Establishment of the Kingdom of England

Establishment of the Kingdom of England

For three centuries a struggle went on between the little Anglo-Saxon kingdoms set up in the 5th – 6th centuries. As feudal relations develop the owners of the bad landed estates strive to unity the separate kingdoms into one state under the power of the king.

At the end of the 8th century another branch of Germanic people begins to attack Britain the separated Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms fighting among themselves become an easy prey for the invaders. The 9th century sees the political unification of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.

How the united Kingdom of the England established;

How England was raided by new enemies;

How the Kingdom of England was strengthened under the reign of Alfred the Great.

Unification of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom waged a constant struggle against one another for predominance over the country. From time to time some stronger state seized the land of the neighboring Kingdoms and made them to pay tribute, or ever ruled them directly. The number of Kingdoms was always changing, so were their boundaries.

The greatest and the most important Kingdoms were Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. For a time Northumbria gained supremacy. Mercia was the next Kingdom to take the lead. The struggle for predominance continued and at last at the beginning of the 9th century Wessex became the strongest state. In 829 Egber, king of Wessex, was acknowledged by the Kent, Mercia and Northumbria. This was really the beginning of the united Kingdom of England, for Wessex never again lost its supremacy and King Egbert became the King of England. Under his rule all the small Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms were united to form one Kingdom which was called England from that time on.

The clergy, royal warriors and official supported the King ‘s power. It was the King who granted them land and the right to collect dues from the peasants and to hold judgment over them. In this was the royal power helped them to deprive the peasants of their land and to turn them into serfs.

The political unification of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms was sped up by the urgent task of defending the country against the dangerous raids of new enemies. From the end of the 8th century and during the 9th and the 10th centuries Western Europe was troubled by a new wave of barbarian attacks. These barbarians came from the North from Norway, Sweden and Denmark and were called Northmen. In different countries the Northmen were known as the Vikings, the Normans, the Danes. They came to Britain from the invaders came to be known in English history as the Danes.

Danish Raids on England

The Danes were of the same Germanic race as the Anglo-Saxons themselves and they came from the same part of the continent. But unlike the Anglo-Saxons whose way of life had changed greatly ever since they came to the Britain, the Danes still lived in tribes. They were still pagans. They worshipped Woden. The god of war – Thor, the Hammer God and other gods.

At the end of the 8th century they began to attack Britain, as the Anglo-Saxons had done themselves four centuries earlier.

The Danes were well armed with sword, spear, dagger, battle-axe and bow. Their ships were sailed-boats but they were also provided with oars. The sails were often striped red and blue and green. The Danes were bold and skilful seamen.

In 793 the Danes carried out their first raids on Britain. Their earliest raids were for plunder only. The raiders came in three or four ships, each with as many as a hundred men on board. They came in spring and summer and when the ships was loaded with plunder they returned home for the winter. Every year they went to different places – rarely to the same place twice. Thus all the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms faced the same dangerous enemy.

In later years large Danish fleets (more than three hundred ships) brought large armies to conquer and settle in the new lands. They didn’t go home for the winter but they made large camps, well-guaranteed to which they brought booty.

From these camps the Danes would make many raids upon the village in the area. This began the fourth conquest of Britain.

The Danish raids were successful because the Kingdom of England had neither a regular army nor fleet in the north sea to meet them. These were no coastguards to watch the coast of the island and this made it possible for the raiders to appear quite unexpectedly. Besides there were very few roads and large parts of the country were covered with pathless forests or swaps. It took several weeks sometimes before anyone could reach a settlement from where a messenger could be sent to the King or to the nearest great and powerful noble, to ask to help. It would take the King or the noble another few weeks to get his fighting men together and go fight against the enemy.Northumbria and East Anglia suffered most from the Danish roads. The Danes seizes the ancient city of York and then all of Yorkshire. Here is what a chronicle wrote about the conquest of Northumbria : ”The army raided here and there and filled every place with bloodshed and sorrow. Far and wide it destroyed the churches and monasteries with the fire and sword. When it departed from a place it left nothing standing but roofless walls. So great was the destruction that at the present day one can hardly see anything left of those places. At last all England worth of the Thames that is Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, was in their hands. Only Wessex was left to face the enemy. Before the Danes conquered the North, they had made and attacked Wessex, but in 835 King Egbert defeated them. In the reign of Egbert’s son the Danes sailed up the Thames and captured London. Thus the Danes came into conflict with the strongest of all Anglo-Saxons – Wessex.

Strengthening of the Kingdom in Reign of Alfred the Great (871-898)

In 871 the Danes invaded Wessex again. But it was not so easy to devastate Wessex as other parts of England. Wessex had united the small Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms and under the reign of Egbert grandson, King Alfred (871-899) who became known in England as Alfred the Great. Wessex became the centre of resistance against the invaders.

