A class act? Well certainly an enduring fact!
Keeping everyone in their role,
by a rigid method of social control!
The Feudal System.
Probably William’s most enduring legacy is his establishment of the feudal system which lives on today in the notorious English class system.
His first step was to confiscate the estates of the Saxon nobility and give them to people that he could trust, his Norman barons. These men now became known as tenants in chief. In return for their lands the barons promised to fight for the King in the event of war. They also had to provide the King with an agreed number of knights for forty days a year.
You must provide me with knights
for forty days and nights!
The barons then granted land to lower ranking barons who were termed sub tenants. The sub tenants or lords of the manor were in turn obliged to provide knights to the tenants in chief for forty days per annum.
The lords of the manor would then give land to the Saxon peasants in return for a specified number of services every year. These included working on the lord’s land for free for a certain number of days each year. This was greatly resented by the peasants.
While the lord of the manor feasted on a plate of roast pheasant!
The life for a Saxon peasant could be extremely unpleasant!
William’s genius.
It is possible that a powerful baron with the vast estates that he received from William could challenge the king’s power. After all with the large number of knights at their disposal they might be well placed to represent a significant threat to the crown.
William made a point of ensuring that the lands of a baron were not concentrated in one area but spread across different parts of the country. Some of a baron’s lands might be in Kent, the rest could be in Wiltshire. This meant that any rebellious baron would find it difficult to gather his forces together in order to attack the King.
All doom and gloom?
We shall now take a look at
The Domesday book!
Ruling a country is some respects rather like running a business. A business man needs to know what funds he has at his disposal to finance his projects. A ruler receives his revenue from taxation levied on the population, but William was not entirely sure whether or not people were paying their fair share of tax to the Royal Exchequer. Perhaps some people were short changing the king and if this was the case then it had to be stopped. The question was how to ensure that William was receiving what he was owed?
The solution?
Check out everyone’s true contribution?
In 1085, William sent his officials to virtually every village and town in England to find out exactly how much land and livestock each and every person owned. The investigation was incredibly thorough, indeed exhaustive and in some areas greatly resented. As one chronicler observed:
‘There was not one ox nor one cow nor one pig which escaped notice.’
The results were compiled in a huge book entitled the Domesday Book.
The Domesday Book.
