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Nation
(936 words)

[German Version]

The Latin word natio (from nasci, “be born”) denotes the place of origin of a person or thing. Natio was the goddess of birth. The Latin word also meant a tribe or people. Since the Middle Ages, nation (or natio) has had a wide range of heterogeneous meanings. The medieval nationes of universities, councils, merchants, clerics, and nobility were not precursors of modern ideas of a nation, although clerics and landed nobility in the late Middle Ages developed notions of a German national consciousness or sense of a German Reich. Formulas using the word natio and references …

Cite this page
Graf, Friedrich Wilhelm, “Nation”, in: Religion Past and Present. Consulted online on 28 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1877-5888_rpp_SIM_124022>
First published online: 2011
First print edition: ISBN: 9789004146662, 2006-2013



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