Alfred managed to raise an army and to stop the offensive of the Danes. He made new rules for the army in which every free man had to serve and to come provided with the proper weapons. A levy of infantrymen made up of free peasant and an army of knights consisting of landlords were formed. The landlords were ordered to come with good armour and horseback. Only half of the infantrymen of the shire served in the army at a time. The others were occupied with their work at home and when it was their turn to serve, they became warriors. Thus all the free peasant of Wessex were trained to fight and Alfred could raise a large levy of infantrymen when it was necessary. The army of horsemen was increased too. During the reign of Alfred the Great the first British Navy was built and a war of ships larger and faster than those of the Danes protected the island. Many places which could be easily attacked by the enemy were fortified. Earthen walls were built around them. These walls or forts, were protected by fighting men who owned land in the neighbourhood. As a result of all these measures the Anglo-Saxons won several victories over the Danes. In the treaty which followed in 886, the Danes promised to leave Wessex and a part of Mercia. They settled in the north-eastern part of England, a region which was from that time called the Danes law, because it was ruled according to the law of the Danes. The great Roman road, Walking street was the boundary that separated the Dane law from Wessex.

Thus the Danes were prevented from conquering the whole island and the country was divided into two parts: the Danelaw (Northumbria, East Anglia and part of Mercia) where the Danes spoke their own language and kept to their way of life and English south-western part of the country, that is Wessex, which was under Alfred rule. At the end of the 9th century new Danish attack were made, but they were beaten off: Anglo-Saxons won their first victory on the sea, and soon the Danes no longer dared to attack Wessex.

In time of peace Alfred the Great took measures to improve the laws in the interests of the great landowners and to raise the standard of culture among them. King Alfred knew not only how to write and read – an uncommon thing even for princes in those days – but he was well versed in Greek and Latin. He read a good deal and he realized how to backward the Anglo-Saxons were compared with the people of France and Italy and even more so as compared the Romans five hundred years earlier. The Anglo-Saxons whose ancestors had destroyed the Roman civilization in Britain four centuries before could build nothing better than rough timber devilling and wore nothing finer than coarse homespun. The King sent for artisans, builders and scholars from the continent. The monasteries and churches which had been burnt by the Danes were rebuilt and schools were set up in the monasteries for the clergy.

Alfred demanded that all the priests should learn Latin, as the Bible and service-books were in that language. And it was the duty of the clergy to all future state officials to learn the Latin as well. A school was started in the palace itself where the sons of the nobles learned to read and write.

Alfred himself sometimes taught there. As nearly all the books at that time were written in Latin and few people could read them, translations of some Latin books into Anglo-Saxon were made. Books on religion, history and philosophy were translated so that those people who learned to read could understand them in their own tongue.The books which were translated from the Latin taught men mainly about the history and geography of the continent. Alfred ordered that the learned men should begin to write a history of England called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was continued for 250 years after the death of Alfred. It is mainly from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the book of today get their information of the events of English medieval history. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle is on view now at the British Museum. Only scholars who have studied the Anglo-Saxon language in which it was written can understand it and translate it into modern English.

King Alfred also ordered that the old customs and laws followed by the Anglo-Saxons before him in Wessex and Mercia should be collected. The laws were added to the collection and a code of English law was drawn up. Everybody had to follow the laws of the Kingdom. In the reign of Alfred the Great the power of the royal officials strengthened greatly. The whole country was divided into shires and hundreds as before and through his officials King Alfred held old parts of the country under control. In the reign of Alfred the Great the Kingdom of England became stronger and it helped the big property against the invaders.

The Kingdom of England in the 10th – 11th Centuries

In the 10th century the united Anglo-Saxon feudal monarchy was consolidated . a much larger territory including the Danelaw was now under the power of the Kings of England. From the end of the 10th century the Danes began to devastate the country again. And for some time in 11th century England came under the power of the Danish Kings. Under both Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings feudal society continued to develop in England. More and more peasants lost their land and freedom and the class of feudal lords grew in number. Here we shall read about:

-the further consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy in the 10th century;

-new attacks of Danes;

-some peculiarities of feudal development in England.

Further Consolidation of Anglo-Saxon Monarchy in the 10th Century

In the second half of the 10th century under the rule of Alfred’s descendants the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was further consolidated. The Anglo-Saxon won several victories over the Danes, took away the Danelaw and ruled over the whole of England. The Danes were not driven out of the country but they were made subjects of Wessex. They submitted to the power of the Anglo-Saxon Kings and never tried to make the Danelaw into a separate Kingdom. These descendants of the Danish conquerors gave up piracy and in the course of time became peaceful peasants and trades. They were now not very much different from the Anglo-Saxons among whom they lived because they were also of Germanic origin. They were far fewer in number and they soon became Christians like their neighbours, adopted their language and assimilated gradually with them.

The Danes influenced the development of the country greatly. They were good sailors and traders and they favoured the growth of towns and the development of trade in England. They were skilful shipbuilders and many grave-goods found in their ship burials show their great craftsmanship. The Danes used a large iron axe to clean the forests and to plough the large stretches of virgin land. Feudal relations began to develop among them only in the 9th century and on the territory of the former Danelaw these free peasants remained free up to the Middle Ages.

Many Scandinavian words came into the English language at that time and are even used today. Such adjectives as happy, low, loose, ugly, weak, verbs – to take, to die, to call, nouns – sister, husband, sky, etc. The Danes gave their own names to many of the towns they built. In the region were they used to live many town – names end in “by” or “toft” for these were words meaning Danish settlements, for example: Derby, Grimsby, Lowestoft and others. The whole country formed a united Kingdom. The nearly conquered Danelaw was divided into shires, like the Anglo-Saxons part of the Kingdom. Each of these shires had for its centre one of the market towns which the Danes had established and that is the reason why to this day the midland countries unlike those of Southern England, are really all named after their country towns. For example Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and others.

