This is a test post where I shall write something interesting about the formation of nationalism in early medieval Europe, a point which I first got in the second book of The Penguin History of Europe, The Inheritance of Rome, A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 by Chris Wickham. During the winter last year, I had to stay at home due to the abrupt outbreak of COVID-19 in China, so I read some history books, and this is one of them.

The most striking point Wickham mentioned in this book is that the formation of identification or some kind of nationalism of inhabitants in several Post-Rome kingdoms in western Europe, i.e., Lombard Kingdom, Visigothic Kingdom, and Merovingian Kingdoms, the native language of whom was indeed still Latin, the culture and lifestyle of most of whom was very similar to antiquity, and only one or two generations before whose identification had been Roman. How did the change happen, that the inhabitants identified themselves as Lombard and Visigoth instead of Roman when they were not even capable of speaking the Gothic language?

Wickham gave an interesting explanation that nationalism emerged not only from a common language and culture, through which nationalism was often formed, but also from something else, such as following the same great general/king who would bring wealth and peace to this area (actually a former province of Western Rome, later kingdoms). This king might lead inhabitants to war, make his own coins, distribute estates to aristocrats, in addition to the economic localization of West Mediterranean caused by late antiquity geopolitics. So people began to identify themselves with the new king/general, and Visigoths replaced Roman.