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EUROPE: 1001 to 1212 (3 of 7)

Into the eleventh century, the king of Wessex was called "King of the English." Beginning in the year 1042 the king of Wessex was Edward "the Confessor." He was the son of Emma of Normandy, giving him blood ties with the Nor'mans (northmen), former Vikings, of what today is Normandy, France.

England was enjoying prosperity. It was covered by as much farmland as it would have in the early years of the 20th century, and its population was as large – the result of good nutrition and a lot of exercise. But England's government was poorly organized, and political backwardness contributed to military weakness.

In January 1066, King Edward died. He was succeeded by the Earl of Wessex: Harold Godwinson, son of a powerful nobleman. This bothered a duke named William across the English Channel in Normandy. William had been King Edward's cousin, and Edward had promised to make him his heir. William believed that he had a right to rule in England.

Norman aristocrats were having more surviving sons than they had land to divide among them, and they would try to solve their problem in the traditional way: conquest.  William planned an invasion of England, and, before the end of the century, the Normans would conquer in Sicily.

On October 13, 1066, with 5,000 Norman knights, William landed in England, near Hastings, on the shore of the English Channel, to press his claim to the throne of England. Troops under King Harold arrived exhausted, having just fought the Battle of Stamford Bridge, near York, against an invasion and challenge by Norwegians and King Harold's brother Tostig Godwinson. At Hastings, William's army defeated Harold's army, and King Harold was killed by an arrow, leaving William as the most powerful force in England.

King Harold, the head of state, having exposed himself to danger unlike modern heads of state, was not around to inspire and organize resistance. The Anglo-Saxons had not been well organized as a whole for defense, and William defeated the various revolts against what became known as the Norman Conquest. He became King William I – while Scotland, Ireland and North Wales remained independent of English kings for generations to come.

The Normans were amazed by the wealth of England, William describing England as more wealthy than Gaul. William found local government administration to his liking, and he maintained the Anglo-Saxon judicial system. He also found serfdom – peasants working the lord's land and paying dues to the lord for use of his land. And William found slavery rampant. He allowed domestic slavery to continue, but he banned the sale of slaves for shipment overseas, with about nine percent of England's population remaining in slavery. What William had no interest in was Anglo-Saxon art, which he and his fellow Normans treated with contempt and much of which they destroyed.

William introduced England to the exchange of land for military service – the institution of feudalism. He divided England's lands into 180 parcels, each of which was put under the supervision of an overlord who, in turn, rented out lands to Norman warrior-barons. England's Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was replaced by these Norman barons. The nobles who had not died at Hastings were deposed from their lands and turned into serfs. Clergy from Gaul replaced Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots. The Normans erected castles around England as defensive power bases from which to extend control over the English. French words became a part of the English language, and Anglo-Saxon became a peasant dialect.