The general moots didn’t assemble in the united kingdom and the King ruled the country with the help of the Witenagemot, a council of most powerful landlords. The power of Church increased greatly during this period and the archbishop ans bishop began to plan an important role in the government.

New Attacks of DanesAt the end of the 10th century the Danish invasions were resumed. The Anglo-Saxon kings were unable to organize any affective resistance and they tried to buy off the Danes. The Anglo-Saxon Kings gave them money to leave them in peace. The result was that they came again in greater numbers the following year to demand more. In order to make this payment to Danes in 991 the government imposed a heavy tax call Danegeld or Dane money. And every time the Danes came back they received more and the government, in its turn , increased the tax of Danegeld collected from the population. At the beginning of the 11th century England was conquered by the Danes once more. The Danish King Canute (1017 – 1035) became King of Denmark, Norway and England. He made England the centre of his power. But he was often away from England in his Kingdom of Denmark and so he divided the country into four parts called earldoms. They were Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. An earl was appointed by the King to rule over each great earldom. The earls ruled over great territories and gradually they became very powerful.

To secure his positions in the conquered country Canute continued to collect the Danegeld tax, and used the money to support a bodyguard of professional fighters and a large fleet to the Dane money which had been originally collected for the struggle against the Danes became now a tax paid for the benefit of the Danish King. The King’s well disciplined bodyguard of several thousand horsemen was in fact, a standing army, it was always ready to suppress a rebellion in any part of the country. Besides, Canute tried to win the support of the big Anglo-Saxon feudal lords. He promised to rule according to the old Anglo-Saxon laws. As before the Anglo-Saxon lords had the right to administer justice in the neighbourhood. The other old laws which gave them great power over the common people were also preserved. Canute sent back most of his Danish followers to their own country. He usually chose Anglo-Saxon nobles for the high posts of earls and other royal officials, Canute himself became a Christian and he sent monks from Canterbury to convert his subjects in Scandinavia to Christian too. He was the protector of the monasteries and learning that developed there. The clergy grew more powerful in the region. Supported by the Anglo-Saxon feudal lords Canute ruled in England till he died. After the death of Canute his Kingdom split up and soon afterwards an Anglo-Saxon King came to the throne (1042) and the line of Danish Kings came to an end.

Further Development of he Feudal Relations in the 10th – 11th Centuries

The Danish invasions during the 9th and 10th centuries hastened the process of the development of feudal relations in England. The peasantry which made up the bulk of the population suffered very much from the raids of the Danes. The peasants were robbed and murdered and their drops destroyed. The peasants hot sow their land and harvest their crops at the proper time as every year they had to give up farming to serve in the levy or to build forts, bridges and roads. It was the peasants who paid the heavy Danegeld which kept increasing.

The wars and heavy taxes collected by the government impoverished many peasants. In the 10th-11th centuries the peasants lived in individual families parents and their children and such a small family had not more than one fourth of former hide. But many impoverished peasants had much smaller plots of arable land. After a Danish raid thousands of peasants were ruled and most of them had to give their arable land away in payments for debts. They could never again become as independent as they had been before.

During the wars with the Danes many peasants lost their land and became the landlord’s men and bound themselves to work for him in return for protection.

In the 10th-11th centuries the nobility was seizing the peasants’ band by forceon a large scale. A considerable part of the peasants’ lands fell into the hands of the big landlords and many peasants lost their freedom.The class of the feudal landlords grew in number too. Large feudal estates grew at the expense of the peasants who were deprived of their land either by force, or in payment for debts or for protection. The landlord class grew also as a result of the formation of the new army of military nobles, who were granted landed estates in return for their military service. The church, the importance of which increased greatly in this period, became a great landlord too. Anglo-Saxon Kings supported the big landlord. In 930 a law was passed that said: “Each man must have a lord”. Anglo-Saxon Kings granted the noble special charters which gave them the right of private ownership of the land they had seized from the free peasants. The big land lords gradually became very powerful and quite independent in their own armed forces and their domains. They had their own armed forces and their own courts on their estates. The rich, powerful earls became so independent that quite often they didn’t obey the King of England himself.

The Peculiarities of the Development of Feudalism in England in the Early Middle Ages

During the Early Middle Ages (the 5th- 11th centuries) feudal relations were developing in England like in all were developing in England like in all the other countries of the Western Europe. A serf class was gradually appearing. Most of the peasants of the slaves and of the peasants of the slaves and of the peasants who had once been free peasant were gradually losing their land and freedom and were becoming serfs. The country was ruled by both lay and clerical feudal lords who were very rich and powerful.

The development of feudalism was a slowest process in England. During the three centuries after the Anglo-Saxon conquest (7th – 9th centuries) the bulk of the population in Britain consisted of free peasants while among the Franks who had settled on the continent the majority of the peasants had already became serfs by the beginning of the 9th century. It can be accounted for, first of all, by the fact that the Romans had a stronger influence on the continent than the Britain. The Romans didn’t bring about many changes in the life of the Northern tribes and it was only among the Celts of the South that the tribal nobility became richer than the other members of the tribe.

The Danish raids sped up the improve rishment of the Anglo-Saxon peasants. In the 10th-11th centuries the Anglo-Saxon free communities weakened and many peasants were turned into serfs. However not all the peasants of England became serfs in this period.

