1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779152003321

Autore

Scales Len <1961->

Titolo

The shaping of German identity : authority and crisis, 1245-1414 / / Len Scales [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2012

ISBN

1-107-22441-1

1-139-36543-6

1-280-64726-4

9786613633316

1-139-37794-9

1-139-37508-3

0-511-98016-7

1-139-37651-9

1-139-37109-6

1-139-37937-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xvi, 619 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Classificazione

HIS010000

Disciplina

943/.02

Soggetti

National characteristics, German - History - To 1500

Nationalism - Germany - History - To 1500

Political culture - Germany - History - To 1500

Monarchy - Germany - History - To 1500

Crises - Germany - History - To 1500

Germany Politics and government 1273-1517

Germany History 1273-1517

Germany Relations Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire Relations Germany

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: German questions -- Modern history: inventing the medieval German nation -- Ruled out: monarchy, government and 'state' in Germany -- Realm of imagination: communicating power after the Hohenstaufen -- Shades of a kingdom: in search of a German



political community -- The matter of Rome: universalising political identities -- Roman empire, German nation: the German imperial tradition -- Trojans, Giants and other Germans: peoplehoods forgotten, remembered and relocated -- Rome's Barbarians: accounting for the Germans -- East: applying identities -- Being German (I): place and name -- Being German (II): language and locality -- Conclusion: Endings and beginnings.

Sommario/riassunto

German identity began to take shape in the late Middle Ages during a period of political weakness and fragmentation for the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy under which most Germans lived. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the idea that there existed a single German people, with its own lands, language and character, became increasingly widespread, as was expressed in written works of the period. This book - the first on its subject in any language - poses a challenge to some dominant assumptions of current historical scholarship: that early European nation-making inevitably took place within the developing structures of the institutional state; and that, in the absence of such structural growth, the idea of a German nation was uniquely, radically and fatally retarded. In recounting the formation of German identity in the late Middle Ages, this book offers an important new perspective both on German history and on European nation-making.