Origins of the Concept of “National Sovereignty”: The Role of the Word “Nation”

Abstract

This essay constitutes the first part of an investigation into the origin and consequences of the concept of “national sovereignty,” focusing specifically on the concept of “nation” as derived from the Latin natio and the languages that adopted this lexical root. Consequently, this conceptual analysis is circumscribed strictly to the philological sphere of the Latin word, excluding terms in other languages that do not originate from natio. Most notably, natio initially functioned as a synonym for the Latin gens, carrying a slightly negative nuance. The author compares natio primarily with other Latin terms for “community”—chiefly populus, patria, and civitas—and examines early attempts at definition by Quintilian and Saint Isidore of Seville. The collapse of long-distance human relations from the fifth century onward facilitated the transformation of Latin and the formation of the Romance languages. Under the author’s hypothesis, this shift prevented the Latin word gens from being recovered in the sense of “nation,” causing it to take on the broader meaning of “people.” As gens became relegated to the strictly legal domain (ius gentium), natio and its derivatives progressively established themselves in common usage. Nevertheless, natio continued to denote a community defined by kinship. Because kinship inherently involves degrees, a distinction arose between “general nations” and “particular nations.” Each “particular nation” formed part of a “general nation,” giving rise to “nations of nations” composed of smaller constituent units. The author details the role played by universities and councils of the Roman Church, particularly from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. From the fifteenth century onward, a “territorialization” of the concept of “nation” emerges in certain countries, potentially linked to the evolving meaning of the word “State.” Finally, this text anticipates the impact of introducing the idea of “national sovereignty,” illustrating this dynamic through the case of the Spanish Monarchy and its extension to the antipodes from the sixteenth century onward.

1. Introduction

National sovereignty remains one of the central issues of the contemporary era. It rests on the assumption that every nation inherently tends toward absolute sovereignty and, therefore, possesses a right to it. It has been a century since this premise gave rise to the concept of the “Nation-State.” Prior to the emergence of “national sovereignty,” the nation was understood as a community formed by birth—the result of the union between a man and a woman—and through the assimilation of a specifically “national” culture. The term indicated kinship; just as there are degrees of kinship, there were nations containing smaller communities that were likewise termed “nations.” For example, one could belong to the “Castilian nation” and, by extension, to the “Hispanic nation,” while within the “Castilian nation,” the “Biscayan nation” persisted for centuries.

Once it was accepted that every nation possesses the right to absolute sovereignty, this arrangement was no longer possible. Consequently, separatist movements began to emerge or gain strength within larger nations. Many of these movements persist today, occasionally manifesting through violent or even terrorist means.

This alone demonstrates the severity of the problem. In the twentieth century, the emergence of international organizations (Williams 2025) and, subsequently, the economic phenomenon of “globalization” placed scholars of political law in a difficult dilemma. National authorities cannot adequately manage a “global” economic order that is inherently universal—an issue that has become nearly intractable, primarily owing to the globalization of finance. Yet, the entrenched concept of “national sovereignty” persists even within the countries of greatest economic weight. For instance, Hillgruber (2009, p. 17), a specialist in public law and a strong proponent of the European Union, asserted in 2009 that “[t]hose who seek to build Europe forgetting national sovereignty and democracy, the constituent principles of European states, are building castles in the air”. In 2025, Maxence Smaniotto proposed a solution, arguing that “the nation-state will find its salvation only through a profound unifying refoundation: by constituting itself as a new Empire” (Smaniotto 2025).

Along with these major problems, the concept under discussion also has consequences for groups that are unjustly marginalized or placed in legal situations that contradict “national sovereignty.” Illustrative examples include the cases studied by Adams (2024) and Mandolesi et al. (2025), as well as the mystical implications examined by Paipais and Poward (2025).

While hundreds of essays address these questions, this study does not intend to intervene in that debate. Rather, its objective is to trace the conceptual history of the key terms that define the issue—specifically nation, sovereignty, absolute sovereignty, state, and related terms—to determine whether the problem is fundamentally conceptual and thus requires, among other measures, a conceptual solution.

To this end, this study adopts the following order: it begins by reconstructing the history of the Latin word natio, from which derive most terms used in the countries where this problem has emerged. This approach necessitates a detailed examination of the original meaning of natio and related vocabulary, chief among them gens, patria, and civitas.

A second part, intended for future publication, will examine the concept of “sovereignty.”

2. Materials and Methods

Given the extensive literature on “nation,” “nationalism,” and “national sovereignty,” this study cites only works that directly support its core arguments. Much of this historiography arose precisely from the theoretical problems and varying perspectives generated by these concepts (e.g., Renan and Thom 1990; A. D. Smith 2002; Guibernau and Rex 2010). Consequently, these scholars operate on the premise that every nation inherently tends toward sovereignty—an assumption that constitutes one of the central dimensions of the issue itself. The idea of “national sovereignty” has so thoroughly permeated Western civilization and its sphere of influence that many specialists take its presence for granted, projecting it back into remote antiquity. Though anachronistic, this notion has become deeply embedded in our collective identity, rendering it seemingly unquestionable. For instance, Hastings (2000, pp. 30–32) interprets the Latin natio as an expression conveying sovereign political meaning across all historical periods in which it was used in England. Yet, among the quotations he adduces, the earliest to approximate this sense of a “sovereign nation” dates to 1624, whereas the usage of the word “nation” in the British Isles long predates that moment. Here, and particularly in his second chapter, Hastings conflates the undeniable existence of national sentiment with an explicit drive to form a sovereign state.

This research therefore prioritizes lexical and philological studies that analyze how these terms (nation, sovereignty, and related concepts) were used prior to the dominance of “absolute sovereignty” and “national sovereignty.” Where relevant, primary written sources from the periods under discussion are cited directly.

