Citizenship: participation and exclusion in early modern Europe

2011

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to discuss the most recent results of the historiographical works on the subject “how to become a citizen” within the European continent in the early modern period (sixteenth‐nineteenth centuries).Design/methodology/approachThe idea that citizenship status could not mark the difference between natives and immigrants on a geographical basis, as natives were entitled to it at various stages as well, stands out from the presentation of some case studies (the Republic of Venice, the Papal State, the Reign of Naples, France, Spain and Britain).FindingsIn many contexts, citizenship was rather the political recognition of social and economic integration of som…