Outline of the April 11th Lecture / V. Kechriotis

Towards a Europe of Nations

- The concept of the modern nation: from medieval universities to the ‘noble’ nation

- Absolutist Monarchy co-opts landed aristocracy and the urban middle classes in the bureaucracy and the military: ‘noblesse de robe’ (nobility of the gown, by holding a certain office) as opposed to the ‘noblesse d’ epée’ (nobility of the sword, through hereditary right).

- The background of the Treaty of Westfalia (1648) that terminated the Thirty Years War
i) Coalition of France and the German Princes prevailed.
ii) Calvinism was recognised as equal to Catholicism and Loutheranism.
iii) The utopia of an Earthly Christian polity was abandoned as a result of the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire and the foundation of a new European system of states.
iv) It reinforced centralisation in Western Europe, especially in France, and fragmentation in central Europe, a condition that will contribute to the emergence of two different kinds of nationalism, ‘state’ and ‘ethnic’ ones.
v) The ruler can impose his own religion, which leads not to tolerance but to religious and ethnic homogenisation, (Louis XIV against Hugenotes, English Parliament againts both Catholics and the rulers Charles I and James II).

- Development of parliamentary institutions in France and Britain: Two opposing cases of state-builidng and nation-building.

England

i) In 1541, Church of England established by Henry VIII.
ii) From the rule of the Tudor (Henry VIII-Elizabeth) in the 16th c. to that of the Stuart from Scotland in the 17th c. after the Union of Scotland and England 1603.
iii) Welsh gentry entered the Union enjoying privileges.
iv) Ireland was imposed a Protestant Rule, reinforced by Scotish Presbyterians.
v) British Civil Wars: It started with the Scotish reaction, backed by the Parliament, against pro-Catholic Charles I’s authoritarianism.
vi) The Parliament that represented the elected notables from the shires was suspended between 1629-40. When it was restored, based on the ‘Magna Carta’ (1214), it claimed sovereignty and eventually it prevailed. Charles I was put to death.
vii) The Protestant radicals will develop to the Whigs, the Catholic royalists to the Torrys.
viii) Similarly in 1688, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ broke out as a reaction against Catholic James II’s intention to include the Catholics to the Acts of Tolerance.
ix) Eventually, Great Britain will be established in 1707 and the Hannover (Windsor) dynasty will rule, contributing to a new British identity.
x) The Parliament prevailed, but its sovereignty derived from itself not from the people. Reactionary English Catholicism combined with a nostalgia for self-administation .
xi) The Enclosures (promoting livestock) and the Clearances were imposed by loyalist landowners against populations who had supported the Royalty (Highlanders in Scotland) and paved the way for the devastation of the pesantry and prepared the Industrial Revolution.
xii) British society divided into a well-endowed loyalist minority and a disposessed majority.

France

i) From the Valois (Francois I) to the Burbon dynasty (Louis XIV, King-Sun)
ii) The nobility had challenged royal authority in the Wars of Fronde (1648-1856) and was crashed by the chief-minister Cardinal Mazarin, who established absolutism.
iii) Centralisation of the state but local previleges survive, ‘libertés’.
iv) Incorporation of the nobility to the bureaucracy and the palace life at Versailles.
v) Administration by special committes and eventually Intendants.
vi) The three estates in the Parliament: clergy, aristocracy (also bourgeois gentilhommes) and the rest of the population. It survived in permanent suspension and only registered royal decress.
vii) The Parliament was summoned by Louis XVI and this led to the French Revolution.
viii) The pesantry survived thanks to the limited autonomy provided by the center and the incapacity of the landed aristocracy to impose its own rule. Later on, this peasantry formed the base for a popular democracy, where authority emanated from the people.
ix) Emphasis on indivdual rights in British tradition (John Lock) and on the general will in the French tradition (Jean Jacques Rousseau).
x) This leads to Ernest Renan (nation is an everyday plebiscite) and Lord Acton (imperial liberalism) at the end of the 19th c.

Constitutionalism in the 19th c.:

Three major ideologies Liberalism – Conservatism - Nationalism

i) In 1812 ‘Liberales’ introduce Spanish Constitution.
ii) Sources: British Parliamentarism. American Revolution.
iii) Republicanism or Constitutional Monarchy: Government by consent. Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Constitutional Procedures, Religious Toleration, Universal Rights of Man. It opposes the prerogatives of the Crown, the Church, the Aristocracy. John Lock, John Stuart Mill.
iv) Economic Liberalism. Laissez faire, Adam Smith, David Ricardo.
v) Conservatism supports individual rights and opposes the omnipotent state but it advocates the organic growth of institutions. Anti-revolutionary. Edmund Burke.
vi) England and France opposing cases again. In England the absence of revolution led to a delay of reforms. A reformed parliament appers only in 1832. Corn Laws againts Free Trade survive until 1846. The Church of England remained powerful. The feudal privileges of the House of Lords survived until 1911. The Whigs and Torrys were enentually transformed into Liberals and Conservatives.
vii) France saw two revolutions. 1830 with Louis-Philip establishing July Monarchy and 1848 with Napoleon III establishing a new Empire. The 1830 uprising led to the Belgian Independence and Constituton, the 1848 liberal nationalist uprisings spread all over Europe. The fall of Napoleon III led to the Paris Commune (1871) and the Second Republic.
viii) The 1848 uprisings led to the establishment of new parliaments: the ‘Vorpalament’ in Frankfurt and the ‘Slav Congress’ in Prague.
ix) Eventually with the coordination of authoritarian powers, the 1848 uprisings were everywere supressed. The memory of the uprising, however, remained alive. Monarchies realised it was more practical to provide concessions than suppressing revolts.
x) In Spain, In 1812 ‘Liberales’ introduce Spanish Constitution. From 1829 ‘Exaltados’, extreme radicals against ‘apostolicos’ monarchists antagonise each othe under the monarch Don Carlos. Several constitutions were introduced and annuled until a constitutional monarchy was established between 1876-1920.
xi) In Portugal, a constitution was granted in 1826 by King Pedro but absolutism prevailed until 1853. A constitutional monarchy was then established until 1910 when the Republic was declared.