Methodologically, this study relies on textual analysis and conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), drawing on the framework established by Reinhart Koselleck. The German historian grounded this approach in clear epistemological foundations, central to which is the distinction between a word and a concept: words can be strictly defined, whereas concepts can only be interpreted. Every concept possesses distinct temporal layers, and understanding it requires examining its transformation over time.

A rigorous conceptual analysis therefore requires both diachronic and synchronic approaches. Concepts follow dynamics of structural and categorical continuity and change, extending even to the generation of derivative concepts and counter-concepts that themselves evolve throughout history. These shifts can lead to the use of different terms for the same concept and its opposite—demanding a “semasiological” analysis—or to the application of the same term to distinct concepts, which necessitates an “onomasiological” approach. Semasiology, a branch of linguistics concerned with word meaning, proceeds “from sign to concept”: it begins with an existing word and examines what it means, its semantic range, and how it relates to different concepts or realities. Onomasiological inquiry follows the inverse path, moving from the concept to the word. Consequently, as Koselleck argued, reconstructing the meaning of a concept at any given point in history requires, where possible, analyzing it through all four dimensions: diachronically, synchronically, semasiologically, and onomasiologically.

These four frameworks should not be applied rigidly; rather, they must be kept continually in mind and maintained in careful balance.

Without reiterating the criticisms leveled at Begriffsgeschichte from post-structuralist positions or alternative theoretical frameworks (Welskopp 2010; Pankakoski 2010; Oncina Coves 2022), it is worth noting that Koselleck ([1985] 2004, chap. xiv) himself recognized that historical understanding depends on both the intersection of synchronic and diachronic orders and the position of each reader at that junction.

Although Brunner et al. (1972–1997) included the word “nation” in their monumental lexicon of socio-political concepts, further nuances remain to be added. Introducing those nuances constitutes the primary contribution of this study.

3. Results

3.1. The Word “Nation”

As previously announced, this initial exposition of research findings begins by establishing the marginal usage of the word natio (“nation”) in classical Latin, contrasting its meaning with four far more prevalent terms: gens, patria, civitas, and populus. Because the Etymologies of Saint Isidore of Seville constitute the primary encyclopedic compendium of classical knowledge—and treating Saint Isidore himself as the last of the “classics”—this study focuses closely on his work. Drawing from his definitions, this text traces the marginal trajectory of natio up to the semantic shift undergone by gens during the emergence of the Romance languages. Finally, it examines the complex process of defining natio, highlighting how the cultural and political facies originally associated with gens in classical Latin reemerged within it.

3.1.1. The Meaning of a Word That Almost No Une Used

The word “nation” is an evolution of the Latin natio. In classical Rome, however, natio was rarely used; writers preferred the term gens. Gens differed from populus in that populus served as the most general designation for a human community, whereas gens denoted a community structured by paternal–filial generation. Populus carried no inherent emphasis on a community’s political rights or legal status, nor did it indicate a genealogical foundation—a feature explicitly present in gens and, when employed, in natio. Nevertheless, populus could also denote a political community when qualified by a demonym or toponym, as exemplified by the populus Romanus (Bobertz 2017).

The terms populus, gens, and natio were all “political” expressions in the classical sense of the word. To denote the political community itself, however, Latin writers preferred a fourth expression, civitas (“city”), likely continuing the Greek concept of the polis (which Greek thinkers viewed as the indispensable minimum community required for true human freedom). Thus, populus designated a generic “human community” that might or might not constitute a civitas, a gens, or a natio. Etymologically, populus may derive from the Indo-European root *pel- (akin to the Greek plêthos, “multitude”), though scholarly consensus remains divided (Ezquerra Gómez 2009, p. 21; Matasović 2024, pp. 58–59). By contrast, membership in a gens or a natio—terms that functioned as near-synonyms—required kinship, a condition not strictly necessary for a populus or civitas (W. Smith 1875, pp. 288–93, 567–70; Reilly 1998–1999).

In classical Latin, natio served as a quasi-synonym of gens used specifically to emphasize the “foreignness” or “strangeness” of a group. It was frequently applied to “gentiles” or foreigners outside the Roman people (ThLL 2026, vol. IX, col. 132–38; Forcellini 1940; Zernatto and Mistretta 1944; Niermeyer 1984). During the early centuries CE, Christian writers adopted the word to designate “pagans.” For instance, the convert Arnobius of Sicca employed natio in this manner around 300 CE in his work Adversus nationes. Indeed, Arnobius applied the term to non-Jewish populations designated as gentiles by Christians—a term itself derived from gens (Arnobii 1846, pp. 55, 63, 213–14, 332, [c. 300]).

In the first century CE, Quintilian—in his Institutio Oratoria (5.10.24)—treated gens and natio as synonyms arguing that persuasive reasoning should draw evidence sequentially from: (i) the individual under discussion, (ii) their nation, (iii) their homeland (patria in Latin), (iv) their town (civitas), (v) their sex, (vi) their age, (vii) their education, (viii) their physical appearance and complexion, (ix) their condition or state, (x) their nature, and (xi) their trade or profession.

The passage is transcribed here in Quintilian’s Latin to complement the dynamic translation, preserving the original synonym pairs—nationes with gentes, and patriae (homelands) with civitates (cities):

“Natio, nam et gentibus proprii mores sunt nec idem in barbaro, Romano, Graeco probabile est: Patria, quia similiter etiam civitatum leges, instituta, opiniones habent differentiam.”

That Quintilianus (1904) distinguished “nations” and “peoples” by customs rather than kinship was self-evident to his contemporaries: parentage extended beyond biological procreation to the active transmission of cultural customs to children—the vital link binding extended kin into a natio or gens. However, the human community par excellence was the “city” (civitas), which often coincided with the parental domain or “fatherland” (patria, derived from the Latin patres, “parents”). According to Quintilian, Romans differentiated each civitas or patria by its distinct laws, institutions, and modes of thought (opiniones).

