggle of the first half of the XIXth century?

3.  Were the liberal revolutions democratic? Think in terms of electoral systems (censitary and universal). When did the liberal states became entirely democratic? Give concrete examples.

4. Explain why Italians and Germans took opposite approaches to integration. Explain why Italian unification was a bottom-up process? Compare it the Top Down approach to Prussian constitutionalism after the 1848 Revolution. Think in terms of who hold the sovereignty and of Bottom up and Top down approaches.  

5. Describe comparatively in a succinct and concise manner the fight between Austria and Prussia in order to lead German unification from 1848 to 1866. Think of the role of Bismarck.  

6. When and how took place the Liberal revolution in Tsarist Russia?  Think of if there were any constitutional consequences in Russia of the Napoleonic invasion, the biggest achievement of Mikhail Speransky reformism and if Tsarist Russia ever become a constitutional monarchy.  

7. What was the consequence of the consolidation of the nation-state model in Europe in the second half of 19th century? Explain why the triumph of the Liberal model of State in Europe led to the “Armed Peace”? Think of Bismarck’s idea of Mitteleuropa an what was the Prussian problem concerning colonialism?

 

Emperor Meiji, born Mutushito (1852-1912) 

the promotor of Japan's westernization

A MOST POWERFUL INVENTION: THE “NATION STATE” (Teaching Guide 6)

 

1. Introduction 

 In Teaching Guide 5 we have analyzed how monarchies transformed the political panorama of Europe since the Late Middle Ages.  Now we have to study how these monarchies were transformed in “states” during the long period that goes from the 16th to the 18th centuries. In fact it did not work like this. It was the other way round. The “state” appeared in a context where there were no kings. Concretely in Medici's Florence where Niccolò Machiavelli was born. A context of chaos, and it was precisely this anarchy that brought the state as political and legal organization. But as soon as the monarchs discovered the state they considered that it was an extremely useful tool to consolidate their power ant transforms their realms in extremely solid kingdoms. And 500 years later the whole world is divided in states. 

Lorenzo de' Medici "The Magnificent"(1469-1492)

One of the models of Machiavelli's Prince

“A world of states

Although we live in a globalized world, our planet in the 21st century continues to be divided into "states," with the UN today listing 193 member states; though, in addition to these ″official″ ones, there also exist others that do not enjoy full recognition. 

Even when the international community generally recognizes a given state, certain states refuse to: South Korea and North Korea do not recognize each other; the People's Republic of China remains unrecognized by 19 countries that, nevertheless, recognize the ROC (Republic of China) of Taiwan; the State of Israel is not recognized by 32 countries, and the Republic of Palestine is only recognized by 136; Turkey does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, which is, nevertheless, a member of the European Union, but it does recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is not recognized by any other state; Pakistan does not recognize the Republic of Armenia; the Republic of Abkhazia has, so far, only been recognized by 6 countries; and the Republic of Kosovo just by 104 of the 193 UN countries. Meanwhile, there are territories struggling to become members of the UN, such as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, South Ossetia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, aka Transnistria. Perhaps the most unique case, however, is that of Somaliland, which remains unrecognized by any state (!) despite having declared itself an independent state, and effectively functioning as one. 

We ought not forget that states are like living organisms, which are born, exist, and die, as the Norwegian architect Bjorn Berge reminds us in Nowherelands: An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840-1975, in which he traces the borders and tells the stories of 50 countries that history has erased from maps.

Not simple, is it?  The only thing that seems clear in all this is that states seem to remain inevitable, and one has to wonder why. Are they imposed on us, or do we crave them?

A very successful western invention

At a time when the "woke" movement is questioning everything Western, perpetrating, among other actions, the spectacular toppling of statues of colonizers, it is striking that a thoroughly Western invention such as the state, first conceived by Machiavelli more than 500 years ago, has been imposed worldwide, and that, regardless of ethnicity, religion or culture, today there are people willing to kill and die to have their own states. 