The Norman Conquest of England

As you already know four different peoples invaded England. First came the Celts in the 6th century B.C., then the Romans in the 1st century A.D.: they were followed by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century; after them came the Danes at the end of the 8th century;

In the 11th century England was invaded by the Normans. This was the fifth and the last invasion in England.

The Normans

In the 9th century while the Danes were plundering England another branch of Northmen who were related to the Danes were doing the same along the Northern coasts of France. They came tobe called The Normans. They settled down in the conquered part of England known as the Danelaw. The Normans settled down on land conquered from the French King – a territory which is still called Normandy after the naormans.

Many changes came about in the life of the Normans and the Danes after the 9th century. By the 11th century the Danes had finally settled down as subjects of the English King. AS time went on they gradually mixed with the Anglo-Saxon among whom they lived. They retained their Germanic language and many of their customs were very much alike those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Normans who had settled down in France were now quite different from their Germanic forefathers. They lived among the French people, who were different people, with different manners, customs and language. They had learned to speak the French. They adopted their manners and customs and their way of life. The establishment of the feudal system in France had been completed by the 11th century and the Norman barons had come into possession of large tracts of land and a great number of serfs.

The Normans lived under the rule of their own duke. By the 11th century the dukes of Normandy had become very powerful. Though they acknowledged the King of France as their overlord, they were actually as strong as the King himself, whose domain was smaller than the Duchy’s of Normandy. Like other French dukes and counts they made themselves practically independent. They coined their own money, made their own laws, held their own court, built their own castles. They could wage wars against other dukes and even against the King himself. As the well-armed and well-trained cavalry, the Norman knights were the best in Europe.

The Norman InvasionIn 1066 William the Duke of Normandy, began to gather the army to invade Britain. The pretext for the invade was William’s claims English throne. But the Whitenagemot chose another relative of the decease King, the Anglo-Saxon Earl, Harold. William of Normandy claimed that England belonged to him and he began preparations for a war to fight the Crown.

William sent messages for and wide to invite the fighting men of Western Europe to join his forces. He called upon the Christian warriors of Europe to help him gain his rights to the English throne. No pay was offered, but William promised land to all who would support him, William also asked the Roman Pope for his support. He promised to strengthen the Pope’s power over the English Church. And the Church with the Roman Pope at the head blessed his campaign and called it a holly war. There were many fighting men who were ready to join the William’s army since it was understood that English lands would be given to the victors. William mustered a numerous army which consisted not only of the Norman barons and knights but of the knights from other parts of France. Many big sailing boats were built to carry the army across the channel.

William landed in the south of England and the battle between the Normans and Anglo-Saxons took place on the 14th October 1066 at a little village in the neighbourhood of town now called Hastings.

The Battle of Hastings

The Normans outnumbered. The Anglo-Saxon forces were greatly superior in quality. They were all men for whom fighting was the main occupation in life. They were well armed and the chance to be killed was not so great. The superior military tactics of the well-trained Normans were unknown in England. They used a skilful combination of heavy-armed cavalry and archers. First the archers would break up the ranks of their enemy and then followed a changing cavalry which decided the victory.

The Anglo-Saxons had a small cavalry, it was mainly Harold’s bodyguard. The hastily gathered levies of free peasants who fought on foot made up the main body of the Anglo-Saxon army. Not all the foot man were properly armed, many were armed with the pitchforks, axes or only thick oak-poles. The Anglo-Saxon footmen usually fought in a mass standing close together, so as to form a wall of shields to protect themselves. It must also be remembered that while William had firm power over the vassals who came with him from Normandy and France, King Harold’s power over the Anglo-Saxon earls of North-Eastern and Middle England in time of need. The earls moved slowly towards battle and then joined with the victor, either Harold or William. As a result when Harold met William at Hastings, he had under his command only the men of Wessex. Harold drew up his men inside a palisade on a hill-top awaiting the attack. His bodyguard was drawn up in he centre and other troops on the flanks. Standing shoulder to shoulder they made a wall in front. Stakes were driven into the ground so that the Norman horsemen could not break the ranks of the infantry. This was a good defensive position. As the Normans had to ride up the hill to fight and it was actually impossible to break through the shield wall of the Anglo-Saxons.While the Anglo-Saxons were in this enclosure they saw the Normans coming forward. The Norman army was drawn up in different formation in front were the footmen followed by the horsemen. In the front of the cavalry rode a singer, who sang songs of battle and victory, the rowing his sward up into the air and catching it again as he rode. The Normans began to attack with flight of arrows and the Anglo-Saxon light-armed footmen suffered greatly of them. Then followed the charging attacks of the Norman cavalry upon which William chiefly relieved. But the Anglo-Saxon stood firm, side by side, shield to shield. They fought with such energy that both the Norman infantry and cavalry had to turn back and retreat down the hill. The battle went on all day. As long as the Anglo-Saxons stayed inside the palisade the Normans could not reach them successfully, so they thought of a battle-plan for drawing them out. Three times they went up the hill and then pretended to run away. When the Anglo-Saxons saw their enemies retreated a large number of them came out from behind the palisade to pursue the Normans and to complete, as they thought, the defeat of their enemy. As soon as the Anglo-Saxons had descended to the plain and were a good way from their palisade the Normans turned around and attacked them fiercely. Their trick served its purpose. In the open the mounted Normans had a great advantage over the men fighting on foot. The Anglo-Saxons were encircled, a great many of them were killed, and horses trampled down their dead bodies. Those who remained inside with Harold formed a ring round him and continued to fight bravely until the Normans thought of another plan. They shot their arrows high in the air, so that they fell inside the palisade. One of these arrows struck Harold in the eye and killed him. The Anglo-Saxons went on fight hard around the standard of the English King but gradually the shield-wall thinned and at last the Normans succeeded in breaking the line and the battle was at an end.

