The legal status of foreigners in Europe between medieval and modern ages

In the feudal organization the conditions of the foreign people, at which the lord did not guarantee his protection, was exactly the same of the slaves. They were considered aubain, namely without a personal allégeance with the lord of the lands: derived from it the socalled droit d’aubaine, referred, firstly to the feudal lord and secondly to the king, who was allowed to inherit all the properties of the not naturalized foreigners, dead in feud or in the kingdom. Their condition improved with the diffusion of new ideas like the natural equality between people, introduced by the doctrine of natural law. With the French Revolution the principle of equality attacked the legitimacy of the differences between the foreigners and the citizens and cut off every link of personal dependence. In the second half of 1800 will grow the idea of membership and the symbol of the national identity because of an expansion’s logic in an international scene dominated to the terror of the war. So it’s evident a significant difference to the foreigners-enemy internal and external and it becomes more difficult the freedom of circulation between countries: the previous idea of equality of the people yields to the racial theories and the colonialist science, typical of totalitaris