Anglo-Saxon England in the tenth century presents more similarities with the world of the Reich than at any other time of their respective histories. It had a regnal structure with a partially ethnic basis, and it knew the predominance or at least hegemony of one kingdom, Wessex and its society, over all the others, largely because it gave them their kings. The continental Saxons enjoyed similar advantages thanks to the east Frankish kingship of their leading family, the Liudolfings. The rulers of Wessex in the tenth century acquired an imperium which did not so much imitate the Ottonians as develop like forms of overlordship even ahead of them.

We tend to think that centralisation, bureaucracy, too much government and taxation are very recent troubles in our polity, quite novel English diseases, contrary to the mainstream of all the best historical traditions. The reverse is true. They are deep-seated and deeply rooted phenomena in English political society, part of its very birth.

The older school [of constitutional historians of medieval Germany] assumed … the state and a volume of government without asking very precise questions of how it worked from day to day. […]