And now the final stroke was put to a change which had been gradually going on for some generations. The folkland, the common land of the nation, was now changed, fully and forever, into terra Regis, the land of the king.
— PROF FREEMAN, The Norman Conquest, Vol. IV., Chap. 17, p. 15
This account of the surrender and regrant of the lands of Englishmen who submitted to William is worthy of special attention. If it stood by itself, it might be taken as simply meaning that commendation of the man and his land to the new lord which is implied in the act of homage. And, considering the circumstances under which that new lord had made his entry, it may well have been thought desirable to have every such act confirmed as solemnly as might be under the King's writ and seal. But when we take in the other evidence of different kinds, we shall perhaps be inclined to see in these almost casual words of the Norman panegyrist a deeper import even than this. The great confiscation of lands which is such a marked characteristic of William's reign was undoubtedly gradual. But when did it begin? There is, I think, every reason to believe that it began in the very first days of William's English reign. He had to reward his foreign followers, and, in conformity with his whole character and position, he had to reward them in some way which might be, formally at least, different from simple plunder and brigandage. His system of legal fictions easily supplied him with the means. He, King William, the lawful successor of his kinsman King Eadvvard, had been for a while hindered from receiving his Crown and exercising his royal authority. He had even been met, when he came to take possession of his Kingdom, not with the welcome which was his due, but with an obstinate resistance in arms. Many Englishmen had fought against him; no Englishman, except an exile or two in his own train, had fought for him. Here was active treason in a large part of the nation, and at least passive complicity with treason in the remainder. The rights of the case, according to William's reading of the Law, were plain. According to its strict letter the lands of all such undutiful subjects were forfeited. William would have been justified in seizing all the soil of England—save of course the lands of ecclesiastical corporations—for himself. But mercy and policy alike forbade such a course. Some favour was due to those who
1 Will. Pict. 148. "Deprccantur veniam si qua in re contra eum senserant, tradunt se cunctaque sua ejus clementiae."
2 Ib. "Rex eorum sacramenta, ut postulverunt, libens accepit, liberaliter eis donavit gratiam suam, rcddidit eis cuncta que possederant, habebat cos magno honore."
3 Chron. Petrib. 1066. "And menn guidon him gyld and gislas sealdon." This comes directly after the coronation, and no doubt at least takes in those who submitted at Barking.
had not actually drawn the sword against the lawful heir; some perhaps was even due to those survivors of the fight on Senlac or the skirmish at Southwark who had atoned for their fault by a speedy submission. And besides this, the lands of most of those who had fought against him lay at his mercy, while the lands of many of those who now came in to give their submission could not be reached without another campaign. William could at once seize on the lands of any Kentish or South-Saxon Thegn or churl who had either died beneath the Standard or had lived to deal a blow in the Malfosse.1 But the more part of the lands of Eadwine and Morkere and Waltheof and Copsige lay in regions to which William's arm had not yet reached, and to which, if he insisted on such an extreme stretch of severity, it never might reach. His course then was his usual one; he was debonair to those who submitted, and stark beyond measure to those who withstood him.2 A less charitable way of putting it might be that he was debonair to those whom it might be dangerous further to provoke, and stark beyond measure to those who were already in his power. But in warring with these last he was in a great measure warring with the dead. The evidence that we have leads us to believe that the whole of the lands of those men, dead or living, who had fought at Senlac was at once dealt with as land forfeited to the King. Willjam thus had the means wherewith at once to enrich himself and to reward his followers. That the royal domain passed into his hands was the natural and legal result of his admission to the royal office. And now the final stroke was put to a change which had been gradually going on for some generations. The folkland, the common land of the nation, was now changed, fully and for ever, into terra Regis, the land of the King.3 But besides what still remained as folkland, this great confiscation at once put into William's hands the greater part—all that lay within the shires which he already occupied—of the vast estates of Harold and his brothers, and of the great mass of the landowners, great and small, of southern and south-eastern England. It is not necessary to suppose that every rood of ground was actually seized, and either kept by the King or granted out to his foreign followers. There is distinct evidence that the actual occupiers of the soil, here as in other parts of England, largely retained possession. Sometimes, when a great estate was confiscated, the widow and children of the former owner obtained a grant of some small portion of their heritage. In other cases the widow or daughter of the former owner was constrained to give herself and her lands to a foreign husband. In some cases Englishmen of high rank contrived to win William's personal favour, and to keep their lands and even ...
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