Subjugation of the Country

The victory at Hastings was only the beginning of the conquest. It took several years for William and his barons to subdue the whole of England. Soon after the victory at Hastings the Normans encircled London and the Witenagemot had to acknowledge William as the lawful King of England. Thus the Norman Duke became King of England – William I or as he was generally known, William the Conqueror. He ruled England for 21 years (1066 – 1087). During the first five years of his reign the Normans had to put down many rebellions in different parts fought fiercely for their freedom against the invaders. The peasant communities in Kent offered the most stubborn resistance to the invaders. Only in the early part of the 1068 did Normans conquered the West and in the latter part of that year they subdued central the northern England as far as Yorkshire. But rebellions against Norman rule rose again and again, in one part of the country and then in another. The largest rebellions took place in 1069 and in 1071 in the North-East where the free peasantry was more numerous than in other regions of the country.

In 1071 the subjugation of the country was completed. All the uprisings were put down and rebels were punished severely. William’s knights raided the village burning and slaying far and wide. After several uprisings in the North, William who was a fierce and ruthless man, determined to give the Anglo-Saxons a terrible lesson. The lands of the Northumbria were laid waste. Whole villages between York and Durham were ruined – every cottage was burnt to the ground, people were killed, cattle were driven off, all the crops and orchards were destroyed. Hardly a house was left standing or human being alive and land became a desert for many years. Only the great castle of Durham which was built by William’s order rose a river, above the burnt villages and untilled fields.

With lessons of such severe punishment the conquerors meant to keep the people in obedience, to intimidate them, so that they should not dare to rise against Norman rule.

The Bayeux Tapestry

In the Norman town of Bayeux, in the museum, one can see a strip of canvas about 10 metres long and half a metre wide embroidered with very well-defined pictures which tell the whole story of the Norman Conquest. That is the famous Bayeux Tapestry. It is said that William wife and the ladies of a court made it to hang round the walls of the cathedral.

The Bayeux Tapestry shows the preparation made for the invasion of England – men felling trees or hawing and shaping the rough timber into ship, scenes depicting the subjugation of the country and other details pertaining to the Battle of Hastings, the armour and weapons used, are all very well represented.

The tapestry is of great interest to specialists in history and art. It gives up very valuable information about the life of the people at that time.The Norman Conquerors and How Life Changed in England Under Their Rule

The Norman Conquest brought about very important changes in the life of the Anglo-Saxons. We have seen what little power King Harold had over the great lords. The Anglo-Saxon earls didn’t even join their King at Hastings. After the Conquest the royal power in England strengthened greatly. The conquerors turned into serfs many Anglo-Saxon peasants who had been free before. They brought with them their language, laws and customs. Under their rule the English language changed greatly.

Now we shall learn more about the way of life of the Normans and the changes they brought to England.

The Strengthening of the Royal Power

William was now not only the Duke of Normandy but the King of England as well and he received great incomes from both Normandy and his rich domain in England. As King of England, William the Conqueror was determined that his nobles should not be able to make them selves independent to him as he had made himself independent of his overlord, the King of France.

The conqueror declared that all the lands of England belonged to him by right of conquest. The estates of all the Anglo-Saxon lords who had supposed Harold or acknowledged him as King were confiscated. The Anglo-Saxon landowners, great and small, and the Anglo-Saxon clergy were turned out of their houses, and estates and churches.

One-seventh of the country was made the royal domain. The other lands the King granted to the Normans and French men who had take part in the conquest and to the Anglo-Saxon landlords who supported him.

