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From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
XIX. EUROPEAN NATIONS DURING THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 4
WILLIAM AND FEUDALISM
The feudal system on the Continent permitted a powerful noble to gather his vassals and make war on the king, whenever he chose to do so. William had been familiar with this evil side of feudalism, both in France and in his own duchy of Normandy, and he determined to prevent its introduction into England. William established the principle that a vassal owed his first duty to the king and not to his immediate lord. If a noble rebelled and his men followed him, they were to be treated as traitors. Rebellion proved to be an especially difficult matter in England, since the estates which a great lord possessed were not all in any one place but were scattered about the kingdom. A noble who planned to revolt could be put down before he was able to collect his retainers from the most distant parts of the country.
DOMESDAY BOOK, 1085 A.D.
The extent of William's authority is illustrated by the survey which he caused to have made of the taxable property of the kingdom. Royal commissioners went throughout the length and breadth of England to find out how much farm land there was in every county, how many landowners there were, and what each man possessed, to the last ox or cow or pig. The reports were set down in the famous Domesday Book, perhaps so called because one could no more appeal from it than from the Last Judgment. A similar census of population and property had never before been taken in the Middle Ages.
THE SALISBURY OATH, 1086 A.D.
Almost at the close of his reign William is said to have summoned all the landowning men in England to a great meeting on Salisbury Plain. They assembled there to the number, as it is reported, of sixty thousand and promised "that they would be faithful to him against all other men." The Salisbury Oath was a national act of homage and allegiance to the king.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy
