Читать книгу Public School History of England and Canada - Graeme Mercer Adam - Страница 10

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[Explain the effects produced by the Norman Conquest on the language, customs, laws, and national character of the people of England. The English Game Laws had their origin in the reign of William I.; give some idea of their character, and the manner of their enforcement by the Normans. Explain more fully the nature of the dispute between Anselm and Henry I.; also the law reforms carried out by this king. Call the attention of the pupils to Dickens’s “The White Ship” (3rd Reader).

References:—Freeman’s “Norman Conquest,” and Green’s “Short History.”]

1. Settlement after the Conquest.—At first William seemed disposed to rule England kindly; but under the soft glove was an iron hand. For a long while he met with armed resistance, which, in later years, he put down with great cruelty. The people feared him, and they disliked the foreign nobles who came in his William seizes the Folkland and confiscates English estates. train. This dislike was increased when the King made the folkland the property of the crown, and took the estates of the English nobles who had fought against him at Hastings and gave them to his Norman barons. He allowed some holders of estates to get back their lands on his receiving a money payment from them; but much of England was treated as a conquered country, and the people were ruled as rebellious subjects. Even to his own followers, though he shared with them the spoils of the conquest, William was suspicious and harsh. Nor did he confine his rule to the State: he took upon himself to govern the Church’s affairs also. The English bishops he displaced, putting foreign clergy and chaplains of his own in their stead. His chief adviser was Lanfranc, an Italian priest of great piety and learning, whom he had brought from an abbey in Normandy and made Archbishop of Canterbury. But William held a tight rein over both the clergy and the nobles, and, despite the Pope’s interference, in England he was head of the Church as well as of the State. In William’s reign there began to be built those fine Norman castles which are still to be met with in England, and which were long the seats of personal and territorial oppression.

2. Norman Rule and Influence.—The conquest of England by William, a foreign prince, accompanied by foreign nobles, naturally altered, in some degree, the manners and customs of the time, and introduced changes into the social life of the people. Though English laws were still in force, they were interpreted and administered according to Norman ideas and customs. But William wished to rule as an English king; and though he brought with him French ways and the French tongue, their effect was comparatively slight on the laws and the speech of the English. The reason of this was that the people, though conquered, far outnumbered their conquerors, and in time were able to recover much of their old power and freedom. At first, between the English and the Normans England becomes an Anglo-Norman nation. there was great bitterness, but time did much to soften this feeling; and in the end both races in England became friends and were blended in one people. This blending of the races was good for England, for it made her a nation. Not only did it awaken the country to new life and vigour, but through the chivalrous spirit which showed itself in military exploits, it gave grace and elevation to the English character. Another effect of the Conquest was to bring England into closer relations with the other nations of Europe. The result of this was seen in the extension of commerce, in the growth of both the seaport and the inland towns of the kingdom, and in the stimulus given to all sorts of handicraft and skilled labour. “To Normandy,” it has been said, “we owe the builder, the knight, the schoolman, and the statesman.”

3. The Feudal System.—William’s coming to England brought with it, in a modified form, what is called the Feudal System of land-tenure and government. The germs of the system already existed in England, for under the Saxon kings the thanes held lands which were given them as the rewards of military service. But the system introduced by William from the continent was in many respects different from that known to the Saxons; and as it greatly influenced the social and political life of the English people for nearly six hundred years, it will be well to see just what it was. Feudalism defined. Briefly, then, feudalism meant one man’s becoming the vassal, or servant, of another, by acknowledging him as his “lord,” and by swearing to be his “man,” and to aid him in war. For this service the vassal was taken under the protection of his lord, and was given a grant of land from the estates which his lord held from the king. The “lord” or “baron” owed the same duty to the sovereign that the vassal owed to his lord. Under William—such was his claim—all the land belonged to the king, not as representing the people, but as sovereign feudal lord, by right of conquest, and by election by the Witan, as the successor, as he styled himself, of Edward the Confessor. Of this land the king granted estates, called manors or baronies, to the more distinguished of his followers and fighting men, who were called barons and knights. Land thus held from the crown was called a fief, a feud, or a tenure. The barons who became tenants-in-chief of the king had to render annually certain military service, together with their retainers, or personal followers, and were liable to pay sums of money, called aids, for any expedition undertaken, or extraordinary expenditure made, by the king. This money payment was also exacted on certain occasions by the lords from their vassals. The land was cultivated under its feudal holders, lay and clerical, by villeins, or small dependent farmers, and, under them, by serfs, or slaves, who had no rights as freemen. To prevent William’s modification of the Feudal System. the barons from becoming too powerful, and thus giving him trouble, William scattered their holdings over the country, and took care that no large estates should be close to one other. He also compelled their followers to swear fealty, or loyal promise of service, to himself before rendering fealty to their lords. By these, and other similar precautions, William lessened the power of the barons, and protected the people from the oppression of those who were over them. The old Saxon machinery of justice, the hundred-moot and shire-moot, was retained, but to it were added an Ecclesiastical Court, for the trial of cases in which the clergy were concerned, and a supreme tribunal, called the King’s Court, which met wherever the king resided, and which tried all important cases, and heard appeals from the Courts below. The Witenagemot, or Council of Wise Men, was superseded by the Great Council of bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, which met at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.

4. Risings against William I.—William, though made king, had, so far, gained possession of only a portion of the kingdom. All the north and west of England was as yet unsubdued. After his coronation, William went on a visit to his dukedom of Normandy, and in his absence appointed as regents his half-brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and William Fitz-Osborn, a trusted Norman follower. While the king was gone the people rose in rebellion; and on his return he proceeded, with great cruelty, to put down the revolt. The most formidable risings were in Northumberland, where, at various times, the Scottish king, Malcolm III., the youth Edgar the Atheling, who was to have been king in place of William, and the Danes, who had come with a large fleet from Denmark, all kept up a bitter strife. William’s castle of York, meanwhile, fell into the hands of the revolted English, and 3,000 Normans who formed the garrison were murdered. For this there was a frightful reckoning. First of all, William got rid of the Danes by bribing them to go back to Denmark. Then he turned upon the English, recovered William’s harrying of the North, in the winter of 1069. York, and put the whole country to the sword. The peasantry were mercilessly slaughtered, the towns and villages were burnt, the crops were destroyed, and, for the space of sixty miles, the country between the Humber and the Tyne was made a desert. More than 100,000 people are said to have perished from William’s vengeance. In other parts of England he had trouble for a time. A gallant stand was made against him by Hereward, a Saxon thane, who had established, in the Isle of Ely, “a camp of refuge” for English fugitives. But this resistance William quickly put down. The Scottish king and Edgar were also forced to submit.

5. William’s Later Years and Death.—For a while William’s strong arm and stern rule secured him peace. The people feared him; and with the help of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, he restored the kingdom to order. During this period William, who loved hunting, turned into a preserve for game a large district in Hampshire, which came to be called the New Forest. For this purpose he wantonly destroyed many villages and churches over an area of thirty miles, and made severe laws to protect the game. In other ways, also, William governed cruelly. In particular, The New Forest and Domesday Book. he laid many and burdensome taxes upon the people. To enable him to do this he caused a survey to be made of all the lands in his kingdom. The volume in which this is written down is called Domesday Book, for the decisions and judgments recorded in it were claimed to be as unalterable as those in God’s book of doom. In 1087, war broke out between William and the king of France, which William Death of the Conqueror, A. D. 1087. conducted with his usual severity, and which lead to his death in Normandy, in the same year. Before his death, he gave the dukedom of Normandy to his eldest son, Robert; to his second son, William, he willed the Kingdom of England; and to his third son, Henry, he made a gift of a large sum of money. William’s rule had been so pitiless that when he died his courtiers left his body unburied; but, through the compassion of a poor Norman knight, it was removed to Caen, where, after some difficulty about the payment for the grave, it at last found a resting-place.