It is highly significant that the latest addition to the UN list of states came after many years of wars and violence: on 9 July, 2011 South Sudan became the 54th independent country in Africa, five days later becoming the 193rd member of the United Nations. It had seceded  after seceding from Sudan (an independent state since 1956) after a bloody, decades-long civil war.  Independence, unfortunately, did not prevent violence there, as at the end of 2011 the new government of South Sudan was at war with at least seven armed groups in 9 of its 10 states, with tens of thousands of people displaced as a result.

Sadly, Sudan is not an isolated case. In other areas of the world the western invention of the state has also generated great conflicts, often due to the fabrication of artificial states by colonial powers, with disastrous results. Let’s take a look at some examples.

 Europe is no longer the pre-eminent power on the planet; not in terms of hard power, at least, as the Continent pales in comparison to the USA, China, and even Russia. Our economies and armies are much less powerful. And yet, if we turn to the realm of soft power, Europe remains a formidable force in today's globalized world, because it invented most of the narratives, ideas and institutions that prevail in a manifestly "westernized" world, beginning with the state model and the peculiar conception of law stemming from it”. 

(Extracted from B. Aguilera Barchet. Demistifying the Legal Art of Order, Power and Fun. An Introduction to Pop Law. (2025) New Castle Upon Tyne UK:  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 317-318). 

 For understanding such a revolutionary idea as the state, that by far is the most relevant European contribution to the World order, in today’s Teaching Guide we are going to see why the idea of “state” appeared and how the kings first and the nations later developed it to give form to the way in which the overwhelmingly majority of Humanity lives today. 

Late medieval kings in Spain, France and England

ended up imposing themselves to the Feudal order

The consolidation of king’s authority

 To start with we will analyze how late medieval monarchs in Spain, England or France consolidated their constitutional positions as the supreme authorities within their kingdoms. Firstly, after becoming independent from emperors and popes, and secondly, because those monarchs reigned supreme as they abandoned medieval, pact-based law and were able to impose their authority upon cities, the nobility, the church, and therefore, upon the assemblies of the estates. Legally speaking that was possible because for the first time kings could legislate. 

Charles III of England and Queen Camilla

 presiding the State Opening of Parliament on July 17. 2024

In Teaching Guide 5 we saw how initially the kings consolidated their power expanding royal jurisdiction. The following step was to convince their subjects that they could create new legislative rules and modify the traditional customary law that prevailed in the Early Middle Ages. 

 Besides remaining judge-kings, monarchs ended up becoming legislators as they were recognized the power to create new laws, that is to change and adapt the legal order. The old medieval roi justicier from the Early Modern Period would become a roi législateur in the last medieval centuries.  Thanks to their new legislative power, kings had much more power and could consolidate a new model of political organization termed absolute monarchy. 

The Absolute monarchies as precedent of modern states

  Thanks to their new legislative power, kings had much more power and could consolidate a new model of political organization termed absolute monarchy, which would end up transforming their kingdoms in the precedent of modern states. The identification of the monarch with the state appears in the famous phrase attributed to Louis XIV: “I am the state” ("L´État c’est moi"), conveying the complete identification of the state with the figure of the king.

Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)

But European monarchs were not at the origin of the state as a model of political, legal and social organization. Even if they became the great protagonists of political history since the Late Middle Ages, the idea of the state model came initially from a territory which had no kings: Northern Italy, a land that officially was under the scope of the Holy Roman Empire and its two heads: the pope and the emperor.  In fact however it was precisely the confrontation between the Papacy and the emperor that favored the appearance of almost independent cities that became very wealthy because they were the main force of the Commercial Revolution. Unfortunately the lack of a strong monarchical authority provoked that these wealthy cities were in a constant political turmoil. And it was this situation which enabled the citizens of these urban centers to invent a new model of political organization: the state, as a way of putting a halt to chaos and anarchy. It is a fascinating history that proves that anarchy always bring order as a reaction.

