An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

England from the death of Alfred the Great to the Norman Conquest, 901–1066.

The formation of the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway at the end of the ninth century caused many discontented Scandinavian chieftains to go in search of adventure, so that the Danish invasions continued for more than a century after Alfred's death (901), and we hear much of the Danegeld, a tax levied to buy off the invaders when necessary. Finally a Danish king (Cnut) succeeded in making himself king of England in 1017. The Danish dynasty maintained itself only for a few years. Then a last weak Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, held nominal sway for a score of years. Upon his death in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, claimed the crown and became king of England. The Norman Conquest closes what is called the Saxon period of English history, during which the English nation may be said to have taken form. Before considering the achievements of William the Conqueror we must glance at the condition of England as he found it.

Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror.

The map of Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror has the same three great divisions which exist to-day. The little kingdoms had disappeared and England extended north to the Tweed, which separated it, as it now does, from the kingdom of Scotland. On the west was Wales, inhabited then, as it is still, by descendants of the native Britons, of whom only a small remnant had survived the German invasions. The Danes had been absorbed into the mass of the population and all England recognized a single king. The king's power had increased as time went on, although he was bound to act in important matters only with the consent of a council (Witenagemot) made up of high royal officials, bishops, and nobles. The kingdom was divided into shires,[85] as it still is, and each of these had a local assembly, a sort of parliament for the dispatch of local matters.

After the victory of the papal party at the Council of Whitby,[86] the Church had been thoroughly organized and the intercourse of the clergy with the continent served, as we have seen, to keep England from becoming completely isolated. Although the island was much behind some other portions of Europe in civilization, the English had succeeded in laying the foundations for the development of a great nation and an admirable form of government.

Feudalism in England.

England was not, however, to escape feudalism. The Normans naturally brought with them their own feudal institutions, but even before their coming many suggestions of feudalism might have been discovered. Groups of shires had been placed under the government of earls who became dangerous rivals of the kings; and the habit of giving churchmen the right to govern, to a large extent, those who lived upon their vast estates recalls the conditions in the Frankish empire during the same period. The great landed proprietor in England exercised much the same powers over those about him that the feudal lords enjoyed upon the other side of the Channel.

The struggle for the English crown between Earl Harold and Duke William of Normandy.

52. As has been said, William of Normandy claimed that he was entitled to the English crown; he even assumed that all who refused to acknowledge him in England were traitors. We are, however, somewhat in the dark as to the basis of his claim. There is a story that he had visited the court of Edward the Confessor and had become his vassal on condition that, should Edward die childless, he was to designate William as his successor. But Harold, Earl of Wessex, who had consolidated his power before the death of Edward by securing the appointment of his brothers to three of the other great earldoms, assumed the crown and paid no attention to William's demand that he should surrender it.