Abstract
An important support for the emergence of Englishness after the Norman conquest was the construct of England. This raises important questions about the relations between place and identity and about how a large and highly abstract geographic designation could command loyalty and therefore influence questions of ethnicity. This was typical of a process known as the territorialisation of memory, by which ethnic identity can lead to a new conceptualisation of landscape through linking a place to a people and their historical memory. This chapter examines how a conceptualisation of the landscape and a sense of place influenced ethnicity. More specifically, it examines the survival of the concept of England after the conquest, and its contribution to the triumph of English identity. It argues that in contrast to Englishness, which became problematic because of the introduction of ethnic divisions and the creation of a non-English ruling elite, the concept of England remained largely unaffected by the conquest.