Norman government and Domesday

Change: William kept power in his own hands. He made fewer earls than Edward had, and gave them smaller areas, so no one could challenge him as the Godwins had done. After the Revolt of the Earls in 1075, there were even fewer.

Continuity: William also kept much of the Anglo-Saxon system, because it worked: shires and hundreds, their courts, writs (now written in Latin rather than English) and the geld.

William ruled Normandy too, and spent much of his reign there. While he was away, regents governed England for him: for example, Bishop Odo and William FitzOsbern in 1067, and Archbishop Lanfranc in 1075.

With fewer earls, sheriffs became even more important. By the 1070s most were Normans. A sheriff:

• collected taxes and the money from the king's lands
• ran the shire court and enforced the law
• raised soldiers, and often controlled a royal castle.

Many sheriffs used their power to take land and money for themselves, and were hated for it.

The king's own land was his demesne. William held far more of it than Edward had, more than any other landholder, and it gave him a large income. Sheriffs managed it for him.

Significance: sheriffs answered directly to the king, so they let him control the shires without powerful earls.

William loved hunting. He set aside large areas of the countryside as royal forest, where only he and those he allowed could hunt. The best known is the New Forest in Hampshire, created in the 1070s, where villages were cleared to make it.

Forest law protected the king's deer and their habitat. Local people could not hunt, cut wood or clear land for farming there, and the punishments were harsh, including mutilation.

Significance: the forest showed the king's power over the land and brought in money from fines. It made ordinary activities such as hunting crimes, so it was deeply resented. You'll meet the Forest Laws again in H3, Crime and punishment.

Causes: in 1085 there was news that King Cnut of Denmark was planning to invade. William brought a huge army to England, and had to make the country feed it. At Christmas 1085, at Gloucester, he decided to find out exactly what England had, and who held it.

(A 'hide' was a unit of land used for taxes; 'stock' means farm animals.)

In 1086, royal commissioners visited every shire. Local juries answered their questions on oath. The answers were written up as Domesday Book. For each place it recorded who held the land in 1066 and in 1086, how much land there was, its ploughs, mills and animals, how many people worked it, and what it was worth.

Significance:

• Finance: William knew what everyone could pay, for the geld and for feeding an army.
• Government: it settled disputes about who held what, after 20 years of land changing hands.
• Power: it showed the Norman takeover in writing, and that every landholder held his land from the king.

No other kingdom in Europe had such a detailed survey at the time.