Political map of the italian peninsula around 1500

The Italian case and the urban origins of the state

In the early Middle Ages, cities virtually disappeared in the rural universe of Feudal Europe. However things started to change since 11th century, when started an urban renaissance all over the European continent, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, Germany, Northern Italy and Flanders. Cities regained undeniable political importance because in those cities lived wealthy merchants as consequence of the Commercial Revolution. This urban revolution had legal consequences as these cities ended up getting a special legal status, when they received privileges consolidating their legal autonomy. In some cases, one could even speak of “constitutional” texts in the modern sense of the term, as certain municipal privileges were to be respected by monarchs.

The Statutes of Florence of 1564

Northern Italy was without any doubt the most urbanized area in Europe in the Late Middle Ages, as it featured cities with populations of over 100,000, which were practically independent, having managed to exploit the struggles between popes and emperors. Thus, appeared urban republics with their own autonomous governments and legal systems based on lengthy documents called “statutes” which, in a way, functioned on a local level very much like the constitutions of contemporary states.  However, the absence of a strong power generated permanent internal strife between families grappling for control of city governments, and wars with other cities, which in some cases led to the formation of leagues, as cities conducted independent relations with other cities, whether to negotiate agreements over issues such as boundaries or coinage, or to pursue expansion through warfare.

The city of Florence in the Renaissance

One of these autonomous Italian cities was Florence, a city that fought fiercely for its autonomy. And has become one of the symbols of Europe as proves the foundation of the European University Institute (EUI) in Fiesole. 

The fight for political autonomy in Florence started in the time of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), who like most Florentines of his day, was embroiled in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict and as a result of it was expelled from Florence and died in exile in Ravenna, where he wrote his canonical Divine Comedy.  

Florence in the time of Machiavel

The city of Florence, from which Dante was expelled at the beginning of the 14th century, had already become a prosperous city at the time of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), controlled by the Medici. Machiavelli witnessed all the political turmoil of Italy he had the opportunity to develop his ideas of how to establish a stable government. From anarchy arose the model of the state, which Machiavelli was the first to describe in his landmark work The Prince which he finished around 1513, but was only printed posthumously in 1532. 

 In his political treaty Machiavelli offers rulers a series of formulas and pieces of advice to maintain, at any price, the power which guarantees social order. The “prince” no longer justifies his power on the premise that he is the legitimate representative of God on Earth, or by tracing his authority back to the Roman emperors, but rather exclusively on his capacity for political survival.

Jean Bodin

The consolidation of the state in the works of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes

But Machiavelli’s Italy was not the only land in which government was complicated. Chaos would appear also in other parts of Europe, and as a reaction, again, some political thinkers and legists would propose solutions for consolidating the State as political organization in order to prevent the resulting anarchy. Let’s see two concrete examples: in France the figure of Jean Bodin, who witnessed the convulsions of the horrendous Wars of religions from 1560 to 1570, and in England the case of Thomas Hobbes who lived under the turmoil of the awful civil war, fought between the Parliament and the Royal armies from 1642 to 1651, leaded respectively by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) and Charles I (1600-1649), and was finally horrified by the beheading of his king, that for him put the world upside down.

Thomas Hobbes

In any case The prince  of Machiavelli, The Six Books of the Commonwealth of Bodin and Hobbes Leviathan, became the great protagonists of a new era in European constitutional history:  Royal Absolutism

The Royal Absolutist State

Despite their different approaches, Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes all came to the same conclusion: the state should be placed in the hands of a single authority, preferably a monarch whose power ought not to be contested in any way. 

Although in some kingdoms royal absolutism appeared early, such as in Castile, where the kings imposed their supremacy as of the late 14th century, the era of classic absolutism (hoch Absolutismus) would span the 16th and 17th centuries. And even in some countries, such as France, it would last until the second half of the 18th. This period of the history of Western Public Law is also known in German historiography as the Fürstenstaat, literally the “State of the Prince,” because all branches of the state – executive, legislative and judicial – relied upon the monarch and exercised their powers in his name. 

King Charles II (1660-1685):

 the height of Absolutism in England.