6. William II., or Rufus (1087-1100).—The Conqueror was succeeded by his second son, William, who was called Rufus, from his ruddy complexion and red hair. In his reign there was much strife, owing to the barons wanting his brother, Robert of Normandy, to be king. Besides trouble with the barons, which broke out in two successive revolts, William was harassed by the Welsh, and had twice to fight Malcolm, king of Scotland. The Archbishopric of Canterbury, which had become vacant by the death of Anselm made Archbishop of Canterbury. Lanfranc, was given to a very learned man, named Anselm. Anselm, who was modest in his ways and pious in his life, did not want to be made Archbishop, for the king had become very licentious and despotic. But, having once accepted the position, he sternly reproved William for his sins, and rebuked him for interfering with the affairs of the Church. This led to a quarrel, which resulted in Anselm’s leaving England, and in the people’s being grievously oppressed, for in this good man’s absence there was no one to restrain the king. But one day, while out hunting in the New Forest, William was found dead with an arrow in his breast, shot by some unknown hand. Beginning of the Crusades. In this reign we first hear of the Crusades, a movement which began in pilgrimages to Jerusalem, but which soon developed into a series of wars against the Turks, who were in possession of the Holy City. To join one of these, Robert of Normandy had mortgaged his dukedom to William, and when the latter died he was in Palestine with the Crusaders.

7. Henry I. (1100-1135).—William Rufus was succeeded by his younger brother, Henry, surnamed Beauclerc (that is, “fine scholar”), because he was very learned for a king in those days. Henry made great haste to have himself crowned, for he feared the return from the Crusades of his eldest brother, Robert, who had expected to be made king when Rufus died. To secure himself in the throne Henry bribed the nobles with grants of money, and the clergy he won over by appointing many of them to high office, and by recalling to England the exiled archbishop, Anselm. To the people he promised good government, the restoration of the laws of Edward the Confessor, and the undoing of the wrongs from which they suffered. These promises were written down in a Charter, the first document on record of a solemn compact between the king and the people, which ensured to the latter their rights and liberties. When Robert Charter of Henry I. returned from the Holy Land he crossed to England to claim his rights, but Henry agreed to give him a pension, and to leave him in possession of Normandy. Later on, however, Henry broke this promise, by invading Robert’s dominions; and after fighting a battle with him he took Robert prisoner and confined him for life in England. Henry now assumed possession of Normandy, but Robert’s son, William, gave him trouble in holding it; and another battle was fought near Rouen, which Henry won. Shortly after this, Henry had to mourn the drowning of his son, William, by the foundering of the White Ship on the passage from France.

8. Henry’s Quarrel with the Church.—Early in his reign Henry had a difficulty with the Church, which arose from his desire to have Anselm, in feudal fashion, do homage for the lands of his See. As this would be an acknowledgment of the king as head of the Church, Anselm refused to obey. This led to a second long exile for Anselm. Finally the matter was settled by Anselm’s consenting to do homage, and by Henry’s abandoning his claim to invest bishops and abbots. Under his able adviser, Roger, bishop of Salisbury, the king extended and improved the machinery of the local Courts, appointed judges to travel on circuit, and took the administration of justice largely out of the hands of the barons, placing it in the hands of his judges. The Exchequer Court, for Henry’s organization of the Courts. the collection of the revenue, was also organized, and a judiciary created, whose administration of the laws was more in the interest of justice. But death called Henry suddenly from his great work; and he left the crown to his only daughter, Matilda, who he hoped would succeed him.

[1. Briefly relate the principal events from the accession of Edward the Confessor to the Battle of Hastings.

2. Point out the effects produced by the Norman Conquest on the people of England.

3. Explain what is meant by the Feudal System.

4. What concessions did Henry I. grant the people of England? Why are these important?

5. What important change was made by Henry I. in connection with the administration of justice?]