What did king william do to keep the English under control?
November 10, 2009 - 11:04 pm
I have some history homework but i wasnt actually there during the lesson.
In the middle ages what did king william do to keep the english under control?
William the Conqueror grabbed all the best land and distributed it to his norman knights who then owned the English inhabitants as vassals and slaves.
Once the land had been distributed the Normans then built castles on their domains to keep the English under control.
The castles still exist in many places and the land is still under the control of the descendants of these Normans.
They have never been defeated and England is still an occupied country.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:28 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror
Hope this helps
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November 11th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Demolished our culture by treating the Brits as vassals and introducing Norman culture and the French language. Put Norman Barons in the place of Brits and introduced Norman law and Norman currency.
We did retaliate every so often though – but they have never beaten us since!!
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November 11th, 2009 at 4:53 am
William the Conqueror grabbed all the best land and distributed it to his norman knights who then owned the English inhabitants as vassals and slaves.
Once the land had been distributed the Normans then built castles on their domains to keep the English under control.
The castles still exist in many places and the land is still under the control of the descendants of these Normans.
They have never been defeated and England is still an occupied country.
References :
November 11th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Oddly it was a longer process than people assume. The "win Hasting, divy up the land to your men and build castles view" is not widely held anymore.
Yes, a number a prominent Norman cronies did get rewarded for their service and received healthy packages of land. But it was several decades before the English nobility really disappear; the idea being that they tended to be the focus of the sort of rebellions the Normans couldn’t tolerate, so they were displaced over time. The terror used by the Normans was quite real though; the Domesday Book written 16 years later, shows the north had still not recovered from the "Harrowing" of 1069.
The real appeal to the Normans of England was that it was wealthy and had an administration that was strong by medieval standards; William strived to maintain this and the system on taxation and shire reeves (later "sheriffs", a bit like later magistrates, not part of the feudal structure & directly answerable to the govt.) By these systems Willian suceeded in having "social penetration" into the lives of the English and power over his nobility.
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