Editing Nation (section)

=== Use of term ''nationes'' by medieval universities and other medieval institutions ===
{{main article| Nation (university)}}
A significant early use of the term ''nation'', as ''natio'', occurred at [[medieval university|medieval universities]]<ref>''see: [[nation (university)]]''</ref> to describe the colleagues in a college or students, above all at the [[University of Paris]], who were all born within a ''pays'', spoke the same language and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law. In 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris, [[Jean Gerson]] was elected twice as a procurator for the French ''natio''. The [[Charles University in Prague|University of Prague]] adopted the division of students into ''nationes'': from its opening in 1349 the ''[[studium generale]]'' which consisted of Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and Polish ''nations''.

In a similar way, the ''nationes'' were segregated by the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem]], who maintained at [[Rhodes]] the hostels from which they took their name "where foreigners eat and have their places of meeting, each nation apart from the others, and a Knight has charge of each one of these hostels, and provides for the necessities of the inmates according to their religion", as the Spanish traveller [[Pedro Tafur]] noted in 1436.<ref>Pedro Tafur, ''[http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tafur.html#ch5 Andanças e viajes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629042823/http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tafur.html#ch5 |date=29 June 2011 }}''.</ref>