Following the argument to its logical conclusion, Chapter 7 finally considers when and how the nation did come to be understood in a political sense. It traces constitutional differences between France and England through the writings of John Fortescue and sketches the rise of the nation-state in France by examining the thoughts of Jean Bodin, Michel de L’Hopital, Francois Hotman, and a number of Huguenot thinkers. The chapter challenges theories of “English exceptionalism,” indicating that France’s nation-state status, in theory and practice, arises at about the same time as England’s. In particular, it calls attention to the different forms of “nation-state” that come into being in England and France. In England, the “nation” becomes synonymous with the populus, the people, as understood broadly in classical and medieval thought, and associated with the Parliament. In France, the “nation” becomes synonymous with and subsumed under the new modern state, represented by the King and his centralized administration. The chapter thus lays the groundwork for understanding the distinct circumstances for conceptual recovery in the present, which are discussed in the Conclusion.

Readers of this chapter might be left with doubts whether England had a constitution in the fifteenth century and whether, if there was one, it underwent any significant change over the century. Difficulties in governing the realm, ambiguities about power and authority, and a fundamental lack of consensus about what constituted and who had a legitimate right to rule persisted from the opening years of the period through to its end. The only notable progress recounted here was in procedures and practices in parliament. This difficult century left England with a hunger for new assertions of power and authority in the succeeding one.1

This chapter considers Roman and canon law, the English common law tradition and French juristic thought. Roman and canon law jurisprudence of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are taken together because fifteenth-century jurists tended to reiterate the works of fourteenth-century ones. The chapter considers whether jurists contributed to the early development of international law. The impact of humanism on law is also discussed – notably in the case of Lorenzo Valla's destruction of the authenticity of the Donation of Constantine. The English common law tradition is considered through the writings of Sir John Fortescue: notably his justifications of English kingship. The French juristic tradition is considered through its two most important theorists: Jean de Terrevermeille and Claude de Seyssel. Terrevermeille made the most detailed contributions to the notions of the mystical body of the kingdom ever put forward in the Middle Ages. Seyssel, through elaborating the three bridles on royal power (religion, justice and the police) justified an absolute monarchy limited by higher norms, a solution fundamental for centuries throughout the ancien régime