The Norman Conquest and the feudal system
In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, won the Battle of Hastings and became king. The Normans built castles (first wooden motte-and-bailey, later stone) and in 1086 made the Domesday Book, a survey of land and wealth for tax.
Society worked through the feudal system. In theory the king owned all land. He granted estates to barons and bishops (tenants-in-chief), who promised loyalty and supplied knights. Knights held a manor in return for about 40 days of military service a year. At the bottom, peasants farmed the land. Many were villeins (serfs) who owed their lord labour and could not leave the manor without permission. The bond was sealed by an oath called homage.
Henry II and the restoration of royal authority, 1154–1189
Henry II came to the throne after the Anarchy (1135–1154), a civil war between Stephen and Matilda. He also ruled huge lands in France (the Angevin empire).
- Restoring authority (1154–1166): he took back royal castles and lands, had illegal castles destroyed, reformed the Exchequer (treasury) and sheriffs.
- Legal reform: the Assize of Clarendon (1166) set up juries of local men to report crimes and sent travelling royal judges round the country. This created the common law, the same law for the whole kingdom.
- Crisis (1166–1174): Henry quarrelled with Archbishop Thomas Becket over whether clergy who committed crimes should face royal courts. Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 by four knights, and Henry did public penance. In 1173–74 his sons and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine rebelled with the kings of France and Scotland; Henry won.
- Struggle (1174–1189): his sons quarrelled again over their inheritance; Henry died in 1189 while fighting Richard and the French king.
Richard I and King John, 1189–1216
Richard I spent only about six months of his ten-year reign in England. He led the Third Crusade, was captured on the way home and held for a huge ransom, then fought to defend his French lands. Royal officials ran England and raised heavy taxes.
King John lost Normandy to the French king in 1204. To win it back he raised taxes, sold offices and fined barons heavily. He quarrelled with the Pope, and England was placed under an interdict (church services stopped) from 1208 to 1214. After defeat at Bouvines in 1214, rebel barons captured London and in June 1215 forced John to seal Magna Carta at Runnymede. Its key ideas: no free man could be imprisoned without lawful judgement; justice would not be sold or delayed; taxes needed the consent of the great council; the Church would be free. John soon rejected it, civil war followed, and he died in 1216. Magna Carta was reissued by later kings and became a symbol of the rule of law.
Edward I: government, rights of king and people, and war, 1272–1307
Edward I was a strong lawmaker. He held inquiries into lost royal rights (the Hundred Rolls) and passed many statutes (laws made by king and Parliament). Wars cost money, so he called Parliaments. The 1295 Parliament (later called the "Model Parliament") included lords, bishops, two knights from each county and two burgesses from each town. The principle that taxes need consent grew stronger, and in 1297 Edward had to confirm the charters.
Wales: after wars in 1277 and 1282–83 against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Edward conquered Wales. The Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) set up English-style government, and great stone castles such as Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech held the land.
Scotland: asked to judge who should be Scottish king, Edward chose John Balliol but treated him as a vassal. War began in 1296. William Wallace won at Stirling Bridge (1297) and lost at Falkirk (1298). Robert the Bruce was crowned in 1306, and Edward died in 1307 on his way north, with the war unfinished.
Edward also expelled England's Jewish community in 1290 after decades of heavy taxation and persecution, a reminder that rights were not shared by all.
Life in medieval England and its historic environment
About nine in ten people lived in the countryside. A village was organised as a manor: the lord's house, his own land (demesne), and open fields divided into strips. Crops were rotated so one field rested (fallow) each year. The parish church was the centre of village life; people paid a tithe (one-tenth of produce) to it. Diet was mostly bread, pottage and ale. Disease, famine and hard work made life short.
Towns grew with royal charters, markets and fairs. Guilds controlled crafts and trade, and townspeople were usually freer than villeins. Wool was England's most valuable export.
Historians study the historic environment: surviving castles, cathedrals, village layouts, ridge-and-furrow field marks, and written sources such as charters, chronicles and manor records. Ask of each site: when and why was it built, how was it used, and what does it show about power?
Key formulas and definitions
- 1066 Norman Conquest; 1086 Domesday Book
- 1135–1154 the Anarchy; 1154 Henry II becomes king
- 1166 Assize of Clarendon; 1170 murder of Thomas Becket; 1173–74 Great Revolt
- 1189–1199 Richard I; 1199–1216 King John; 1204 loss of Normandy
- 1215 Magna Carta; 1216 John dies
- 1272–1307 Edward I; 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan; 1295 'Model Parliament'
- Feudal system: king → barons and bishops → knights → peasants
- Villein (serf): peasant bound to the manor, owing labour
- Common law: one royal law for the whole kingdom
Worked examples
1. How many years passed between the Norman Conquest and Magna Carta?
1215 − 1066 = 149 years.
2. Give one cause and one consequence of Magna Carta.
Cause: King John's heavy taxes and fines to pay for wars after losing Normandy angered the barons. Consequence: it set out the idea that the king is under the law and that taxes need consent, which later shaped Parliament.
3. Why did Edward I need Parliament?
His wars in Wales and Scotland cost huge sums. Taxes were easier to collect when lords, knights and townsmen had agreed to them in Parliament, so he called it often.
Common mistakes
- Thinking Magna Carta gave rights to everyone. It mostly protected barons and free men, not villeins.
- Mixing up Henry II's sons: Richard I came first (1189), then John (1199).
- Saying Edward I created the modern Parliament. He made it more regular and broader, but it kept changing for centuries.
- Thinking all peasants were the same. Some were free; many were villeins tied to the manor.