The appearance of the so-called peripheral nationalism in the aforementioned regions of Spain occurred in a period when Spaniards began to look into their own concepts of nationhood. In the traditionalist view, religion had been integral to defining the Spanish nation, intrinsically and traditionally Catholic, and strongly monarchical. In a later, liberal view, sovereignty was considered to reside in the nation—and be expressed in the people, as opposed to the monarch. Some activists sought a uniform centralised State, while others preferred decentralization or republicanism.