This is really interesting--again with my lack of knowledge specific to this context. For England, reading the nation has shifted backwards at least as far as the fourteenth century, in a deliberate attempt to dislodge the early modern period as primary (Dark Ages versus Renaissance). I haven't seen much acknowledgment that any sense of nationhood in C14 must differ from senses in C16, C18, whatever, because Everyone Knows it's obvious, yet scholars working on these topics also don't pause to consider whether it may also be disadvantageous at times to consider these different manifestations under the same single term. Nothing conclusive on my part, just thinking aloud.