1. When Duke William of Normandy became King of England, the power of the Crown was greater than it had ever been before. All the old folk-land had become king's land. Many knights had followed Duke William from Normandy into England, and expected to be provided for by their leader. The lands belonging to King Harold, and those of the Saxon eorls who had died fighting at Senlac, King William regarded as his own. These he granted to his followers, on condition that they acknowledged him as their overlord, and followed him in war when required. This was a stricter condition than had ever before been required in England. The Normans were used to it, and it did not seem at all strange to them.

2. Neither was it so very strange to the Saxon nobles and thanes. Most of them were allowed to keep their estates if they took the oath of allegiance to the king, as the Normans did. Of course they grumbled: it was only natural that they should do so; but if they did not acknowledge the king in this way they were looked upon as rebels, and lost their lands.

3. King William was very careful, in the grants which he made, not to put too much power into the hands of his nobles. The old vills of Saxon times were now pretty generally called manors. When the king granted land, it was not given in huge slices—whole counties, halves, and quarters of counties—to this great follower of his or to that one. Between the old vills, or manors, there were often wide stretches of the king's own land, the old folk-land. If he had granted to a Norman knight a quarter of a county, or so, he would have been giving away much of his own land. Besides that, the king did not mean his followers to become too powerful.

4. He granted the land in separate manors. It is quite true that in every county we can, so to speak, put our finger on some Norman knight, and say that he got the lion's share of the manors in that county. Thus in Hampshire there was Hugh de Port, and in Hertfordshire Eustace de Boulogne. But their manors did not all lie side by side, nor were they conveniently close together. Just as a villein's holding was spread out in various fields, so the manors, or fief, which a knight held under King William were often scattered over various counties.

5. At the time of the Conquest a very large number of manors belonged to bishoprics and monasteries. Now the Normans were a Christian race. The Norman Conquest was not like the Saxon or the Danish Conquest—a rush of heathen, bent on plunder and bloodshed. Bitter as the strife was, it was not as bad as those invasions had been. There was something which the Normans and the later Saxons both respected, and that was their religion. The Normans were a particularly religious and devout people, stern and cruel as they were. The lands of the Church and of the monasteries were not interfered with to any extent. King William, however, took care that they were in the hands of people whom he could trust.

6. The story is told that the Abbot Frederick of St. Alban's, who did not love the Normans, once remarked to King William that he owed his easy conquest of England to the fact that so many of the manors were held by monks and clergy, who could not and would not bring out their men to fight.

7. The king replied that that must be mended; for enemies might again invade the land, and he must have men whom he could depend upon to meet the foe. At that time a great tract of land between St. Alban's and London belonged to the Abbey, and the abbot allowed Saxon outlaws to infest it, who were a great nuisance to the Normans. As the land had been given by former kings, the king at once took half of it back again, in order to clear out the outlaws. Abbot Frederick had said too much. He fled away to the Camp of Refuge at Ely, and King William would only accept as abbot a Norman and a friend of his—Paul de Caen.

Summary.—After the Conquest the power of the king increased. The manors of Saxon nobles who had opposed King William were granted to his own followers. Other Saxon nobles kept their lands if they took the oath of allegiance.

The land was given in manors and groups of manors. Between many of these there were large stretches of the king's own lands. The lands of bishoprics and abbeys were not much interfered with; but the king took care that only those were accepted as bishops or abbots who would be loyal to him.