Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/524

 CHAPTER XXV THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND England became a distinct nation before any other European country. Ever since the decline of the Roman Early Empire its history had been distinctive. The attainment Romans abandoned it before their other western of national union provinces, and it was the one land of any size where the language of the German invaders replaced that of the Roman provincials. The British Isles were almost the only Christian lands of the West that were not included in Charlemagne's empire. When that empire dissolved into local lordships, the petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, on the contrary, began to coalesce into one state. The Northmen and other invaders disrupted the Frankish Empire. But under King Alfred and his successors the Anglo-Saxons united in resistance to the Danish invaders. The Danes, too, soon fused with their Anglo-Saxon kinsmen into one homogeneous people. Feudal tendencies manifested them- selves, it is true, but William the Conqueror and his sons greatly strengthened the royal power and developed a busi- nesslike central administration which did much to hold the country together. The Normans in their turn were absorbed into the mass of the population. The language gradually altered under French and Latin influence from Anglo-Saxon to something more like our modern English. Art and cul- ture and ecclesiastical usages were affected by the Conti- nent. But the Norman kings retained the old local institu- tions and agreed to observe the ancient customs of the reign of Edward the Confessor. The Norman kings, nevertheless, had introduced feudal institutions into England and were themselves obliged to The king rule largely by feudal methods. However, they feudal 6 wer e successful in crushing all attempts at rebel- lion on the part of their barons until the twenty years of disputed succession and civil war between Stephen