NORMAN CONQUEST

the military conquest of England by William, duke of Normandy, primarily effected by his decisive victory at the Battle of Hastings (Oct. 14, 1066), and resulting ultimately in profound political, administrative, and social changes in the British Isles. Edward the Confessor, last king of the Old English royal line, had almost certainly in 1051 designated William as his successor. Although on Edward's death (Jan. 5, 1066) Harold, the powerful earl of Wessex, had himself crowned king, his position was far from secure. On the Continent the political situation favoured William's enterprise; and by August 1066 he had assembled a force of about 5,000 knights ready for embarkation. Harold had kept his militia on guard throughout the summer; in early September, with supplies exhausted, it was dismissed. Harold had then to hasten to Yorkshire, where at Stamford Bridge (September 25) he defeated an invading army led by Harold III Sigurdsson, king of Norway. The northerly wind, which for eight weeks had penned William's transports in harbour, changed on September 27. William crossed the Channel immediately, landing in Pevensey Bay on September 28 and moving directly to Hastings. Harold made a forced march southward and by October 13 was approaching Hastings with about 7,000 men, many poorly armed and untrained. He was almost certainly unwise in thus forcing an early engagement. Surprised by William at dawn on October 14, he drew up his army on a ridge 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Hastings. Throughout the day William attacked with cavalry charges interspersed with flights of arrows. The English were gradually worn down; late in the afternoon Harold was killed by a chance arrow, and by nightfall the remaining English had scattered and fled. William then made a sweeping advance to isolate London, and at Berkhamstead the major English leaders submitted to him. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. Sporadic native revolts continued until 1071. The most serious, in Northumbria (106970), William suppressed in person, proceeding thereafter to devastate vast tracts of the North. The subjection of the country was completed by the rapid building of a great number of castles. The extent and desirability of the changes brought about by the Conquest have long been disputed among historians. Certainly in political terms William's victory destroyed England's links with Scandinavia, bringing the country instead into close contact with western Europe. Inside England the most radical change was the introduction of military feudalism. While tenure of land in return for services had existed before the Conquest, William's establishment of a system that would provide him with upward of 4,000 knights for his feudal host revolutionized the upper ranks of society. England was parceled out among about 180 Norman tenants in chief and innumerable mesne tenants, all holding their fiefs by knight service. The resultant almost total replacement of an English with a Norman aristocracy was paralleled by a similar change of personnel among the upper clergy and administrative officers. Anglo-Saxon England had developed a highly organized central and local government and an effective judicial system. All these were retained and utilized by William, whose coronation oath showed his intention of continuing in the English royal tradition. The old administrative divisions were not superseded by the new fiefs; nor did feudal justice normally usurp the customary jurisdiction of shire and hundred courts. In them, and in the king's court, the common law of England continued to be administered. Innovations included the new but restricted body of forest law and the introduction in criminal cases of the Norman trial by combat alongside the old Saxon ordeals. Increasing use was made of the inquest procedurethe sworn testimony of neighbours, both for administrative purposes and in judicial cases. A major change was William's removal of ecclesiastical cases from the secular courts, which allowed the subsequent introduction into England of the then rapidly growing canon law. Apart from the tragedy of the dispossessed Old English aristocracy, probably the most regrettable effect of the Conquest was the total eclipse of the English vernacular as the language of literature, law, and administration. Superseded in official documents and other records by Latin and then increasingly in all areas by Norman-French, written English hardly reappeared until the 13th century.