The first truly concrete, “systematized” identitarian revolution in Europe is Taboritism, the radical form of Hussitism… This furious explosion of a synthetic mixture of nationalism, socialism, and radical democracy with communist innuendos not only had devastated large parts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Hungary, but also had deeply shaken the social and spiritual fabric of Europe. In their perennial ramifications the shadows of this profound revolution are still with us and will continue to be for some time.

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism

Recently I came across an article attempting to claim that Nationalism was not only a political-philosophy that originated in the “Medieval Period,” but that it was the political norm. Referring to the Holy Roman Empire with the absurd (never officially recognized) addition “of the German Nation“ the article goes on to claim that the Crownlands of Empire in the Sacred Ages “included all people of the German nationality,” a falsehood which completely ignores not only the Transylvanian Saxons, but also the Danube Swabians, the Carpathian Germans (Zipsers), the Walddeutsche, the Teutonic Livonians, the Saxons of Schleswig, and the Vosges Germans. Still the questions remain, was there a form of Nationalism present in the Sacred Ages, and was it the prevalent understanding of the political order?

Since the main focus of the article which this post is intended to refute is the Kingdom of France, it would fitting to begin with that country. Now it is true that a form of Nationalism arose in the twelfth century in France, but far from being an orthodox philosophy, it was exclusively associated with the Albigensian heresy. This bizarre form of Manichean Gnosticism readily connected itself with the grievances of the Languedoc nation, an ethnic group with a rather interesting history. The author of the article I mention scoffs at the idea of an Arab population in France. Those who know the actual history of that country however will be aware that Septimània (the region now called Occitania) was colonized by Arabs and North African Berbers, and that when conquered by the Frankish king Pippin Karoling, these populations did not simply disappear. Much as with later populations in Andalusian Spain, those who converted intermarried with the local Gothic populations, forming the Occitan or Languedoc nation.

France was from its beginning already a multinational kingdom, the Emperor Charlemagne received allegiance from Muslim Emirs such as Abu Tawr ibn Qasi and Sulayman ibn Yaqdhan, and according to his biographer Einhard, “He had a great love for foreigners, and took such pains to entertain them that their numbers were justly reckoned to be a burden not only to the palace but to the kingdom at large.” In the twelfth century France (West Francia) was comprised of seven or eight major nations (French, Normans, Bretons,  Burgundians, Aquitainians, Languedoc, Romand, and by some accounts Picards). Vital to the unity of the Kingdom, the Albigensian Crusade was directed against the first “French Nationalism” with some degree of success, thanks in large part to Order of Preachers and the patriotic Languedoc Militia of the Faith of Jesus Christ. Later attempts by Revolutionists to trace “authentic” French Nationalism to the Hundred Years’ War fail as it was a merely dynastic struggle between an Angevin house lately of France, and the cadet branch of a house that originated as Rhenish-Franconians. That it was not a nationalistic struggle but a legitimist war is further evidenced by the fact that the “French” Burgundians and Aquitainians (and one point Bretons) fought for the “English” Angevins.

However, the prototype of Modern Nationalism, its arbitrary destruction of countries and creation of artificial “nations” through the suppression of actual nations, finds it origin not in France but in Sacrétemporal Bohemia. The rebellion of the Táborites (radical Hussites) on the very verge of the early Revolutionary Era laid the foundations of Luther’s revolutionary nationalism, and spread the seeds of division which would blossom into the flowers of destruction in the Great War. The Czechomoravian nationalists lead by the traitor Jan Žižka stood in stark contrast to the Sacrétemporal Order of Christendom embodied by Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemian King Sigismund. It is no coincidence that the National Socialist party had its origin in the Bohemian Nationalist Sokol movement.

The Táborites were defeated in 1434 at the Battle of Lipany, yet their spiritual successors continued to spread the error of Nationalism well into the twentieth century. The Kingdom of France in the 1500s had already succumbed to Nationalistic tendencies in its invasions of Imperial Lorraine and Imperial Lombardy. The fact that Nationalism was present as early as twelfth century in association with the most vile heresies, attests to its place as a corrupting disease in the life of the Sacred Ages. In this fallen world, such corruption must ever be fought with Renovatio, Restoration of Catholic ideals, of the Holy Empire, of the virtue of Patriotism (devotion to the Common Good of a country or realm). In this Restoration we cannot allow false theories of history to blind us into complacency with the errors of Nationalism and racialism, in the Crownlands of the Emperor or in the Kingdom of France. Most especially in the current Islamic crisis in which more and more of the Mohammedans are turning to terror or forced to flee from it, we the Knights of Christendom must remember that they too are our brothers, whether they are our allies or our enemies.

The basically Christian attitude of Mohammedans toward other anthropological races puts many followers of Christ to shame.

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd