#english_history 

## Land giveaways
[[Troubles on the Throne in 10th-11th century England#^c6b3ec|William]] was careful in the way he gave land to his nobles, as he knew the example of the French king, who was less powerful than his landlords. As such, William made sure that he kept enough land for himself so that he was much stronger than his nobles.
He divided English farmland the following way: half to the Normans, a quarter to the Church, a fifth to himself.
William kept the Saxon system of [[Government and society of the Saxons#^eba737|sheriffs]] and used these as a balance to local nobles.
Because of all the aforementioned measures, England stood out from the rest of Europe because it had one powerful family instead of a large number of powerful and traitorous nobles. 

## Feudalism in England
The central idea of feudalism that all land was owned by the king but he had given his nobles, **vassals**, usufructs in return for services and goods.
The king gave large estates to his main nobles in return for a promise to serve him in a war up to **40 days**, as well as to give him part of the produce of the land.
The greater nobles gave part of their lands to lesser nobles, knights and other "freemen", who also had to abide by some rules.
The nobles kept **serfs** to do the work on their lands, who were practically slaves.
At each level of feudalism a vassal had to promise loyalty and service to his lord, which was done by kneeling before a lord with a vassal's hands place between those of his lord. This was called **"homage"** has remained part of the coronation ceremony of British kings and queens until now.
On the other hand, the lord had to give his vassals land and protection.
The king had to make sure he had enough satisfied nobles who would be willing to fight for him. ^c25cf9

## Succession line
When a noble died his son usually took over his estate, although he had to receive permission from the king and make a special payment. If he was still a child, the king would take the produce of the estate until the boy was old enough.
If all tthe noble's family died the land went back to the king, who was expected to give to another noble, but in reality he often exploited this land for a few years before actually transferring it to a vassal.

## Domesday Book

^e07df8

By 1086 William wanted to know exactly: 1) who owned which piece of land, and 2) how much it was worth, so that he could plan the economy efficiently. To do this, he assembled a tiger team tasked with collecting this information from all of England.
This survey was the only one of its kind in Europe. Not suprisingly, it was most unpopular with the people, because they felt they could not escape from its findings. It reminded them of the doomsday picture on the walls of their churches that they called it the "Domesday" Book, which is exactly how it is named nowadays.

## Trade
William I encourgaed Flemish weavers and other skilled workers from Normandy to settle in England in order to improve the manufacture of woollen cloth. ^a18b24