Engla Lond: the Making of an Allegiance

Abstract Taking as its starting-point, Philip Abrams' celebrated perception (1988) that the state is an 'ideological artefact … historically constructed', this essay seeks an explanation of the unrivalled longevity and durability of the English state in the fact that it was the first European political organism to exploit with complete success the model of obligatory coherence supplied by the Old Testament in the history of Israel and its relations with its Maker. This model had been applied to the early history of Anglo-Saxon Christianity by the Venerable Bede (731) in a work of unexampled literary power. The Anglo-Saxons' subsequent experience of the near-obliteration of their Christian polity by pagan Vikings lent the Biblical and Bedan messages a particular point. King Alfred and his dynasty were thus provided with an ideological blueprint which meant that their otherwise by no means unusual early medieval hegemony could command the allegiance of potential dissidents in a way that none of its counterparts were ultimately able to do.