This second aspect—concerning fatherland and city—will be addressed subsequently. For now, it suffices to note that between natio and gens, natio was rarely used and remained a marginal word for centuries; it was not until the thirteenth century that it was finally established to designate ancient peoples (gentes, the Latin plural of gens), for reasons explored below. Indeed, in the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible completed around 400 CE), Jerome translated the Greek ethnos as gens in most cases, though he opted for natio in a notable number of instances. He even preferred to speak of aetas gentium instead of aetas nationum when referring to what was later termed the “age of nations”—a period calculated as extending from the time of Abraham (see CCROLAUT 2026).

Around 600, when Saint Isidore wrote the Etymologies—a text that exerted profound influence over subsequent centuries—he emphasized this same point. He omitted a dedicated definition or etymology for the word natio, mentioning it only in passing while addressing gens and genus at length:

“Gens is a crowd of people who have the same origin or who come from a different race according to their particular identification, such as Greece or Asia. Hence its name of ‘gentility’. And they are called gens by the ‘generations’ of families, because the word derives from ‘to generate,’ just as ‘nation’ [natio] derives from ‘to be born’ [nascor].”

“Genus (lineage) derives from ‘begetting’ and ‘generating,’ or from the defining of specific descendants—such as nations—who, bound by their shared kinship, are called gentes.”

(San Isidoro de Sevilla 1982, chap. IX, para. 2.1 and 4.4)

That Saint Isidore noted the philological connection between natio and nascor without granting natio its own entry in his dictionary suggests that it remained a secondary term around the year 600. By approximately 800, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin of York employed it with the nuance of a “peculiar community” characteristic of the first centuries CE. Encouraging Christian monks who had settled in northwestern Ireland, he urged them to shine their light “in the midst of such a barbarous nation” (“Luceat lux vestra in medio nationis perbarbarae”). To refer to his own people, Alcuin preferred the phrase gens Anglorum (“people of the Angles”) (Epistolae 276, in Alcuin of York 1876, p. 847).

3.1.2. The Important Change in Meaning of the Latin Word Gens

The rise of natio was likely driven by a factor proposed here as a hypothesis: as the Romance languages developed, gens shifted toward a broader, more generic meaning. This general sense, present as a secondary definition in Classical Latin, persisted into Vulgar and Late Latin—the primary sources of the Romance family. (Most of the Romance languages did not arise from Classical Latin, but from the Vulgar, spoken by the soldiers who invaded and kept the territories.) Consequently, derivatives of gens came to refer to people in general (gentes in Iberian and Italian Romances, les gens in French), and gens and its derivatives ceased to denote a community linked by shared kinship and lifestyle. As a result, natio supplanted gens when authors needed to express that specific nuance: kinship as the foundation of community.

Where this shift occurred, the generalization of gens likely accelerated with the expansion of human mobility across greater distances, particularly from the tenth century onward in Western Europe. This increased mobility heightened the awareness of alterity and made differences between distinct populations increasingly evident. When writers subsequently categorized these distinct groups, they designated them not as gentes, but as nationes.

Most other European language families—such as Slavic and Germanic—followed a similar trajectory. In several of these languages, gens produced no direct lexical derivative, leading to the adoption of natio: for instance, Nation in German or nacija in Croatian (a language where the functional equivalent of gens was and remains rod, as seen in the expression rođen sam, “I was born”). In German, Volk corresponds to “people,” but functions de facto as a synonym for gens in its kinship-based sense. In English, populus was adapted for this general meaning, ultimately yielding “people.”

The original sense of the word gens was preserved primarily within the juridical sphere of the ius gentium (“law of nations”), which stood as the principal exception to the term’s evolution. The expansive borders of Rome were insufficient to stem the movement of diverse populations, encompassing both peaceful migrations of entire families seeking better living conditions and violent armed incursions. Germanic groups were warlike, ultimately reducing the Roman Republic to an Italian stronghold in the fifth century. By contrast, the political unity of the Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople, survived until the conquest in 1453. The attitudes of these new Germanic settlers toward the Latinate population of Western Europe varied widely. Nevertheless, an inevitable hybridization occurred, which, among other developments, profoundly shaped the legal system. Consequently, the ius gentium was consolidated and expanded. This legal continuity did not prevent the broader semantic shift in gens in the Romance languages; among legal scholars, however, the traditional meaning persisted well into the nineteenth century. A revealing example of this long duration, given its date and geographic origin, is Principios de derecho de jentes [sic], published by the humanist Andrés Bello in Santiago, Chile, in 1832, and later revised and expanded in 1844 as Principios de derecho internacional (Bello 1832, 1844). To my knowledge, no work in Spanish containing “International Law” in its title exists prior to 1843, and the earliest English equivalent appeared only slightly earlier (Wheaton 1836). Until then, it was still called “the law of gentes” what we now call international law.

3.1.3. The Imposition of the Word Natio and the Problem of Defining It

A By around 1140, Bernard, the first Norman bishop of Saint David’s, was already using natio as if aware that it was replacing the classical term gens, even if that was not his explicit intention. In explaining to the pope that the populations of his province—who were not exclusively Welsh—differed in “nation, language, laws and customs, ways of judging and usages,” he juxtaposed six distinct concepts: natione, lingua, legibus et moribus, iudiciis et consuetudinibus. The complete text is quoted below to preserve the original phrasing against progressive editorial distortions:

“Noveritis autem proculdubio inter provincias, nostram quidem et Cantuariensem Londonie provinciam cum viii comitatibus interiacere, et populos nostre provincia, natione, lengua, legibus et moribus, iudiciis et consuetudinibus discrepare”

(in Davies 1920, p. 142).

