History was no longer with the Anglo-Saxons: and their language was of no consequence to those who saw the past in their own image. One way to destroy a personality is to cut out memory: one way to destroy a state is to cut out its history. Especially when that history comes out of the native language. Status is gone; continuity is disconnected; all that went into the making of the people the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles had recorded so carefully was of no account. The written language which bound it together guttered out.
