[Hugo Ashmore]

To elaborate on that, Apache directives have conditions which govern where they can be set from the directive ‘AllowOveride’ is one that says what may be overridden or reset from outside the main config file , in other words it is the directive that allows certain other actions to be run from the .htaccess file at site directory levels, so logically this directive can’t itself be run from that file as it has to run in advance to allow .htaccess rules. It can only be set from ‘Directory’ sections in either httpd.conf or within vhost containers.