This represents one of the earliest known texts featuring a notable usage of the word natio. Grammatically, the passage is not a definition, but rather a list of terms deployed to mark differences between human political communities—that is, groups structured around a shared authority. In this juxtaposition, the bishop likely combined concepts with two distinct nuances: “nation,” “language,” “customs,” and “usages” carried a cultural weight, whereas “laws,” “ways of judging,” “customs,” and “usages” possessed a strictly legal dimension. Conceptually, “customs” and “usages” bridged the gap between culture and governance. Implicitly, the bishop’s observation suggested that while the province was initially formed as a community through natural or lineage-based ties (with a word—that of natural—derived from the Latin natio and natura), it was their shared culture and allegiance to a common authority that enabled them to endure as a unified group.

Although the Bishop of Saint David’s did not explicitly employ the terms “culture” and “community,” both concepts trace their origins to classical Rome. Cultura originally denoted “agriculture” in an active sense—namely, “tilling” or “farming”—before Roman authors applied it metaphorically. Cicero provided perhaps the clearest early example of this figurative use in Tusculanae Disputationes 2.3: “Cultura animi philosophia est” (“Philosophy is the cultivation of the mind”) (ThLL 2026, vol. IV, col. 1323).

For the present analysis, it is essential to focus on the second element highlighted in the bishop’s enumeration: obedience to a single authority. While the Latin auctoritas aligns with the modern concept of “authority,” it carried a critical distinction that set it apart from raw power (potestas). As Agamben (2003, pp. 70–86) notes, auctoritas is not the exercise of potestas, but rather the moral force legitimizing the exercise of potestas (cf. DeCaroli 2013). This distinction, however, leads directly into the question of sovereignty.

3.1.4. The Role of Universities and Councils in Counting on “Nations”

The term natio, however, did not fully establish itself until the thirteenth century, as demonstrated by twelfth century universities and councils where it began to be widely adopted—even serving as an organizing framework for these two fundamentally distinct institutions.

Its presence within universities and councils does not, however, imply that these bodies caused its emergence. Historical logic—which does not always dictate historical reality—suggests instead what has just been argued: that the intensification of all forms of human mobility across Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries heightened awareness of “otherness” as individuals encountered those from foreign lands, thereby elevating the word’s prominence. Concurrently, the ethnic meaning of the word gens became blurred or lost. Nonetheless, the appearance of its sense in the universities established during the twelfth century remains significant. Faculty and students required a framework for self-identification and chose to define themselves by “nationes”, no by “gentes”. Because Latin served as the universal language, these institutions—often small yet genuinely international—needed a mechanism to distinguish foreign scholars from locals. Consequently, universities promptly adopted this organic division and the term natio as an administrative criterion for internal organization (Kibre 1948).

This thesis has a few prominent detractors. Maravall (1972) explicitly rejects the claim that the diffusion of natio was linked to the emergence of universities, attempting to prove this through numerous citations from authors who made no mention of universities yet used the word. However, most of the citations he adduces postdate 1400. For present purposes, Vierling’s (2024) study provides compelling evidence: by comparing the organizational structure of “nations” across Western universities from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, he convincingly demonstrates this link while highlighting the extreme heterogeneity of this institutional model. The development of the natio Hispanica at the University of Bologna between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries serves to qualify our thesis. As a term denoting familial belonging or kinship, natio adapted to practical reality, encompassing varying degrees of affinity. This yields two main implications: first, the acknowledgment of a hierarchy of “nations”; second, the potential existence of “nations of nations” (and even “nations of nations of nations” in the case of the natio Hispanica). Loomis (1939, p. 510) errs in asserting that universities of the period generally formed four nations, overgeneralizing from the Parisian model. At the University of Bologna, nationes emerged in the thirteenth century because jurists needed an organizational structure for voting and adapted the previously informal grouping of nationes. Jurists were divided into Citramontanes and Ultramontanes, with the latter (foreigners) subdivided into thirteen nations. In Italy, in that time, Ultramontanus was a Late Latin word used as a synonym of Transalpis (“native to the other side of the Alps”, that is, “from outside Italy”) (see Agrigoroaei 2020, p. 69). That is enough to understand that thirteen “nations” were distinguished in Bologna university. But, because maximizing the number of nations conferred greater voting weight, a natio Cathelanorum (first documented in 1295) appears to have split off from the natio Hispanorum (which existed by 1281 and encompassed all peninsular students, including the Portuguese).

This arrangement presented difficulties due to the small number of Catalans, but it was resolved with the assistance of Aragonese and Castilian scholars, who identified as Cathelani when expedient. From the fifteenth century onward, distinct Aragonese, Majorcan, Navarrese, and “Indian” nations, among others, began to branch off. Self-evidently, the natio Indiana could only emerge after the establishment of the Spanish “kingdoms of the Indies” in the Americas. Nevertheless, their members continued to view themselves as part of the broader natio Hispanorum while remaining true natives (“naturales”; that is, “nationals”) of the constituent sub-nations that comprised the Hispanic collective (Tamburri 1999, pp. 74, 86, 88, 115, 182, 227, 232). Certain individuals—such as Catalans—were simultaneously Hispani, Aragonenses, and Cathelani (Catalonia being part of the Crown of Aragon). Ultimately, this was a pragmatic effort to maximize voting power by establishing as many recognized “nations” as possible within the natio Hispanica.

That the term emerged concurrently in the councils of the Latin Church further indicates that the word natio was acquiring widespread prominence at this time; despite thirteen centuries of ecclesiastical councils, there had previously been no reason to organize them along national lines. At the Council of Lyons (1274), specifically, cardinals confronted Gregory X over his intention to unilaterally modify the rules for papal elections. In response, the pope convened the archbishops and abbots by nations to secure written approval for his proposals. Clement V adopted a similar strategy at the Council of Vienne (1311–1312), grouping prelates by nation for voting purposes into Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Danes, English, Scots, and French.