The Conqueror claimed that the forest lands which made up one-third of the country belonged to him too. Large forests were turned into reserves for the royal hunting were issued. Anyone who dared to hunt in the royal forests without the King’s permission who threatened with severe punishment. Thus the King of England became the richest feudal lord of all. The royal domain consisted of 1420 estates. The more powerful barons were granted from 100 to 400 estates and some of them still more. The monasteries were granted 1700 estates. These were the chief owners of the English lands. Many Normans were given only two or three estates, some even one. But both great and small landowners held their land from the King. The English lands that were given to the Church were also held from the King by the bishops and abbots. Each Norman noble on getting his estate, swore an oath allegiance to the King and became the King’s vassal. Bare – headed and without arms a baron approached the King knelt down and placed his hands between those of the King and promised to be his man. “I become your man from this day forward “, he said, “and to you I shall be true and faithful and shall hold faith for the lands I hold from you”. The great barons granted some part of their land to lesser feudal lords and the baron’s vassals frequently granted land to still lesser vassals. Each baron received with the grant of land to promise to the King’s protection, but in return he had to mender military service to his overlord bringing a number of fully armed Knights with him in time of war. When the King went to the war he called upon his chief vassals, they in their turn called upon theirs and as a result, all the landowners, were in arms. William demanded the military service should he rendered for all the lords – even for those in the possession of the Church, and the abbot or bishop was obliged to grant some of the estates to men who would do this for them. Besides, when an estate was inherited by the heir on the death of the holder, a certain payment was to be made to the King. These conditions of holding land by the land lords were known as the feudal tenure of land, only on these terms could the landlord keep the land.William the Conqueror made not only the great landowners, to whom he granted land but also their vassals. In 1086 at a great gathering of knights in Sainsbury, William made all of them take a special oath to be true to him against all his enemies. Thus a knight who held a lend from a great baron became the King’s vassal. It is interesting to note that in France a vassal had to obey his immediate overlord only from whom he received the land and not the King. And it often happened that the smaller vassals joined their lord against the French King. In England the rule “My vassal’s vassal is not my vassal” was broken now and it became the duty of all the landowners, great and small, to support the King against all his enemies, both foreign and domestic. For greater security, when William the Conqueror rewarded his important supporters with a large number of estates, he didn’t give them large blocks of land but gave them a number of small estates scattered about the country. For example, he granted to one of his relatives 780 estates, which were scattered about in twenty countries. The King’s greatest vassal held 54 estates in the country of Sussex; 196 estates in Yorkshire; 248 in Cornwall; 5 estates in Cambridgeshire; an estate in Hampshire and an estate in Oxfordshire; 10 estates in Suffolk and many more in the other countries. The Conqueror granted for the great nobles to collect their forces and to offer resistance to the royal power. Any great lord who planned to rebel against the King would have to collect his vassals from all over England instead of having them ready in one place, and while he was doing this the King would march against him and defeat him.

Another change which William I introduced to reduce the power of the great lords was the abolition of the great earldoms- Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, that had been established in the reign of the Danish King Canute. Now the country was divided into shires or countries as the Normans called them William I appointed a royal officials in each shire to be his “sheriff”. The royal sheriffs became of great importance. Through the sheriffs the King exercised control over all his vassals. The sheriff administered justice in the shire. He presided in the King’s name over the shire courts. Each landowner was allowed to hold his court on the estate, but the sheriff kept a check on him. The sheriff also collected taxes paid to the royal treasury and his duty was to see that all the royal dues were paid in full and in time. Besides, the sheriff was responded for the gathering of an army for the King. He was well acquainted with all the King’s vassals living in the shire and what military service they owned the King. It was his duty to see that they were ready to perform military service for the King when they were called up. If necessary the sheriff could call up the army for the King in two or three days. The great landlords, on the other hand, would require a much longer time to collect their vassals from all the scattered estates. To make himself stronger than any of his nobles, William the Conqueror ordered that many castles should be built in different parts of the country. They were nearly all royal castles. No other person was allowed to build a castle without the kings permission. The King’s castle were garrisoned by his own men-at-arms who were always ready to ride out and destroy anyone who disobeyed the King. William I replaced the Witenagemot by a Great Council made up of bishops and barons met together to talk over government problems and to give advice to the King. One of the functions of the Great Council was to act as the King’s Supreme Court and it presided over all serious trials. The right to belong to the Great Council depended on the holding of land granted by the King.

The King’s laws were in force everywhere. Only the King had the right to have money coined. Nobles were not allowed to make war on one another; all men had to keep “the King’s peace”.

The Domesday Book

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says “in 1096 William the Conqueror sent his men all over the England, into every shire to find out what property every inhabitant of England possessed in land or cattle and how much money this was worth … and all these writings were brought to him”. That was the first registration in England.Before the arrival of the royal officials a special commission prepared the necessary information in each shire. The commission consisted of the sheriff, the lord of the estate, the priest, the hundred-elder and six peasants. They would measure the land, write down how much plough land was and how much meadow, pasture and woodland. They would visit everyone’s house to find out how many oxen were kept. They would have to know the number of mills and plough in the village and how many fishpond there were. Then the royal officials would arrive with a number of warriors. One of the officials knew both the English and Latin language, so that he could act as interpreter. The village would give their insurers in English but the officials would have to give them down the Latin. After the members of the commission had taken a solemn oath to tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” the royal official began to ask questions in English. Another official with a pen in his hand and an ink-horn hanging from his waist-belt stood by to write down the answer.

This went on perhaps all day. There were the same questions in each village. The name of the owner of the village was written down, and what the villagers possessed, and what it was all worth, and what they should pay to the King. The Anglo-Saxons were afraid of the registration and hated it. The villagers used to say that nothing could be concealed from the King’s officials just as you would not conceal anything from God on doomsday. The villagers were threatened to be punished on doomsday in case they didn’t tell the whole truth. That is why probably the book in which all these accounts were written was called by the people of England the Domesday Book.

All the King’s vassals were registered in the Domesday Book and William I could now see to it that they all performed their military service. William I knew the exact value of their estates and he demanded that when he called upon them they should bring a certain number of their retainers in proportion to the value of their estates. As the names of all the new owners of the estates were written down in official state document, the Domesday Book, the Norman lords were considered now the lawful owners of English lands. Thus the feudal registration of 1086 consolidated the position of the conquerors. Great changes were brought in life of the Anglo-Saxon peasantry as a result of the registration organised by William I. before the Conquest many peasants were serfs, or villains, as they were called in England. The villains were “bound to the soil and to the lord”. They belonged to the feudal estate, or to the manor, as it was called in England. They were not allowed to leave the lord of the manor. However, alongside with the villains there were many semi bondsmen whose services to the lord were much lighter than those of the villains. There were also many peasants who cultivated their own land whose freedom was slightly curbed because they could be tried only in the lord’s court. Now all those semi bond peasants were registered in Domesday Book as villains. Many of those who before the Conquest had been tried in the lord’s court and owed some minor service were also registered as unfree peasants. The cite just one example: in the country of Sussex 10,400 peasants families were registered of which 9,800 were registered as unfree families and only 600 as free.

