THE NORMAN CONQUEST

William the Conqueror:

Was born around 1028 at Falaise Castle, William was the illegitimate son of Normandy
(Duke Robert I). Was also Known as 'William the Bastard'.
Was crown as king after his father death in 1035.
At the age of 27 faced up many situations such as French attacks, becoming him
in a stronger leader. The ruthless king establishes Normandy as a powerful state.
William's claim to the English throne was based on his assertion that Edward the
Confessor, who was a distant cousin, had promised him the throne and that
Harold II was therefore a usurper and shipwrecked off Normandy.
William knowing that Harold was crowned King, William, with papal approval,
eventually began planning an invasion to take what rightfully belong him.

Williams invasion and Victory

In 1066 with favorable winds arrived on the Sussex coast.
The English and Norman armies fought hardly, but William’s army was strongest since
the Normandy king trained archers and knights on horseback.
Normans finally overcome the English and Harold is killed and his soldiers flied the
battle scene. Finally, Normans had won the battle of Hastings.
Three months later William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
William’s Legacy
Battle triumph didn’t mean a peaceful atmosphere for William’s reign and faced serious
changes.
In 1069 the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar, the pretender to the throne,
invaded the north of England. Edgar the Atheling had a blood-claim to the throne.
He was joined by Danish and Scottish armies.
William defeated the rebellion, but he still didn't trust the English people. In the
north-east of England, from 1069 to 1070, he ordered villages to be destroyed
and people to be killed. Herds of animals and crops were burnt. Most people
who survived starved to death; there were even stories of people turning to
cannibalism. William did not care if they had rebelled or not.
Not only was the population reduced by 75% but land was salted (poisoned) to
prevent people growing crops in the future.
Thousands of people were killed or died of starvation and cold. It came to be
known as the Harrying of the North and an act of genocide.
Changes in England
Williams replaced English aristocracy with a Norman one, divided up the land between
them, revolutionized the upper ranks of English society and gave them their own
military service.
His reign in England was also marked by the construction of castles, the settling of a
new Norman nobility on the land, and change in the composition of the English clergy.
He did not try to integrate his various domains into one empire, but instead continued
to administer each part separately.

Domesday book.
As part of feudalism, William also replaced English noblemen with trusted Norman
advisors and provided them with areas of land that would allow them to collect
taxes on his behalf. This system was documented in detail in the Domesday Book,
for which the king surveyed the whole of England to determine how much tax each
person should pay.
Feudalism
William the Conqueror introduced a new kind of feudal system into Britain. William
confiscated the land in England from the Saxon lords and allocated it to members
of his own family and the Norman lords who had helped him conquer the country.
These people were known as tenants-in-chief. They did not own the land because
the ownership remained with William the Conqueror himself. The tenant-in-chief
had to provide for himself and his family and to support several knights. To do this
the lord sub-let his land to other lords lower on the social ladder.
The tenants-in-chief did not get the land for free, they rented it from the king in
exchange for services. If the services were not provided the tenant-in-chief would
be removed, by force if necessary. This was an important change to the older
Anglo-Saxon form of feudalism as it meant William could keep control of his land
as bad tenants could be removed.
The king had assumed the ownership of the entire soil. He assumed that it was
forfeited to him by rebellion; and whether he distributed it among his Norman
followers, it was on condition of homage and under feudal tenure.
Military service
The most important service a tenant-in-chief had to supply was a number of
knights. The king would request the knights in time of conflict or war. They could
also be used for defending the king's many castles. The tenants-in-chief would
have passed the request for knights on to their tenants and so on down the feudal
structure. Knights could be requested to serve the king for up to forty days at a
time.

Continental Feudalism
On the continent a king's personal vassals or feudatories were few; each of them
had an estate which might be called a province. The province was parceled out
among the vassals of the feudatory and his vassal's vassals; and in each case the
vassal did homage and owed allegiance to his own immediate overlord, but not
necessarily to his overlord's overlord; therefore the feudatory who defied his
overlord or suzerain could take the field with an army of his own vassals, who
were sworn to serve him even against his suzerain.

English feudalism
In England, the country was parceled out into many small earldoms and lesser
estates; and, further, the smaller landowners for the most part held direct from the
king. They were tenants-in-chief, i.e. with no overlord intervening between them
and the king himself. The result was that there was no feudatory who could bring
a large army of his own into the field under any circumstances; and beyond this,
from the Moot of Salisbury onward the king always required that his vassal's
vassals should pay direct homage to him as well as to his overlord, the obligation
to him overriding that to the immediate overlord.
The moral responsibility rested on each individual; his oath bound him to the
king's service in priority to that of his overlord.
The king had forfeit his allegiance by breaking the feudal compact on his own
side; whether negatively by failure to do right by his vassal or positively by making
illegal demands upon him. Hence the central government in Eng land was at all
time much stronger than in the continental states.
What is Magna Carta?

Magna Carta, meaning ‘The Great Charter’, is one of the most famous
documents in the world. Originally issued by King John of England (r. 1199–
1216) as a practical solution to the political crisis he faced in 1215, Magna Carta
established for the first time the principle that everybody, including the king, was
subject to the law. Although nearly a third of the text was deleted or
substantially rewritten within ten years, and almost all the clauses have been
repealed in modern times, Magna Carta remains a cornerstone of the British
constitution.

The nobles who wrote it did in order to make sure king John didn’t go beyond
his rights as feudal lord.

Most of the 63 clauses granted by King John dealt with specific grievances
relating to his rule. However, buried within them were a number of fundamental
values that both challenged the autocracy of the king and proved highly
adaptable in future centuries. Most famously, the 39th clause gave all ‘free men’
the right to justice and a fair trial. Some of Magna Carta’s core principles are
echoed in the United States Bill of Rights (1791) and in many other
constitutional documents around the world, as well as in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention on Human
Rights (1950).