This organizational scheme did not imply that no other nations existed but rather reflected the origins of the vast majority of attending prelates. Practical administrative simplification was necessary. Council fathers who fell outside these seven designated groups lacked the numerical or political weight to form independent units, obliging them to align with one of the aforementioned categories.

This organizational scheme in the councils became directly linked to the Western Schism—the division between rival bishops of Rome that lasted from 1378 to 1417—and the cardinals’ inability to agree on electing a single pope. Exercising the powers attributed to imperial authority since Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century, the Emperor and other Christian princes felt compelled to intervene to restore order. Consequently, these secular rulers frequently took the initiative in convening the resulting councils. They dispatched the ecclesiastical hierarchs from their respective territories and—having ruled out both voting by kingdom and continuing to restrict the vote strictly to cardinals—maintained the practice of grouping these hierarchs by nations and assigning one vote to each nation.

Only at this stage, and for an eminently pragmatic purpose—voting—did it become necessary to establish who constituted a nation and who did not. This requirement spurred an initial conceptual effort, which ultimately demonstrated that the term nation already encompassed at least two distinct realities.

3.1.5. The First Known Discussion on the Concept of Nation in Constance Council

It was precisely at the Council of Constance (1414–1417) that the Council Fathers organized themselves formally by “nations.” Each nation maintained its own president, deputies, and notaries, and each was assigned dedicated seating in the cathedral along with a designated meeting place to cast its vote. These votes were then conveyed by the respective deputies to the central commission or the general assembly.

The issue was of paramount importance, as the fundamental question was who possessed the right to elect the pope. This matter had been debated for centuries and had seemingly been settled in the eleventh century, when the papacy granted this privilege to the cardinals—the term used, particularly since the eighth century, for the bishops of the Roman region. Ultimately, the cardinalate became the highest ecclesiastical dignity, grounded not in divine right, but in canonical law.

However, the cardinals’ inability to resolve the Schism of 1378 reopened the debate. Prior to the Council of Constance, numerous bishops, abbots, princes, and other notable figures pointed out that the cardinals were merely the local Roman clergy. They argued that leaders of other churches (what are now termed particular churches, such as those of Paris or Berlin) also held voting rights. Consequently, with the cardinalate’s monopoly set aside, the key question became how to allocate the votes of the various church representatives: by individual head, by nations, or by ecclesiastical provinces.

The council ultimately chose to vote by nations. This decision, however, raised another problem: defining what constituted a nation. Initially, the council adopted the criterion of the four nations recognized at the time by the Sorbonne University: the Gallican (French), German, English, and Italian nations. This system prevailed despite resistance, particularly from Emperor Sigismund, who argued for the recognition of a Hungarian nation. Ultimately, Hungary was incorporated into the German nation, as were the Czechs, Poles, Danes, and Swedes—despite many not being German. Similarly, Dalmatians, Cypriots, and Greeks were grouped under the Italian nation, despite not being Italian.

This classification was neither purely political nor, strictly speaking, cultural—though language was the determining factor that incorporated the Savoyards, Provençals, and many Lorrainers (all subjects of the emperor) into the Gallican nation rather than the Germanic one. While linguistic criteria were applied in these cases, they were not used consistently elsewhere.

Furthermore, for political reasons, the French sought to deny the English national status—and with it, voting rights—arguing that they were fundamentally German (perhaps thinking of the Franks while forgetting the Gauls). This effort not only failed, but the French were also forced to accept the creation of a fifth natio, the Hispanic nation, established when the Aragonese arrived more than a year after the council opened. As other peninsular delegates arrived in Constance, including the Portuguese and Navarrese, they joined the Hispanic nation without difficulty, despite belonging to different kingdoms and speaking distinct languages—namely Portuguese, Navarrese Romance, and Basque.

The Portuguese and Navarrese considered themselves members of the Spanish nation despite hailing from kingdoms distinct from the others on the peninsula and its islands. Their rationale rested on their origin in the territory that Romans had designated Hispania. Romans had popularized the word Ispania, a term Phoenicians had originally applied only to the Atlantic-facing Mediterranean coast they sighted near the strait that separates Europe from Africa. They landed on that coast and found blacksmiths of exceptional skill. In second-millennium BCE Phoenician, Ispania denoted interchangeably “northern coast” and “blacksmiths’ coast” (Cunchillos and Zamora 1997, pp. 141–54). And, in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese still considered themselves Spanish.

In the Council of Constance, the followers of the French cardinal D’Ailly went so far as to demand that the national system be abandoned and individual voting reinstated, arguing that division by nation destroyed the council’s unity. They were unsuccessful, succeeding only in provoking physical street brawls between the French and the British. Ultimately, Emperor Sigismund’s commissioners decided that delegates should remain organized by nations, arguing that it was done “as the Holy Spirit has inspired us” (in Loomis 1939, p. 522; on the foregoing, pp. 512–21; see also Loomis 1932).

It was this convergence of factors that ultimately gave rise to the debate over what actually constituted a nation.

3.1.6. Problems and Nuances in the Definition of “Nation”

D’Ailly asserted that a nation was, de facto, a secular political organization—a political community—and that priority should instead be given to ecclesiastical organization. When this argument failed to prevail, representatives of the French nation drafted a memorial as early as 1417 proposing a distinction between “general nations” and “particular nations.” Under this framework, the English were classified as a “particular” nation within the broader German “general” nation. Thus was born a distinction that would carry far-reaching consequences—both beneficial and severe—over the subsequent six centuries.