Coronation portrait

  Absolutists states model would 30 Years War (1618-1648). Initially a religious conflict between the Catholic and the Protestant princes, it ended up becoming a reaction against the universalism of the popes and emperors. Instead of a unique authority that ruled the whole of the European continent, appeared a multitude of “states”, mostly kingdoms, as the idea of a Republic would not appear in the Western constitutional tradition until the end of the 18th century.   

 From this perspective it is quite clear that after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the idea of a universal Christian empire was replaced by an international order based on the struggle between different secular “national monarchies” that would struggle to impose their hegemony through successive wars during the next three centuries. 

Paris 14 July 1790: "Fête de la Fédération"

the mob celebrate that French people have become a "Nation"

From State to Nation-State

The state was an efficient organization for avoiding chaos and anarchy. The problem was that it was too abstract, a cold rational structure difficult to grasp. As Harari would say it was not a fiction that people could adhere to and share in large numbers. In fact it required a new language to become powerful. It therefore was necessary to add to the cold organization a moving narrative. And this narrative was the “national feeling” that passionate crowds supporting their national teams in sportive competitions. 

The use of the word “national” bring us back to Teaching Guide 3 in which we studied the establishment of Germanic Nations in the geographic space of the former Western Roman Empire. After these Germanic Tribes settled in a concrete territory they ended up having “National Laws” according to the “Principle of personality” of the Law (opposed to the Principle of territoriality: one law for the whole territory). In the Germanic Kingdoms every human group had its own law: the Visigoths, the Franks, the Angles, the Lombards and, of course, the Romans, that were the largest majority of the population. 

European Germanic Kingdoms in the 6th century

 Despite the fact that some authors in the 19th and early 20th century considered that these Germanic Kingdoms were the precedent of the actual European Nation-States, in reality the use of the word “nation” to describe a group of people living in a certain territory with a sense of collectivity came much later. 

If during absolutism it is possible to affirm that the inhabitants of a kingdom started having to a certain degree a “National sentiment”, it is clear that this feeling was not strong enough to become a powerful narrative enhancing the notion of state. The “popularization of the national feeling” would only appear as a consequence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, developed by some smart “philosophes”.

Voltaire dining with Diderot, d'Alembert and Condorcet

Concretely those great writers considered that e conception of absolute royal sovereignty developed by Macchiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes ought to be transferred to a group of people that would become the legitimate protagonists of political life. Concretely the whole set of the king’s subjects that appear in the engraving of that Abraham Bosse created for the front page of the first edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan of 1651. This is the real origin of the model called “Nation-State”, word that refers to a state in which population becomes a relevant issue in political terms, as citizens decide who should rule them. 

Of course all this ideas departed from the idea that sovereignty was vested on the Nation, and that consequently the government of the state depended on people, as expressed by Abraham Lincoln who in 1863 in his Gettysburg address expressed publicly that:   “… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

The fight for national sovereignty

 Of course this revolutionary idea was not accepted overnight. Kings resisted relinquishing their monopoly on absolute power. In some cases some monarchs were convinced that only them had the capacities of ameliorating the life of their subjects and decide to change the state of things by themselves, becoming the engines of the reforms. And certainly in many cases it is fair to recognize that they did a great job as those enlightened monarchs did transform their kingdoms forever. The only problem was fact that in their realms sovereignty continued to be vested exclusively on the monarch. With may be the exception of Frederick II of Prussia (1740-1796) and his "Sonderweg".

 In other states the transfer of sovereignty was carried out step by step, gradually, through the progressive submission of the king to the assembly of states, as it as it happened in England where in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries the Parliament became the protagonist of politics establishing  what ended up being called the parliamentary regime. And this is why already in the 19th century Queen Victoria (1837-1901) accepted that she reigned but did not govern.

