Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/82

62 they wore French dress, they absorbed French manners. From sea-faring men they became famous equestrians, and grew to be some of the foremost fighters in Europe.

Years passed by, accentuating on either side the sea this process of absorption, until in 1066 the Northmen of France stood face to face with the Northmen of England on English soil.

Every detail of the Battle of Hastings is known to lovers of history. Shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, on the heights above Senlac in the grey October dawn stood the English, battle-axes in hand, under their leader Harold, the fair-haired Saxon. Arrayed against them was the Norman force, fully armed, and magnificently disciplined. There were archers and lancers backed by horsemen, and all under the Duke William, a very Viking chieftain himself, with his gigantic height, his fierce brows, his reckless bearing—Norman in his daring, Norman in his very pitilessness.

The conquest practically complete, the newly won land was distributed among the conquerors. Scattered over the country of the vanquished, the Normans kept the same order that had characterised them on the transports at sea as in the battle