Strictly speaking, this distinction was by no means negligible, even if incomplete: it tacitly acknowledged that the term natio was sufficiently fluid to accommodate nations within nations—effectively creating “nations of nations,” as occurred in Spain. But this position reflected either internal disagreement or confusion among the French: while D’Ailly had initially defined a nation as a political organization, the memorial now implied that within these overarching political entities (nationes generales), there existed subordinate particular nations that were themselves political organizations of a lower rank.

In response, the English drafted their own memorial. While accepting the division into general and particular nations, they maintained that the principal defining characteristic of a nation—contextually, a “particular” nation—was language. Consequently, they argued there could be no doubt that the English constituted a “general” nation, for the simple reason that their domain encompassed eight kingdoms and five languages: “[...] The nation,” they explained, “is understood as a people [gens] distinguished from others by blood relationship [cognationem] and a habit of unity [collectionem] or by a diversity of languages, which are the highest and truest proofs of a nation and its very essence [quae maximam et verissimam probant nationem et ipsius essentiam] by divine and human right.”

This was not a matter of politics in the pejorative sense of the word: “Everyone knows that it matters little whether a nation obeys one prince or several. Are there not many kingdoms in the Spanish nation that do not owe allegiance to the King of Castile, the principal ruler of Spain? And yet, it does not follow that they are excluded from the Spanish nation. Provence, the Dauphiné, Savoy, Burgundy, Lorraine, and many other regions that have no connection to our adversary of France—are they not, nevertheless, included within the French or Gallican nation?”

Strictly speaking, the English argument did not align with actual council practices. The Poles, for instance, were Slavs grouped into a single natio alongside the Germans; they shared neither a special blood relationship, nor a habit of unity, nor a common language. However, the debaters were representatives of Western churches, and their primary goal was not to formulate canonical doctrine on the nature of the Polish nation, but rather to bring order to an immediate, concrete situation. Ultimately, the English criterion prevailed—one that was indeed most aligned with the tradition of classical Rome.

Yet, another incident at the council demonstrated that this conflict of criteria was more than a mere dispute between the French and English. The natio Hispanica subsumed Sardinians and Sicilians alongside subjects of the crowns of Portugal, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon simply because the Sardinians and Sicilians were subjects of the King of Aragon—despite neither inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula nor speaking an Iberian language. Portuguese Council Fathers protested this inclusion, emphasizing that the inhabitants of Sardinia and Sicily spoke distinct languages and genuinely belonged to a different nation. They overlooked, however, that they themselves spoke a distinct language—Portuguese—and that no linguistic unity existed among the territories of Aragon and Castile, with whom the Portuguese Fathers nevertheless agreed to form the natio Hispanica.

To understand the vigor of their protest, one must recognize that, with the votes of the Sicilians and Sardinians, the subjects of the Crown of Aragon could secure an absolute majority within the natio Hispanica. Consequently, because each nation cast a single collective vote, the Aragonese representatives could effectively dictate how and for whom the entire natio Hispanica would vote.

3.2. And Then?

The preceding enumeration of “nations” demonstrates that the criterion of linguistic differentiation was intertwined with that of political classification (“kingdoms”), even though multiple languages were spoken within some of these realms. A clear example was the Kingdom of Navarre, where Basque and Romance populations coexisted alongside two minorities speaking Arabic or Hebrew. Thus, the distinction between nation and kingdom was explicitly maintained years later at the Council of Basel in 1434. When the issue resurfaced regarding voting rights and precedence—specifically whether the English or Castilians should vote first—the convert and bishop Alonso de Cartagena argued that distinct nations and languages existed within the domains of the King of Castile: “because the Castilians and the Galicians and the Biscayans are diverse nations, and they use different languages of the whole” (cit. Echevarría Gaztelumendi 1992, p. 343).

3.2.1. Pragmatism and Love

I Ultimately, voting power was the primary issue. Universities found it advantageous to fragment the “general nations” to gain additional votes, whereas within church councils, “particular nations” had to campaign for recognition to exert voting influence. This dynamic stemmed from the administrative—and broadly political—mechanisms of these institutions. However, this institutional usage of the term natio and its Romance equivalents should not obscure the underlying reality of the period: the existence of a genuine national sentiment, which might equally be termed a “patriotic feeling.” A profound sense of community belonging based on kinship developed, initially directed toward the homeland (patria) and later toward the nation (Baumgartner 2002). For example, a thirteenth century French literary text, La queste del Saint Graal, expresses this sentiment: “That for love of you I have left my land and the sweetness of my nation” (“Qui por amor de vos avoie ma terre lessiee et la douçor de ma nacion”) (cit. Loomis 1939, p. 509). Also this conceptual framework was rooted in classical Roman heritage. Cities throughout the jurisdiction of classical Rome granted special status to recognized “Roman citizens.” In such cases, citizens possessed two homelands (patriae) and a dual allegiance: to Rome and to their civitas of origin (Bonjour 1975). For instance, in the first century CE, Saint Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) demonstrated patriotism toward both Tarsus and Rome, while the poet Martial longed for his native patria of Bilbilis in Hispania while residing in his patria of Rome (Dolç 1953, 1987). Beginning tentatively in the tenth century and accelerating in the thirteenth, the gradual revival of long-distance travel prompted a resurgence of “patriotic” feeling. As the use of writing expanded—driven by both practical long-distance communication and literary creation—expressions of devotion to one’s nation became increasingly common. Hoppenbrouwers (2006, p. 574) considers the Declaration of Arbroath (1320) to be “one of the most eloquent and remarkable affirmations of national identity in any country in the middle ages.” In this letter to Pope John XXII, thirty-nine Scottish earls and barons detailed their justification for remaining an independent nation from England: “From the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. […] It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. [… Scots] live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. […] To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar, and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nothing” (ed. Ferguson 1970, pp. 4–10).

