In the introduction to a recent general book on religion, society, and politics in high medieval Britain, Henry Mayr-Harting felt compelled to justify his decision to omit from consideration the interplay between religion and national identity. Although Mayr-Harting was not convinced about the significance of this topic, it is in my view a fruitful direction for further research on national identity in England during the ‘long’ twelfth century. The unexhausted potential of this perspective on the generally well-studied theme of twelfth-century national identity is especially manifest in comparison with the existing literature on nationhood and ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon England that portrays religion as one of the salient, even decisive, factors in the construction of national identity at the time. It is not that nothing at all has been done on this topic for the twelfth century; on the contrary, certain aspects of it have been productively examined. Most obviously, considerable attention has been given to the role that ethnic prejudice played (or did not play) in the attitude of the Norman and other continental clergymen towards the native Anglo-Saxon saints after 1066.

Also in connection with the cults of saints, a series of articles by Paul Hayward must be noted, in particular, his publications on St Alban as the Prothomartyr of the English and St Gregory as the Apostle of the English. It seems that in these papers Hayward was not directly concerned with national identity itself, but they still reveal a great deal about the use of national rhetoric in the politics of sanctity in eleventhand twelfth-century England. Another relevant contribution is the comprehensive chapter on the English Church and English saints in Hugh Thomas’ book on English and Norman identities from 1066 to c.1220, which demonstrates the importance of the Ecclesia Anglicana and the cults of saints for the reconstruction and reproduction of the sense of Englishness following the Conquest. Finally, I would like to mention Sigbjørn Sønnesyn’s excellent article on the links between Christian ethics and the notions of community in twelfth-century historical writing, published in this very volume of Anglo-Norman Studies. This is a notable list, but one crucial theme is clearly missing: the use of biblical language and images in the construction and representation of national identity.