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Before and After Nationes: Accounting for Medieval Peoples in Twenty-First-Century Germany

“…On the contrary, chroniclers often constructed the Other from a projection of self-conceptions, to which 'foreign' groups were assumed fundamentally to correspond. 75 Carolingian Frankish writers imagined their neighbours in their own self-image, as peoples, each occupying distinct territories and subject to monarchical rulers -even when their social and political arrangements were in fact rather different. 76 Thirteenth-and fourteenth-century French chroniclers invoked a Germany which, constitutionally, tended to resemble France.…”

“…76 Thirteenth-and fourteenth-century French chroniclers invoked a Germany which, constitutionally, tended to resemble France. 77 And even when they did not, their assumptions, and those of their German counterparts, were typically of amity and stability, not proto-Darwinian struggle, as a historical norm in the relations of their two peoples. 78 Frontiers and frontier zones matter much, whereas they generally did not for late twentieth-century German scholarship on medieval nationhood.…”