I was reading Tyerman's God's War (on the crusades), and this came up in the introduction. It's not the first time I have come across it and it always seems odd that such a kingdom could be so powerful. People saying it also seem to give little evidence beyond sweeping terms.
This is what he says (page 18/19): "This applied even to the most centralized state of western Europe, the kingdom of the English. Formed through the tenth -century conquest by the kings of Wessex of their northern neighbours, England developed a distinctive system of government in which public justice, coinage, markets, taxation and defence rested with the royal authority, as did control of the church. The king's authority was mediated through local officials, a relatively efficient and sophisticated bureaucracy and a dense pattern of aristocratic and noble patronage. In Christian Europe, only in Byzantium had the techniques and institutions of government reached a more complicated and comprehensive form. "
Does this view hold any water?
Yes, that's certainly the historical consensus.
The Anglo-Saxon state was built on several key advantages, among which I would emphasise its size – it was geographically small and geographically unchallenging enough to be controlled relatively efficiently by a central government; it was relatively heavily populated; it was fertile enough to be wealthy; and its long struggle against northern invaders had helped to create efficient military and financial systems. Of course, it was also very far from being a perfect state; all these advantages were more strongly enjoyed in the south of the country than the north.
We can put a little flesh on these bare bones in several ways.
The chief glory of the Saxon administration was England's shire system. This created local focuses of administrative and legal power; there was a law court that met twice a year and a powerful local official - the shire reeve (sheriff) - who was charged with implementing the writs that came in from central government. Each shire was further divided in hundreds (which had a rather amorphous definition but probably consisted of an area that was home to about 2,000) with a monthly court, and aldermen (earls), whose positions were dependent on royal appointment, and who were charged with supervising and leading the local military forces.
Towns were fortified and contained mints that were linked in a system of unparalleled sophistication, capable of recalling and re-minting the entire coinage (about 9 million silver pennies) every three years in order to deter counterfeiting and coin-clipping. The triennial re-minting also gave the central government the opportunity to make some basic economic adjustments by varying the proportion of silver in the coinage.
Delegation of power was achieved by a system that granted land to the Saxon aristocracy in exchange for service. Unlike the system refined by the Normans, the Saxon service system was (at least nominally) more subject to royal control since it was not absolutely hereditary.
Tax collection was brought to a well-organised peak of efficiency by the need to collect the geld - a rare example of an income tax from such an early period - which itself was a product of the need to raise large sums to pay off the Danes. Tithes were not only collected but, under Æthelred II, also divided into three, for support of the clergy, the poor, and maintenance of church buildings. (Other taxes known as scots were also collected, as were plough alms, a tax on farm equipment.)
All this was controlled via a written bureaucratic system that used Old English as the language of record. It is notable that literacy among the aristocracy dropped off sharply after 1066; one reason for this was that simply learning to read and write was no longer enough to master the basic tools of government once English was dropped in favour of Latin as the main language of the administration.
Finally, the system required only a small, tight central hierarchy, well known to one another. In 1066 the Saxon government consisted of a king, six earls, 14 bishops, 25 abbots and about 90 lesser noblemen. All of these magnates, including the senior clergy, were appointed by the king.
This system was not perfect, but it was far more advanced than anything that existed elsewhere in western or central Europe at this time. All in all, it's generally agreed, only the Byzantine Empire enjoyed a comparably well oiled and extensive administration in the first half of the 11th century. Tyerman is absolutely right.