Queen Victoria in 1890

  Finally the transfer of the titularity of sovereign powers from the kings to the nation was performed through the violent movements of the last decades of the 18th century, in what historiography has called the “Enlightened revolutions”. The first one happened in North America, when the British colons rebelled in 1776 against their sovereign, George III of England and created a new Nation, independent from the Crown. The second took place in the heart of Europe, in the Kingdom of France, from 1789 to 1799, and its consequences were far more transcendent, as the French Revolution changed forever the course of European history. 

In the course of 19th century the Nation State model resulting from these revolutions would spread out all sooner or later, from 1830 to 1905, to the whole European Continent, as we will see in Teaching Guide 7. And from there it would expand to the whole world in the 20th century. 

The Failure of Assembly-based Government: retrieving the Monarchical principle  

 In the French Revolution, as in the American, assembly-based, legislative government triumphed over monarchical power and this led to a system in which power was vested not on a monarch but in an assembly. But assembly government was not a useful tool as it led to anarchy. This is why in the US and in France Assembly type of government ended up being replaced by a return to the monarchical principle. 

George Washington (1789-1797),

 the first US President 

 In the US through the approval of a stronger union with a Federal Constitution of 1787, that brought a strong executive through the Presidential system. One man was elected but powerful for 4 years. In France it was less democratic as the strong government came after a military coup and the appearance of the extraordinary figure of Napoleon who immediately established a considerable authoritarian regime that would create such a solid state that their bases remain in France’s 5th Republic. 

Napoleon, 

the first Emperor of the French (1804-1815)

2. How to study Teaching Guide 6:

a) Read the corresponding text to T.G. 6 in the “Aula Virtual”. 

b) Familiarize yourself with the following basic Chronology of the period: 

CHRONOLOGY  

Dante: the White Guelf

1321 Death of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) (The Divine Comedy 1304-1321. De Monarchia 1310-1313)

1453,  29 of May The Ottoman Turks take Constantinople.

1469-1492   Lorenzo de' Medici "The Magnificent" heads the Republic of Florence

1492, 12 of October  Christopher Columbus discovers America. 

1474-1504 Reign of the Catholic Kings: Isabella and Ferdinand

XVIth Century

1509-1547 Reign of Henry VIII of England

1527 Death of Niccolò Machiavelli  (1469-1527) (The Prince 1532)

1532 Publication of The Prince by Macchiavelli

1556-1598   Reign of Philip II of Spain. 

1558 Death of Charles V (1519-1558) the last Great Holy Roman emperor 

1559 Peace of Cateau Cambressis. Begins the European hegemony of the Spanish Crown. 

1572,   23-24 August, Saint Bartholomew’s night. Massive killing of Protestants in Paris. 

1576 Publication of The Six Books of the Republic (Commonwealth), by Jean Bodin. 

XVIIth century

1603 Death of Elisabeth I of England (1558-1603)

1624-1642  Richelieu main minister of Louis XIII of France

1648 Peace of Westphalia

1649,   30 January: Execution of Charles I of England. 

1651 Publication of The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees. Begins European hegemony of France. 

1596 Death of Jean Bodin (1530-1596) (The Six Books of the Republic 1576)

1649, 30 January Beheading of Charles I of England

1661 Louis XIV (1643-1715), comes out of age at 22. 

1679 Death of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) (Leviathan, 1651)

1690 Publication of John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.

XVIIIth century

John Locke in his last years

1704 Death of John Locke (1632-1704) (Two Treatises of Government, 1690).

1713   Treaties of Utrecht. Begins the European hegemony of England. 

1739 Composition of the Anti-Machiavel by Frederick II The Great (1740-1786).  

1721-1742  Robert Walpole as the first British Prime Minister

1748 Publication of the "The Spirit of the Laws", by Montesquieu (1689-1755).

1762 Publication of On the Social Contract by J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778)

1776    4 of July: US Declaration of Independence

1778 Death of Voltaire (1694-1778)

1783    The United States become an independent republic. 

1784 Death of Denis Diderot (1713-1784) (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, 1796)

1789 -1797    George Washington's Presidency

1790 14 of July        Paris: Festival of the Federation (Fête de la Fédération)

