![]() ![]() Almost at the same time the similar process was completed in the Spanish Peninsula. It was not till after the final expulsion of the English that the process was completed. Hence the consolidation both of England and of Scotland long preceded the consolidation of France. ![]() And France was then already completely in the grip of the feudal system. ![]() Both France and Northern Spain were included in the Empire of Charlemagne and it was only when the Carolingian dynasty which ruled over the western portion of the Prankish dominion gave place to the dynasty of the Capets that France was definitely and permanently separated from the Empire. During the Middle Ages, France too became an individual nation and the Spanish Peninsula was also nationalised. The aggression of the Scandinavians, however, ceased after the eleventh century.īut the national idea was not confined to the British Isles and Scandinavia, the two great divisions which never came within the boundaries of the Empire. To some extent the Scandinavian kingdoms also remained apart that is, as States they remained outside the borders of the Empire, though they planted their colonies not only in England, Scotland, and Ireland, but in France, in Sicily, and in Southern Italy. Neither the Norman Conquest nor the Angevin Succession bridged the English Channel or effectively destroyed the isolation which enabled them to consolidate their nationality apart. Thus the people of these islands were able to follow out their development in comparative isolation on national lines, modified but not absorbed by the political organisation of the Empire, the ecclesiastical organisation of the Papacy, and the social structure of continental Feudalism.Īccident united the North English to the Celtic kingdom of the Scots, and drew a dividing line between Scotland and England, from Solway to Tweed mouth so that Scotland and England developed their nationality separately, while both stood outside the general current which was moulding Europe. To the English, as to every one else, the Pope and the Emperor were the two heads of Christendom by courtesy but the Pope exercised hardly any direct authority, and the Emperor none at all. A Saxon king of England could appropriate to himself the imperial title of "Basileus," implying a claim to equality with the Emperor, and a Pope could designate the Archbishop of Canterbury, "papa attains orbis," implying at least what in a secular dominion would be called vice-regal authority. The English stood outside the new Holy Roman or German Empire more completely than the Britons had remained outside the old Roman Empire, To a greater degree they were brought within the ecclesiastical dominion of the Holy See, but still in a very much less degree than their continental neighbours. Roman influences hardly touched him, and his isolation prevented him from being materially affected by the changes in the Teutonic civilisation of the Continent. Britain was never completely Romanised, and the Teutonic invader did not in effect find himself in contact with Roman civilisation. Geographical conditions kept the British Isles apart from the rest of Western Christendom as they had kept them apart from the Roman Empire. A royal carriage and its escort about 1480 ![]()
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