The Beginnings of the Feudal Age149within the limits of their traditional social order,
though the basis of land tenure changed dramatically.
The Anglo-Saxon ceorl(churl), or peasant, was typically
a freeholder who paid taxes for the support of his king’s
household and served in the fyrd,a kind of militia
whose tactics resembled those of the Frankish hosts. As
in other Germanic cultures, the kings were further
served by a comitatusof fighting men, known as gesiths.
Gesithssometimes received land as a reward when they
retired. They were usually supported during their fight-
ing careers by the bounty of the king’s hall and by the
sharing of treasure.
On the eve of the Viking invasions, England was
divided into seven kingdoms: East Anglia, Essex, Kent,
Mercia, Northumberland, Sussex, and Wessex. Their
small size made a decentralized mobile defense unnec-
essary, and feudal institutions did not develop, but the
chaos of the mid-ninth century forced large numbers of
hitherto independent ceorlsto seek the protection of
manorial relationships. Manorialism was firmly estab-
lished and may have been the dominant form of En-
glish economic organization when Alfred the Great of
Wessex (reigned 871–899) began the process of uniting
the country into a single kingdom.
In Alfred’s view, the achievement of political unity
depended in part upon the revival of learning and of a
sense of common cultural identity. He arranged for the
translation of religious classics into Old English and
commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,one version of
which was updated continuously until 1154. His poli-
cies bore fruit in the reign of Edgar, from 959 to 974,
when political unity was achieved and the rich body of
Anglo-Saxon poetry was compiled into four great
books, the most important of which was the epic Be-
owulf.The political failure of the succeeding years
should not obscure the vibrant, functional society that
fell to the Normans in 1066.
The Celtic world, though also subject to the full
fury of the Norsemen, resisted the temptation to ex-
change land for military service until forced to do so in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Even then, the pen-
etration of feudalism was far from complete. Ireland was
ravaged from end to end by the Vikings, and Viking en-
claves were established in the vicinity of Dublin and
elsewhere. However, the old system of clans and kings
survived. Feudalism was introduced only to those por-
tions of the island that were conquered by Henry II of
England in 1171–72, and even some of this territory was
lost in the Irish revival of the fourteenth century.
The fate of Wales was similar. A kind of manorial-
ism had been established in the more exposed coastal
areas at the height of the raids. It was dominated by tra-
ditional chieftains instead of by feudal lords. The up-
land areas, rugged and inaccessible, remained free.
After 1093 Norman adventurers tried to impose feudal
tenures on certain parts of South Wales and Pem-
brokeshire. These efforts were partial and usually
contested. Even in the areas of greatest Norman pene-
tration, traditional institutions stood side by side
with the new until well into the modern age.
The Welsh owed much of their independence to
the ruggedness of their native land. In general, upland
areas even in the heart of continental Europe stood a
good chance of escaping feudal domination. Peasant
communities in the Alps and the Pyrenees were remote
as well as poor. Their inhabitants lived by herding andIllustration 8.4
Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry.
The Bayeux Tapestry commemorates the
Norman invasion of England in narrative
form. It was designed to run clockwise
around the entire nave of the Cathedral
of Bayeux (consecrated 1077) and was
originally 230 feet long and twenty
inches high. It is an embroidery, not a
true, woven tapestry. The work was
probably done by the women of the
court, who seem to have known a great
deal about war and seafaring. In this
segment, the Normans are beaching
their Viking-style longboats and disem-
barking horses on the English coast for
the invasion.