England...'was a farming country, land was its absorbing interest; and
originally plots of land had been owned outright by the men who settled and
cleared them, and inherited by their children. But such independent farmers
had no defense against the Viking raids, or resources to tide them over disasters
like cattle sickness, a series of bad harvests, fire or storm. In the course of time,
almost every man in the country had attached himself by mutual promises to
somebody more powerful, who could help to protect him and his family in times
of stress. Small landowners had surrendered the nominal ownership of their
land to their protectors - who in turn held the land in duty to somebody higher.
This evolution has often been called a loss of freedom, and so it was; but
absolute personal freedom had come to be, as perhaps it has always been, a
dangerous illusion.
Its loss was really a gain; the acceptance of the duties and
mutual support of a social system, the end of anarchy'(13-14).
The first paragraph sums up the life of the commoners in England and
also very similar to Normandy. Both countries were very much alike but yet
distinct in their own subtle ways. In my essay I will discuss the similarities
and differences between Anglo-Saxon England and Normandy including their
feudal system. I will also compare and contrast Harold of England and William
the Conqueror as portrayed in 1066.
England and Normandy had very similar feudal system. In both systems
'everyone held his plot of land in duty to someone higher' (61). The English had
serfs and the Normans had peasants at the very bottom. They were the workers
(slaves) that grew the crops and took care of the land for the upper class. The
Normans had lords and...