These Magyars, then, a people allied to the Finns, of Finland, and coming from the east of the Ural mountains, conquered Hungary towards the close of the ninth century, and have been there ever since. They were pagans, but in the eleventh century they became Christians, and members of the Church of Rome. That is a point to notice, that they joined the Church of which the Pope was the head. The Slavs, that is to say all the peoples to the east of Germany, with the exception of the Magyars, as they accepted Christianity became members of the Greek Church, which had its chief bishop, called the Patriarch, in Constantinople, the capital city of the Eastern Empire.
And now, under the Western Empire, had come into power and been raised to the importance of a duchy the State called Austria. Austria means "Eastern." It was the eastern "mark," that is to say "march" or "boundary," of the Empire. It "marched with," that is, was next to, Hungary and some of the Slav country, and was therefore a kind of fortress State against the enemies of Germany. Thus its importance grew. It had its ancient city, now called Vienna, on the great river, the Danube, which brought much trade and commerce into the land. The valley of the Danube, moreover, was, as you may easily understand by looking at the map of Europe, the route which folk would be likely to follow between the centre of Germany and Constantinople, which was the meeting-place for the Crusaders.
Therefore you may now see how it was that Hungary had to be named as the country through which the Crusaders went, and also you may see how there come into the story the Wends (often an alternative name, as used by the Germans, for the Slavs) against whom went those Knights of the Sword who were at first enrolled with the idea that they should go to the Holy Places in Palestine.
CHAPTER XVII
NORMANS AND ANGEVINS
The Normans who conquered England were far more different from the English whom they conquered than the Danes, under Canute, had been. And yet Danes and Normans, both being "Northmen," were closely akin. But we have to note that the conquering Normans came, not from the north, but from the south from Normandy; and some years of residence there, among the Franks or French, had changed them. Moreover, we have to remember that, according to the estimates of historians, only about one-third of the force with which Duke William came to England was really Norman. The larger part was of Franks and any others whom the adventure attracted or whom William had hired to aid him.
The conquest must have made very much more difference to the upper classes of the English people than to the lower. Many lords were killed at that Battle of Hastings which decided England's fate. In their places the conqueror put his own barons and army leaders, thus rewarding them, at no expense to himself, for their services. Norman lords soon superseded English lords throughout the land, but the peasants, and also the townsfolk, would go on with their lives much as before. The English system was not, as we have seen, so different from the completely feudal system of France that the lower vassals would know much difference in the change from one to the other. The English regarded the land as belonging in the first instance to the people; the Normans regarded it as belonging to the king. But in the practical result this different point of view did not count for much, because the English had already lost all the land rights which had once been valuable to them. We traced the way in which that happened a chapter or two back.
It is curious to note how the Norman influence made itself felt indoors, within the house, more than out-of-doors. The simpler things, which all would use, kept their old names, the Saxon names. It is the words denoting things belonging to the more cultured life that come from the Norman. Thus sheep, oxen, deer, are Saxon names of the animals which the English would use or hunt; but when these creatures are cooked and brought to table they appear there under the French names of mouton or mutton, bœuf or beef, and venaison or venison.
Game laws