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| 49 4 The Movement toward Nascent Nation-States As the previous chapter illustrated, the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Dark Ages ushered in a new time and place for citizenship . Long gone was the notion that one had to be from a particular city in order to reap the benefits of citizenship. Also gone was the great Roman Empire that could, with little pause, bestow the status of citizen on the inhabitants of conquered lands. A European world emerged, which had to regroup after the fall of what was arguably history’s greatest empire. In many respects, it was a world in disarray. Not unlike what occurs after a forest fire, small pockets of life emerged, which eventually grew into major populations. The city-state, in some respects the vestige of Roman trade and culture, was the soil upon which the citizenship construct could once again revive itself, not unlike what was occurring with the notion of democracy and the idea of civilization during the period. The literature concerning the movement toward the development of the nascent nation-states, however, is not as detailed as the creation of the concept or the existence of citizenship during the Dark Ages. As a result, this chapter serves to describe the transitional period from the ancient world to the modern one. In this important transitional period that would eventually lead to the democratic notions and the citizenship construct that we are familiar with today, a form of citizenship nonetheless existed. Perhaps stemming from the morphed version of the concept that emerged during the Dark Ages, a form of urban citizenship based on the importance of the merchant class emerged. This class became the key citizenship class, and like the ancient citizens, those within this group within a particular city were generally equals. The economic vitality of the city itself existed in this class. Though the notion of citizenship was no longer focused upon geography, at least in terms of where one was born, it was geographically tied, specifically to the medieval city. As it evolved, Christian ideology also maintained some sort of idea of mem- 50 | The Movement toward Nascent Nation-States bership, which in turn evolved into a form of political membership much later during this period and eventually established itself during the European Renaissance. However, the idea of levels of citizenship remained constant from the ancient world to the Dark Ages. During the late Dark Ages, the label of citizen existed, as did other labels for subordinate inhabitants. Many who fell within the strata of subordinate members nonetheless held some forms of rights and obligations. Thus, there continued to exist, not unlike in the ancient world, various forms of membership and even citizenship. However, the thrust of equality as a central component of democracy (and therefore citizenship) was not a force, and notions of democracy were replaced with feudal and monastic structures of rule. This chapter will explore the development of citizenship during the period that witnessed the evolution from the European city-state to the modern notion of the nation-state. As one historian recently noted, citizenship survived in the early modern period, but it was quiescent.1 Before its eventual revival—with the coming of the Renaissance, the growth of the large nation-state, and the influence of philosophers from the Enlightenment—citizenship, in the modern sense of the word, almost disappeared . This was in part due to the initial despair that had arisen during the Dark Ages and the eventual development and bureaucratization of the centralizing state during the early part of the modern age.2 In order for the prerequisites of the modern notions of citizenship to blossom during the modern age, medieval ideas of municipal citizenship had to be transformed. This in part was made possible through the liberation of the concept from the complications and limitations of Christianity and the role it had in government and through a revival of the views concerning citizenship associated with Roman law.3 St. Thomas Aquinas attempted to manage the association between the rise of Christianity and the need for some form of citizenship.4 As a leading thinker of his day, he had great influence. Aquinas believed that all life was an expression of G_d’s purpose, including politics. Aquinas is credited with a masterful analysis and revitalization of Aristotle’s Politics.5 As a result, Aquinas placed Aristotle’s works firmly in his Christian model of the universe. However, his concepts and...

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