Protection of Minorities in Europe before the First World War

Abstract

Since the days of Alexander the Great the prevailing view had been that mankind was one and, at least in western and central Europe, as Christianity advanced, this universality was postulated in the form of a universal (Catholic) church under the Papacy and a universal empire, whether Roman or Holy Roman. Below that universality feudalism ensured that authority was regionalised into a mosaic of large or small kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, bishoprics, and if people had been asked in the High Middle Ages what they were their first reply would have been a universalist one — that they were Christians (although they would not say that if they were Jews). They would then say that they were the subjects of this or that King or Lord. And only in third place would they have given an answer based on language or culture.1 Even in Eastern Europe as the Byzantine empire collapsed and the Turks conquered the Balkans the Sultan would perceive his subjects as first Christians and then according to their culture.