In addition to everything else the peasants had to pay heavier taxes. Before the registration William I collected all the old taxes which had been imposed in England before the conquest. He continued to collect even the old Danegeld, a tax which had been imposed to organize resistance to the raids of the Danes. As a result of the registration the Conqueror had to exact data for taxation and increased the old taxes considerably. Moreover a heavy property tax was imposed on the population of England.

Thus the Norman Conquest aggravated feudal exploitation and it hastened the process of turning the free peasants into serfs. The Norman Conquerors became not only the owners of the English lands but also the masters of the people who lived on it.

The original of Domesday Book is kept now in the Public Record Office in London. In the reign of the William I it was looked upon as a tax book for gave the data for taxation. But its actual value is much greater. No other written document before or after has given us such a clear picture of the period.

The King’s Supporters

A monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle “The King William was serve beyond all measure to those people who resisted his will. The earls who resisted him were kept in chains. He deprived bishops of their power and lands, and abbots of their abbacies, the cast earls into prison… There is no doubt that people were greatly oppressed in his lime.

He had castles built

And the poor men hard oppressed

The King was very stark

And took from his subjects many a markOf gold and more hundreds of pounds of silver,

Into avarice did he fall

And loved greediness above all,

He made great protection for the game

And imposed laws for the same

That who so slew hart to hind

Should be made blind

Hares too, did he decree, should go free

Powerful men lamented it

But he was so ruthless that he

Minded not their hatred

And they had to follow out

The King’s will entirely

If they wished to live or hold their lands

In spite of the serve measures taken by William I there were many supporters of his policy. His great supporters were Norman barons. The Normans enjoyed many privileges in the conquered country. All the members of the Great Council were Normans. All the sheriffs and other royal officials were Normans too. The same was true in the English Church where nearly all the priests, bishops and abbots were also Normans. England was ruled by foreign King and foreigners occupied all the highest offices. To defend their privileges the Normans , who were in the minority in the conquered country had to unite under a strong royal power. And the Normans barons supported William as they were interested in strengthening the royal power which helped them to suppress the Anglo-Saxons.

The Conqueror won the support of the Anglo-Saxon lords, too. Those who had not fought against him were left in possession of their estates. They became the King’s allies in his struggle against William I because only a strong King could protect them against tyranny of the great Norman barons who held now all the high posts in the state. The smaller lords too, both Norman and Anglo-Saxon, relied upon the King to help them to turn the free peasants into serfs and to put down their growing resistance.

The church helped greatly in strengthening the royal power. Evidence of this can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle where a monk praises the Conqueror “The King William was a very wise man, and very powerful, and stronger than any predecessor of his. He was gentle to the good people who loved God… .In his days was the great Monastery in Canterbury built, and also very many others over all England… . This land … was well filled with monks… .And all the rich men over all England were with him: archbishops and bishops, abbots and earls…”. In return for its support of the Conquest the Church of England, the greatest feudal lord in the country, was granted some privileges. William established separate Church courts which decided all cases that concerned marriages, wills and accusations against the clerics. In this way the Church assumed certain state functions, that is, it was becoming an important part of the state machinery. Many new churches and cathedrals were built all over the country. Much gold, silver and precious stones were sent as gift to Rome.

And the clergy preached up William’s power and threatened anyone who dared to disobey the King with God’s punishment.

The town people supported the royal power too. William the conqueror took severe measures to establish peace in the country and now men could travel without fear of being robbed or murdered “Among other things”, the monk wrote, “one must forget to good order that William maintained in this land, to such a degree that any honest men can travel over his Kingdom without injury with his bosom full of gold”. In the reign of William I there was more merchants could move about without fear of loosing their goods. Trade connections with Normandy permitted the extension of trade on the Continent; trading was no longer limited to England. Towns began to grow and the town people paid high taxes to the royal treasury. The town people gave William their full support for granting them certain privileges and for protecting trade.

How the Norman Conquerors Lived in England

The new masters were strangers in the country. They had different manners, customs and laws from those of the conquered people. They spoke a foreign tongue and the Anglo-Saxon peasants couldn’t understand their speech. The conquerors were few in number but they were harsh and cruel rulers. They punished those who dared to disobey severely, to intimidate and to suppress the conquered people. The Anglo-Saxons felt great hated toward their new masters. The Normans did not feel safe in the conquered country for they could be attacked at any time. They were completed to built large thick stone-walled castles for defence where they lived with their families and vassals.Before the Norman Conquest the Anglo-Saxon lords lived in timber houses. Sometimes the lord’s house was built on the hill with a strong wooden fence or palisade round it and with a ditch outside the fence. There were not castles. After the Norman Conquest strong castles began to appear in each country. At first they were built wood and later of stone. The first of these stone castles was the Tower of London. The Conqueror ordered it to be built on the north bank of the Thames to protect London. The Great castle of Durham was built to protect northern England from the raids of Scots. Another fortress was built on the river Tyne and was called Newcastle. Many other castles were built in the reign of William I. At first most castles belonged to the King , but later on great castles belonging to the Norman barons arose all over England. The old timber houses were pulled down and the villagers were forced to build strong castles in which the new lords and their fighting men lived. The Norman castle were built on a hill or rock so that it could not easily be attacked. The castle was as a rule a square stone tower with very thick walls and it was surrounded by a thick stone wall wide enough for the archers to walk along. The outer wall was strengthened with towers built on each corner. Outside the wall was a deep ditch, or moat, filled with water. The moat could be crossed by a draw bridge was drawn up by chains.