1799, 9 November Napoleon in power (18 Brumaire’s coup)

 

Napoleon during the 18 Brumaire coup 

by François Bouchot (1840)

c) Complete in your Class notebook the following exercises:  

CONCEPTS:

Roi legislateur. Legibus solutus. European University Institute. Guelfs. Ghibellines. Podestà. Legist. Officials. Guillaume de Nogaret. Baldus of Ubaldis. City republics. Municipal privileges. Fueros. Statuti. Contrade. Capitani del popolo. Dante Alighieri. Niccolò Machiavelli. House of Medici. The Prince. Jean Bodin. Sovereignty. Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Huguenots. Thomas Hobbes. Leviathan. Social Pact. Fürstenstaat. Peace of Westphalia. National monarchies. Philosophes. Commonwealth (Locke). Rule of Law (Montesquieu). Social Contract (Rousseau). Gettysburg Address (Lincoln). Sonderweg (Frederick II). Parliamentary regime. Robert Walpole. Enlightened revolutions. Congress (American Revolution). Articles of Confederation. Ancien Régime. Third Estate. Tennis Court Oath. National Assembly. Constituent Aseembly. Convention. Thermidorian Reaction. Directory. Celebration of the Federation (Fête de la Fédération). Jacobins. Sans culottes. Robespierre. Left and Right. Federal Constitution. Presidential system. Plebiscite. Republican monarchy. 

A "Sans culotte" 

belonging to the most radical group 

of the French Revolution 

QUESTIONS:

Concrete questions

The symbol of Louis XIV: the Sun King, 

Height of French Absolutism

1. Where does come from the expression “Absolutism?

2. What was Louis XIV conception of the state? Did he ever say that he was the state?

3. Is monarchy at the origin of the state as model of political and legal organization?

4. What was the political organization of Northern Italy in 1500?

5. Why did the Italians invent the figure of the “podestà”?

6. How did the legists help Northern Italian cities to develop self-government?

7. Did Medieval cities had constitutions?

8. What was the political position that Dante expresses in his book “De Monarchia” concerning the rule of Florence?

9. Why Dante’s Divine Comedy is important for Italian History?

10. According to Machiavelli what justifies the legitimacy of a prince for remaining in power?  

11. Why Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes defend the absolute power of kings? 

12. What are the differences between Classic Absolutism (Hochabsolutismus) and Enlightened Absolutism? 

13. Why is the Peace of Westphalia essential in European Constitutional History?

14. Why some historians consider Joan of Arc as a protonationalist figure?

15. In which sense is used the word “nation” when we speak of a “Nation-state”?

16. What was the essential contribution of the “philosophes” to the definition of the word “nation”? Why it brought politically the nation-state model?

17. How and why Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister in British political history?

18. Which were the legal instruments that American colons used to rebel against the British Monarchy?

19. When and how did the French General Estates were transformed in National Assembly? What was the role played in this transformation by the Tiers État?

20. What do the French celebrate in their national holyday the 14th of July?

21. What is the origin of the political meaning of the words left and right?

22. Why did the Americans replace the Articles of Confederation by a Federal Constitution in 1787?

23. How did the French overcome the inconveniences of the Assembly Government imposed during the French Revolution?

General questions

Robert Walpole (1721-1742): 

the first British Prime Minister

1. Why did the state model appear in Italy?

2. What do they have in common the political ideas of Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes?

3. Could we speak of nationalism in the Era of Classic Absolutism in Spain, France or England? Justify your answer with arguments.

4. What is the difference between the state and the nation-state? Why the latter reinforces the former?

5. Was really Frederick II of Prussia "The Great" an absolutist monarch? Think of his concepto of "Sonderweg". 

6. How and why did the British ended up putting limits to the royal prerogative? Think of how works the Parliamentary Regime?

7.  What lasting effects had the French Revolution in terms of European Constitutional History?

8. Why the Assembly type of government imposed by the American and French Revolutions did not work and how Americans and French put a remedy to it?

A view of Florence from Fiesole