3.2.2. The Territorial Slide from the Concept of “Nation” to That of “Homeland” (Patria) and the Appearance of the “State”

Conversely, several cases demonstrate that the term “nation” was also beginning to acquire a territorial dimension during this period. While patria (“homeland”) derived its Latin meaning from the “place of one’s ancestors,” the term “nation” shifted toward denoting a “principality” or “kingdom” as a spatial political entity. Perhaps the most illustrative example of this lexical evolution is the emergence of the concept natio Germanica. A particularly clear starting point for this process is the expression gens Teudisca, which appears in the theological works of the monk Gottschalk von Orbais around 860. Germanic languages did not adopt the Latin populus, relying instead on Volk, which carried an equivalent meaning; as Sezgin (2022, p. 5) notes, Volk is attested in eighth century sources in the forms folc, folch, and folk. Based on Sousa-Costa’s (2007, pp. 2–4) synthesis, Volk displaced an earlier Germanic term that also signified “people” but ultimately evolved into a demonym: the Gothic expression thiuda. Denoting a “people” in a political sense, thiuda is presumed to derive from the Proto-Indo-European *teuta (“multitude” or “people”) and served as the root for the modern demonym deutsch (“German”). In the fourth century, the plural form thiudos was used to refer to non-Christians. By the ninth century, the Latinized adjective Teudisque designated the Germanic gens specifically in a linguistic sense. However, the generic term for “people” in modern German did not originate from these roots, but rather from the Proto-Indo-European *leudho-/*leudhi- (“descendants” or “people”), from which the modern German Leute derives. While individual members of the Leute may originate from diverse backgrounds, das Volk corresponds to the Latin populus—representing the “people” as an organized political community, which consequently requires a specific demonym.

Building upon these insights, Nonn (1982) demonstrates that the substitution of gens with natio in Germany followed a non-linear trajectory, characterized by shifting usage in both the noun and its accompanying demonym. This process generated a wide array of designations that culminated during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ultimately, the terminology codified in Emperor Charles V’s 1556 declaration (cited by Nonn) prevailed, referring to the “Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation” (Sacrum Romanum imperium Germanicae nationis). By this point, the concept had assumed a distinctly territorial definition while retaining its national character.

A similar process can be discerned in the succession of lexicons and dictionaries of the Castilian language from the late fifteenth century onward. Antonio de Nebrija defined “nation” as a “nation of peoples” (“nación de gentes”) in 1495, a definition maintained by several of his successors for over a century, at least until 1609. In that year, however, Girolamo Vittori linked the phrase “nation of peoples” to lineage, offspring, descent, semen, blood, and simply “people” in his Treasury of the Three French, Italian and Spanish Languages, published in Geneva in Spanish and French. Two years later, writing from Spain itself, Sebastián de Covarrubias defined “nation” as a “Kingdom, or extended Province, like the Spanish nation” (“Reyno, or Prouincia estendida, como la nación española”) (cf. NTLL 2026).

Whether the lexical evolution of the word “state” directly influenced this process of territorialization remains an open question; at the very least, both represent parallel aspects of the same development. On this point, the compilation and analysis by Harding (1994) remain an indispensable reference. The term status emerged in the thirteenth century as an imprecise allusion to “the tranquility of the public state” in the writings of Pope Boniface VIII, while Thomas Aquinas used it in the sense of a “set order of the governors.” In Aquinas, this usage carries a distinctly juridical sense: it refers to the Latin status as a statute or legal order governing a community. By the sixteenth century, Machiavelli applied status to the standing of a social group, but also—by extension—to that of a “kingdom” or “principality,” thereby introducing a spatial dimension. A passage in The Prince (1513) appears to foreshadow this later spatial meaning, though whether it fully captures the concept remains uncertain: “All states, all dominions that have had and have power over men are states or republics or principalities” (“Tutti gli stati, tutti e’dominii che hanno avuto e hanno imperio sopra gli uomini, sono stati e sono o repubbliche o principati”). Here, stati can again be interpreted as a social group defined by a statute (see Ferrary et al. 2021, p. 66). This was the sense of the Spanish word “estamento” that in English became “estate”. The imprecision of the word “state” persisted in the concept of “reason of state,” which gained currency during the sixteenth century (see Viroli 1992, as well as Lazzarini 2018 regarding lo Stato).

In 1642, Sir Walter Raleigh defined “state” as “the frame or set order of a Commonwealth, or of the Governors that rule the same, especially of the Chief and Sovereign Governor that commanded the rest.” This conceptual transformation appeared complete when Hobbes wrote of “that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State, in Latin Civitas” (cited ibid., pp. 57–60, 70). However, the Latin Civitas was also not completely clear. It meant “city” in the spatial and physical sense, but it was also used in the sense of “political community”—a concept abstracted from the physical or spatial limits of a city. While the “State” may have already constituted an autonomous institutional apparatus designed for governance, the evidence documented to date is not yet sufficiently definitive to classify it unequivocally as a territorial entity, underscoring the need for further empirical investigation.

The examples cited are not as clear as the definition of “state” that appears in the Observations upon the Government of the United States of America by James Sullivan (1791, p. 26; see Parisot 2026, pp. 1–10), attorney general of Massachusetts: “The word state has always been taken to convey the idea of an empire, kingdom or commonwealth possessing sovereign powers. […] Sometimes the word state is used to convey the idea of territory under a particular form of sovereign power; but when applied to the powers of government, it has always been used to express a sovereign, independent authority” (Sullivan 1791, p. 26; see Parisot 2026, pp. 1–10).

