Land seizure
However, Robert did not acquire all of his lands by such 'amicable' means. The Domesday Book is a unique document which was commissioned by King William near the end of his reign in 1086. It lists all of the land in England, telling us who owned it prior to 1066, who owned it in 1086, and often telling us how and when it changed hands. One entry from the Domesday Book for Berkshire tells the poignant story of one Azor, who was once the bursar of King Edward the Confessor:
Azor holds this land from Robert [d'Oilly], but the men of the Hundred testify that he ought to hold it from the King, as King William restored it to him at Windsor and gave him his writ for it. Robert therefore holds it wrongfully, for none of them has seen the King's writ, nor a man who put him in possession of it on his behalf.
'...he owed...a share in the spoils of Conquest...'
This graphically illustrates the other side of the Norman Conquest. Instead of sending his army home and maintaining the status quo, William's Normans stayed and began to take over English lands, edging out the old ruling aristocracy. William could not and would not stop them, for two good reasons. First, he owed them a share in the spoils of Conquest: so he actively co-operated in the parcelling out of English land, granting the entire lands of dead or dispossessed thegns to Norman knights. Secondly, William tried to work closely with the local governors of the shires: the reeves and the sheriffs; which inevitably cut across the old rights and privileges of the English Earls. The result was unavoidable: the interests of the new Norman conquerors and the interests of the old English establishment were incompatible.
On a local level, this translated into land seizure. At its most blatant, a lord like Robert d'Oilly could turn up at the table of the local tax collector and plonk a bag of coins on the desk whilst his men bundled poor Azor out of the way. Azor would then have three days in which to lodge a complaint to the sheriff before title to the land passed over to the new lord. However, since the local sheriff was usually in the pocket of the lord involved (or actually was the lord himself) there was really very little that the Azors of this world could do.
Published: 2001-05-01
Bookmark with:
What are these?