Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/325

 FEUDAL STATES OF EUROPE 277 ers or held courts of justice. Also both serfdom and seigneu- rial exploitation were familiar before the Norman conquest. William further introduced feudalism by depriving most of the English who had resisted him of their estates and giving these out as fiefs to his Continental followers. He wished, however, to keep the government in his own hands as in Normandy; so he increased th e number of earls and re- duced their power, transferring some of their functions to thesheriff s^ representing him in each sh ire. And toward the close of his reign he required all his subvassals to take aji^ath__gi^_alle^iance to himself. William showed that he was a businesslike ruler by his Domesday Book, a record of the landed property of England, its tenants, serfs, animals, agricultural equip- The Anglo- ment, fish-ponds, and other sources of income, f eu dal and what was owing from it to the king. William monarchy and his two immediate successors greatly strengthened the central government of England, but, like Cnut, they wisely continued the old local organization and the old English customs and laws. They were arbitrary rulers who pun- ished wrongdoers severely and squeezed more money out of the land than it had been wont to pay in the easy-going, Anglo-Saxon days. Yet their rule, though absolute and even tyrannical, was feudal in form. An army was raised from their vassals by knight service. William built rec- tangular stone " towers" or castles all over the land to hold it in truly feudal style. There were the same household officials and the same feudal curia regis as the Capetians governed by. Except that the kings continued to levy the Danegeld, their financial oppression was exercised largely by stretching their rights to feudal dues, by abusing their powers of wardship and marriage, and by demanding exces- sive fines and fees in their feudal court of justice. They were accustomed to feudal methods in Normandy and continued to employ them in England, although they gladly retained any Anglo-Saxon custom that was useful to them, just as in Normandy they bad preserved some Carolingian institu- tions.