The chief tower where the baron and his family lived was called the keep. This was the strongest part of the building. Between the keep and the outer massive wall there was a court where stood the stables for horses and horses for the servants. Later the keep in the Norman castle was surrounded by two or even three stone walls.

The castle dominated over the country round. The Anglo-Saxon neighbours saw them selves constantly controlled by the foreign oppressors, who were safe behind the massive wall of their castles. Some of the massive strong towers built by the Normans can be seen in England today, like the White Tower of London Tower or the keep of the castle at Colchester which was the largest Norman castle in England. Some, such as Windsor Castle, are still used as residences. But most of the old Norman castles are ruins which can still be seen in various parts of England. The Norman noble considered war his chief occupation. Each noble was a knight, or a fully armed maunder warrior. The armour of a Norman knight consisted of mail, which fitted close to the body. The lead was covered with a helmet and each knight carried a shield. His horse was also protected by armour. Nobles were trained in warfare from childhood. It was honourable to be a knight and the sons of nobles were trained to become good knights. They were not taught to read and write. Nobles in heavy armour could fight skilfully on the horseback, but they were coarse and youth in military trained and as they grew up they spent their time in wars of feasting with the guest in the halls of their castles. The Norman lords were fond of the tournament, a military competition between knights and hunting as they both were akin to warfare.

William the Conqueror himself was very fond of hunting. He chose the place near Salisbury and gave orders to make it an enormous hunting-ground. Sixty villages were destroyed: barns, houses, churches, were burnt to the ground. Hundreds of poor Anglo-Saxon peasants were driven from the land. This wide space was called the New Forest. There were many other forests set aside for the royal hunting. The King and his nobles would turned into forest for hunting. To be sure, not too much concern was shown for the sown fields either. Very often while hunting the lords rode across the peasants fields and destroyed their crops. That was their right for they felt that they owned the land and the peasants as well.

Affects on the Language

The victorious Normans made up the new aristocracy and the Anglo-Saxon people became their servants. The Norman aristocracy spoke a Norman dialect of French, a tongue of Latin origin, while the Anglo-Saxons spoke English, a tongue of Germanic origin. Thus there were two different languages spoken in the country. All the documents were written in French or Latin. The clergy, whom the Normans brought into the country used Latin for most part. The richer Anglo-Saxon found it convenient to learn to speak the language at the rules. But peasants and townspeople spoke English. The Normans looked upon English as a kind of peasant dialect and continued to speak their own language. They despaired anyone unable to speak their language.But the Normans couldn’t subdue the popular tongue which was spoken by the majority of the population, those who cultivated the land to produce goods. The conquerors who settled down on English estates had to communicate with the natives of the country and they gradually learned to speak their language. Many of them married Anglo-Saxon wives and their children and grandchildren grew up speaking English. In a few generations the descendants of the Normans who had come with William I learned to speak the mother tongue of the common people of England. In time English became the language of the educated classes and the official language of the state.

This was a gradual process, however and many years passed before the Normans forgot their old tongue. At the time when the two languages were spoken side by side the Anglo-Saxons learned many French words and expressions which gradually came into the English language. They borrowed many French words and equivalents of which did not exist in their own language. For example, the wife of an English earl is called “counless” , a French word, because there was no Anglo-Saxon word meaning the wife of an earl. Many synonyms appeared in English language, because very often both French and English words for the same thing were used side by side.

Words of Germanic origin make up the basic vocabulary of Modern English. The Anglo-Saxons spoke the simple countryman’s language and in Modern English simple everyday words are mostly Anglo-Saxon, like eat, land, house and others. But as there were no English words to describe the many words were adopted from the French language. Thus the vocabulary of the English language was enlarged due to such Norman-French words dealing with feudal relations as manor, noble, baron, serve, command, obey, or words relating to administration and law such as charter, council, accuse, court, crime, or such military terms as arms, troops, guard, navy, battle, victory, and other words characterising the way of life and customs of the Normans aristocracy.

As a result of conquest the English language changed greatly under the influence of the French language. The two languages gradually formed one rich English language which already in the 14th century was being used both in speech and in writing. Gradually the Normans mixed with the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes and from this mixture the English nation finally emerged.

Villages After the Norman Conquest

At the end of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th century England had a population of about 1.500.000 people. More than nine-tenth lived in villages and were engaged in agriculture.

The church was the centre of the village. The Anglo-Saxon church would be made of stone with very thick walls and tower. In the life of the village the church was of great importance. The church bell told men when to begin work and when to come home from the fields. The villagers spent their spare time for the most part in church.