3.2.3. The Difference Between the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation and Spain as Nursery of Non-Spanish Nations

In any event, the nuanced conception of the nation—as a spatial community lacking sovereignty—remained active into the eighteenth century, at least within the natio Hispanica, which then extended from Spain to the Philippines. While the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation raised no doubts in the sixteenth century, the same could not be said of “the Spains”—a plural designation used since at least the eleventh century, when Sancho the Elder, “king of the Pamplonese,” styled himself Hispaniarum rex (Martínez Díez 2007, p. 234). The 1734 Diccionario of the Royal Spanish Academy defined a “nation” as a “collection of the inhabitants in some Province, Country or Kingdom” (cit. Echeverry Tamayo 2018, p. 4). It followed, therefore, that a “province” could constitute a “nation” within a broader “nation” (whether a “country” or a “kingdom”), which was itself a “nation.” Consequently, if a “country” did not coincide with a “kingdom,” nested sub-nations could exist within larger entities (“countries” or “kingdoms”) that were in turn composed of smaller territorial components (“kingdoms” or “countries”). This organizational logic was previously evident at the University of Bologna in the distinction between the “Hispanic nation” and the “Aragonese nation,” the latter of which encompassed the “Catalan nation.” Just as family kinship admits degrees, sixteenth century Spain contained two “countries” (termed “crowns”). Within the “Crown of Aragon,” there were several “kingdoms” (namely Valencia, Mallorca, and Aragon itself) and a “principality” (Principat in Catalan), each of which likewise constituted a “nation.” The case of the “Crown of Castile” was far more complex; during the same period, it was composed of “kingdoms,” within some of which distinct “provinces” were recognized. Furthermore, the “Kingdoms of the Indies”—which also pertained to the Crown of Castile—were divided into “Viceroyalties,” some of which encompassed multiple “kingdoms” and four “Captaincies General” (Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Chile, and the Philippines).

Given the highly diverse origins of the population and extensive miscegenation, demonyms became as essential as the concept of “nation” itself. Descendants of Spaniards were designated precisely as “Spaniards,” whereas they referred to Spaniards from European Spain as “Europeans.” Naturally, these American “Spaniards” considered themselves part of the pure “Spanish nation”; yet, much like the Spaniards of European Spain, when circumstances required, they identified as “from Biscayan nation” or “from Andalusian nation”—among the extensive network of sub-nations that constituted the broader “Spanish nation” across both the Atlantic and the Pacific1.

The indigenous inhabitants never referred to themselves as “Spaniards,” though the most educated among them did adopt the term “nation.” This was demonstrated in 1767 by the “Indian Nation of Peru,” when indigenous chiefs reprinted, at their own expense, a royal decree from 1697. Through this decree, the King of Castile reminded the authorities of the Kingdoms of the Indies of the rights recognized by Isabella the Catholic around 1500: namely, that indigenous chieftains and their descendants were equal in all respects to Castilian hidalgos (the lowest tier of the Castilian nobility), while all other indigenous subjects were equal to members of the Castilian common estate of “clean blood.” Consequently, they were eligible to hold the offices and receive the honors corresponding to these respective Castilian social groups (Olaechea 1992).

The concept of “national sovereignty,” which had begun to render such a variety of “nations” impossible across much of Europe, had not yet arrived there. Instead, the notion of “clean blood” prevailed, which entailed having no Jewish or Muslim ancestry.

In the Hispanic world, this mode of discourse was disrupted in 1812 with the approval of the first Spanish liberal constitution by the Cortes of Cadiz. The text recognized solely the “Spanish nation” as the holder of sovereignty, albeit by circumventing the historical contradictions inherent in the concept (see Castro 2011, pp. 57–58). The constitutional text went so far as to declare that all inhabitants of Hispanic America—including indigenous peoples and free Black individuals—were “Spaniards,” that is, members “of the Spanish nation.” Consequently, all other “Hispanic nations” vanished from the Spanish lexicon. The dozens of indigenous “nations” that had never been designated as the “Spanish nation,” yet inhabited the “Kingdoms of the Indies,” likewise disappeared as distinct “nations” as all their members were subsumed into the “Spanish Nation.” In other words, the doctrine of “national sovereignty” eliminated the predominantly familial meaning hitherto attached to the word “nation.”

4. Conclusions

The conclusion is clear: if every nation inherently claims sovereignty as an inalienable right, there can be no “nation of nations.” Indeed, in the Spanish Constitution of 1978, opposition from more moderate Catalan and Basque nationalists was circumvented by introducing the concept of a “nation of nationalities.” This served as a useful semantic compromise that deferred a serious debate rather than resolving it, enabling broad consensus around the Transition to party democracy and the unity of Spain. By establishing this distinction between “nations” and “nationalities,” the problem was reduced to deciding whether Spanish unity could be structured as a federation. In fact, many experts contend that Spain already functions as a de facto federation, albeit framed constitutionally as a “State of Autonomies.” That certain “Autonomous Communities” enjoy a higher degree of autonomy—in specific or broad respects—than federal states in Germany or the United States merely demonstrates that recognizing its federal character remains politically premature for Spanish public opinion and, ultimately, for peaceful coexistence among all Spaniards (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín 1997; Agranoff and Bañón Martínez 1998; Gómez Montoro and Simón Yarza 2026).

The problem becomes more acute, however, when considering that discussing a Spanish “federation” is unacceptable not only to those who uphold Spanish unity as it was understood prior to 1978, but also to nationalists who seek secession and the subsequent division of Spain into distinct states, each endowed with “national sovereignty.”

Regrettably, recalling the historical trajectory of “national sovereignty” will not resolve this dilemma. Yet, the most a historian can do is trace the issue to its conceptual roots. Insofar as this concept and that of the “right of self-determination of peoples”—which will hopefully form the subject of a future study—have come to justify terror, regarding both as a poisoned chalice is hardly an exaggeration.