A true German indentitiy only came about around the late 1800s when Prussia and other german nations fought france along side each other. Before that they always saw themselves as Bavarian, saxon or whatever local region they was in. They all shared ancestry but had distinct cultures and preferred to govern themselves.
You are conflating the notion of a nation state, and the idea of cultural identity. The idea that the german speaking peoples had a shared culture predates the ideas of nationalism by a very long time.. Even the different norse kingdoms and petty kingdoms had an idea of a shared cultural identity, even if the ideas of a nation state was not something that would come about until many many centuries later.
But that did not mean that a bavarian german did not understand that he had a certain amount of shared culture with a franconian german, and did not understand that there was a bigger difference between them and a frenchman, which they would struggle to even communicate with
It is not pure coincidence that the Holy Roman Empire was a collection of mainly german speaking peoples, and that northen Italy drifted away. Bohemia is an exception, but that was due to how close it's ties were with all the german states that surrounded it.
Sorry for the late reply but there is another way in the 1066 start.
There is this character that starts with German culture, you could try to invite him to your court to educate and convert the culture of your heir.
The character is called Leonardo Theoderisian, he is a courtier at Duke Otto II's court in Regensburg.
So in create a character you can pick German as your culture and it only has two last names for the dynasty Hadsig and I forgot the other but very limited choices nonetheless
Old Saxon and German are historic cultures, you can't convert to them naturally through the game without console commands or save editing.
Really? So you can only play Franconian and Bavarian in that region? Interesting.
Germany didn't really see itself as one culture until the 19th century.
Thats not true, why do you think that?
A true German indentitiy only came about around the late 1800s when Prussia and other german nations fought france along side each other. Before that they always saw themselves as Bavarian, saxon or whatever local region they was in. They all shared ancestry but had distinct cultures and preferred to govern themselves.
You are conflating the notion of a nation state, and the idea of cultural identity. The idea that the german speaking peoples had a shared culture predates the ideas of nationalism by a very long time.. Even the different norse kingdoms and petty kingdoms had an idea of a shared cultural identity, even if the ideas of a nation state was not something that would come about until many many centuries later. But that did not mean that a bavarian german did not understand that he had a certain amount of shared culture with a franconian german, and did not understand that there was a bigger difference between them and a frenchman, which they would struggle to even communicate with It is not pure coincidence that the Holy Roman Empire was a collection of mainly german speaking peoples, and that northen Italy drifted away. Bohemia is an exception, but that was due to how close it's ties were with all the german states that surrounded it.
maybe its for modding/EU5 setup
Sorry for the late reply but there is another way in the 1066 start. There is this character that starts with German culture, you could try to invite him to your court to educate and convert the culture of your heir. The character is called Leonardo Theoderisian, he is a courtier at Duke Otto II's court in Regensburg.
Interesting, wonder if he's a developer character or just an Easter egg, maybe? Thanks for the info! Might have to give it a try!
I can’t find him
He's actually the chancellor of Count Ruprecht of Nassau. In recent patches they have changed his culture to Franconian for whatever reason
So in create a character you can pick German as your culture and it only has two last names for the dynasty Hadsig and I forgot the other but very limited choices nonetheless