Final Report Summary - SCIRE (Social Cohesion, Identity and Religion in Europe, 400-1200)
The approach adopted in order to achieve these goals was a combination of careful source studies, broad perspectives and methodological reflections to avoid modern projections. The intention was not so much to study specific ethnic processes, but the cultural and social framework that shaped them. How was social cohesion achieved by identification with social groups, and what were its limits? It was clear that the bond that unified communities was hardly in their blood, and methodological studies on recent results of genetic research and their historical implication underlined that point. Yet however flexible and changeable social identities might be, they could also be very persistent. Christian discourse and biblical models surely had an impact here. In spite of all political ruptures, European large-scale identities have proved surprisingly stable since the Early Middle Ages, while their significance underwent fundamental changes. Important political, affective and cognitive resources for the political role of ethnicity in European history were thus created in the period of c. 400–1200 AD. They provided a potential that could be used at different stages in European history, not least, in the development of the modern nation.