Vestry and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. The decline of the feudal system and, following the Reformation in the 16th century, the power of the Church, led to a new form of township or parish meeting, which dealt with both civil and ecclesiastical affairs. This new meeting was supervised by the parish priest, probably the best educated of the inhabitants, and it evolved to become the vestry meeting. As the complexity of rural society increased, the vestry meetings pragmatically acquired greater responsibilities, and were given the power to grant or deny payments from parish funds. Although
What Is a Nation? to the reasons based on race, geography, history and so on. They argue that Renan maintains his intellectual background but subtly, i.e. the arguments he explicitly used in "What is a Nation?" are not consistent with his thinking. The concept of "daily plebiscite" would be ambiguous. They argue that the definition is an opportunist idealization and it should be interpreted within the Franco-Prussian War and in the midst of the dispute concerning the Alsace-Lorraine region. What Is a Nation? "What is a Nation?" ("Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?") is an 1882 lecture by French historian Ernest Renan (1823–1892), known for the statements