chief, among whom a name shewing a Saxon or Danish origin is rarely to be met with. The churches generally had retained their property, and some had even received additions, while with the spoil some were founded. Many foreign religious houses were also established or augmented from the same source, and, under the name of alien priories, their rights and duties formed frequent subjects of dispute in subsequent times.

66

To the confiscations and ravages, which Norman writers do not deny, and which the Domesday Book indisputably establishes, were added many other grievances, well fitted to "make oppression bitter." The king and the head men," says the Saxon Chronicler, "loved much, and overmuch, gold and silver, and recked not how sinfully it was got, provided it came to them. The king let his land at as high a rate as he possibly could; then came some other person and bade more than the former one gave, and the king let it to the man that bade him more. Then came the third and bade yet more, and the king let it to hand to the men who bade him most of all; and he recked not how very sinfully the stewards got it of wretched men, nor how many unlawful deeds they did. They erected unjust tolls, and

• The abbey of Battle, which William founded to commemorate his victory, was endowed with possessions in Essex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Berks, Oxford, and Devon. Many important privileges were granted to it, and the duty was imposed of preserving a list of the leaders on the Norman side at the battle of Hastings; several copies of this list, called the Battle Abbey Roll, exist; but they vary so much, and bear such evident marks of interpolation, that they have little historical value.

Most of these foundations were of the Cistercian order, which was a branch of the Benedictines, and had been devised not long before.

many other unjust things they did, that are hard to reckon."

Though the Normans founded or endowed monasteries (chiefly, however, abroad), they mercilessly destroyed the minster at York, and many other churches, and more than one Saxon bishop died in prison, whilst others were driven from their sees, for attempting to shield their people from the exactions and encroachments of the "mixed multitude” of soldiers of fortune, who, having conquered at Hastings, were prevented neither by mercy nor discretion from pushing their triumph to the uttermost.

It is true that William, in the fourth year of his reign, granted certain laws and customs to the people of England, being, he says, the same as his cousin King Edward held before him, "but the more men spake about right law, the more unlawfully they acted," and soon, as far as the Saxons at least were concerned, the open and avowed law was the king's pleasure, and the sword the only instrument of government.

The germ of the feudal system is probably almost coeval with government itself, and it had unquestionably been acted on, not only in the arrangements made in the latter days of the Roman empire for the protection of its frontiers by military colonies, but also by the Anglo-Saxon kings, but it was not until the time of William that it received its full development in England, and was applied to the whole property of the country.

These laws embody the main features of Anglo-Saxon legislation, already described (pp. 154-173); as they do not appear to have been observed, they require no further notice.

The land was divided into portions, varying from about 600 to 800 acres, termed knights' fees, which were obliged to furnish 40 days' service of a fully equipped horseman each year; these fees were more than 60,000 in number. The land was first granted in large districts to the tenants in chief, and by them subdivided; homage, service, and various money payments were the considerations due for each grant, and were as fully ow ing from the under to the chief tenants, as from the last to the king. No land could be alienated without a fine; on the death of a tenant, some valuable chattel was given to the lord, as a heriot; and the successor paid a sum to be put in possession, called a relief. If the heir was under age, the profits of the estates belonged to the lord, as also did the control of the marriage of the ward. Under the name of aids, the lord claimed stipulated sums from his tenants on the occasion of the knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest daughter, or his own capture in war. These were all legal and established burdens, and perhaps did not amount to more than the rent of land and the or dinary taxation of modern times: but the superiors did not confine themselves to them: on the contrary, new exactions were perpetually attempted, and the revenues of both lords and kings were increased by the

most various and often discreditable means.

The forests had been in the hands of the kings in Anglo-Saxon times, and the laws of Canute shew that the game was "preserved" in his time; but the Norman kings carried their passion for the chase to a pitch which perhaps no other monarchs have equalled, and

guarded their wild beasts by denouncing death against those who interfered with them. On some occasions, when the turbulence of their barons compelled them to attempt to conciliate their English subjects, they promised an amelioration of their forest code, but uniformly retracted their concessions when the danger was over.

Between people thus treated, and their rulers, no cordiality could exist, and it appeared necessary to the safety of the latter that no Englishman should hold any place of importance. The powers of government were entrusted to such rapacious adventurers as Ralph Flambard and William of Ypres, Saxon bishops were replaced by Norman abbots, and an absurd attempt was made to supersede the language of the country by the Norman dialect, which, though long employed for official and court purposes, never gained ground with the mass of the people; indeed, the change ran in the contrary direction, and the second or third generation of the victors at Hastings spoke in common a language which was

William I. usually bears the whole odium of the afforestation which proved so grievous to the English people; but it appears from the charter of Stephen, that William II. and Henry I. had also added to the royal forests: these latter Stephen promises to restore to the owners, in terms which seem to imply that they had been forcibly seized.

Ralph, a Norman chaplain, of vile character, was by William Rufus made bishop of Durham, but by Henry I. deprived of his see, and imprisoned; he escaped, and went into exile, but returned some years after, and held his bishopric till his death. William of Ypres, a Fleming, was Stephen's general, and received from him the earldom of Kent, but was so unpopular, that on the king's death he fled from England, and entered a monastery, where he died in 1162.

One Norman monk, however, Guitmond, had the virtue to refuse such preferment, and the courage to reproach the spoilers with their barbarous usage of the vanquished; he afterwards became bishop of Aversa. His eloquent letter to William has been preserved by Orderic.

much more intelligible to their Saxon countrymen than to their Norman kindred.

In fact, the Saxon and Danish races, though borne down for a while, were not crushed; and when the death of the last of the Norman kings left the throne vacant, the young Henry of Anjou was received as the lineal representative of "the right royal race," the descendants of Cerdic.

Armour of the Norman era.

From the Seal of Alexander I. of Scotland (c. 1110.)