A more long-lasting conquest took place in England. England had been linked to the
Continent by the Vikings, who settled in its eastern half, and in the eleventh century it
had been further tied to Scandinavia under the rule of Cnut (see above, p. 138).
Nevertheless, the country was drawn inextricably into the Continental orbit only with
the conquest of Duke William of Normandy. (See Map 5.3.)
When William left his duchy with a large army in 1066 to dispute the crown of
the childless King Edward the Confessor (r.1042–1066), he carried a papal banner,
symbol of the pope’s support. The one-day battle of Hastings was decisive, and
William was crowned the first Norman king of England. (See Genealogy 6.1: The
Norman and Angevin Kings of England, on p. 202.) Treating his conquest like booty
(as the crusader leaders would do a few decades later in the Levant), William kept
about 20 per cent of the land for himself and divided the rest, distributing it in large
but scattered fiefs to a relatively small number of his barons—his elite followers—
and family members, lay and ecclesiastical, as well as to some lesser men, such as
personal servants and soldiers. In turn, these men maintained their own vassals. They
owed the king military service along with the service of a fixed number of their
vassals; and they paid him certain dues, such as reliefs (money paid upon inheriting a
fief) and aids (payments made on important occasions).
The king also collected land taxes. To know what was owed him, in 1086 William
ordered a survey of the land and landholders of England. His officials consulted
Anglo-Saxon tax lists and took testimony from local jurors, who were sworn to
answer a series of formal questions truthfully. Compilers standardized the materials
and organized them by county. Consider, by way of example, the entry for the manor
of Diddington:
the Bishop of Lincoln had 2½ hides to the geld. [There is] land for 2
ploughs. There are now 2 ploughs in demesne; and 5 villans having 2
ploughs. There is a church, and 18 acres of meadow, [and] woodland
pasture half a league long and a half broad. TRE worth 60s; now 70s.
William holds it of the bishop.^9
The hides were units of tax assessment; the ploughs and acres were units of area,
while the leagues were units of length; the villans were one type of peasant (there
were many kinds); and the abbreviation TRE meant “in the time of King Edward.”
Thus anyone consulting the survey would know that the manor of Diddington was
