Nationalism in the Middle Ages
He argues that Alfred the Great, in particular, drew on biblical language in his law code and that during his reign selected books of the Bible were translated into Old English to inspire Englishmen to fight to turn back the Norse invaders.
John Alexander Armstrong was one of the first modern scholars to argue that nations have pre-modern roots and that their formation was helped by religious institutions locally.
He also considers as an important factor in ethnogenesis in the Western Europe the conviction of being a chosen people, which was further strengthened by the tension between Catholicism and Protestantism.
[14] Azar Gat claims the creation of nations was made possible not only by secularisation and the rise of print capitalism in modern era, but could also be produced earlier by the spoken word and via religious rituals.
From a positive point of view, the Patriarch helped the creation of national consciousness by establishing ecclesiastical districts in Slavic areas.
In this view, the event that led to the development of modern Greek national consciousness was the conflict with the Fourth Crusade and subsequent Frankish rule.
Modern Greek nationalism rises after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 and the creation of the despotates which succeeded the Byzantine Empire, especially in Epirus, Nicaea, and Morea.
[26][27] John Alexander Armstrong (1922–2010) refers to a "premature nationalism" of this Byzantine period, based on a sense of God's choice and protection in an age of adversities.
As "true Israel", the Orthodox Church and the community enjoyed God's favor, while priests and the people fought against the "heretical" Latins and the "unfaithful" Turks.
[30] In an earlier work, Bouchard traces the Russian national consciousness in the 11th century, as it is reflected in religious texts such as Slavic psalms and apocrypha.
[31] According to Richard J. Crampton, the development of Old Church Slavonic literacy during the 10th century had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the Eastern South Slavs into the Byzantine culture, which promoted the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity.
