ABSTRACT
The modern national State has to a great extent arisen in opposition to the Teutonic and feudal ideas of government, though some of its institutions and traditions have developed from feudal germs. The feudal fiefs tended to assume the character of patrimonial states or of private estates in which the rights of government and property were inextricably mixed up. Feudalism has made a great contribution to the development of modern nationhood: Parliament has grown out of the institutions of feudal society. The principal value of Parliament in the Middle Ages was that it bridged over local, provincial and social barriers, and that it produced a public opinion and a common sentiment. One of the most important factors which fostered the rise of modern nationalism was militarism. The problem of the national will forms the crux of modern political science. It arose with the growth of national consciousness and of the idea that the nation was Sovereign.
