How Did the Normans Change England? (AQA GCSE History: British Depth Study (Paper 2: Section B)): Flashcards

A tenant-in-chief could hold a large number of fiefs, called a barony.

Peasants gained the use of land by providing manual labour to their local lord.

Under the Norman system, all the land was owned by the king (William).

In 1065 the land in England was owned by the king, the Church, six earls and around 4000 thegns.

By 1086, just 4 thegns still held land in England.

Patronage was giving land to people the king could trust.

Primogeniture was the custom of passing land on to the eldest son when a landholder died.

Relief was an inheritance tax charged when a landholder died.

True.

Loyal landholders' heirs were charged small reliefs, while disruptive ones faced large relief payments.

William avoided rewarding any single baron with too much land to prevent any individual baron becoming too powerful and a threat to him.

Forfeiture was William taking land off landholders he believed were disloyal or had failed their obligations.

William created three new earldoms in the region that bordered Wales.

The earls of the three new border earldoms were known as the marcher lords.

True.

Marcher lords could build castles, keep their own armies and make their own laws without William's permission.

The Norman Conquest brought a small evolution rather than an enormous change to England's government.

The king remained at the head of government after the Norman Conquest.

The Norman king owned all the land in England, which centralised more power in his hands.

The Curia Regis was the Norman 'king's council' or 'Great Council' of important nobles who advised the king, operating like the Witan.

The Witan was the council of powerful earls and bishops from the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy that advised the king.

The Curia Regis operated in a similar way to the Anglo-Saxon Witan.

A writ was a written royal order or instruction, written by royal clerks and sent to the shires.

True.

More writs were issued under the Normans and the king's orders were followed more closely.

The king's orders were followed more closely under the Normans because Norman barons had less power than the Anglo-Saxon earls.

The country was divided into areas called shires, each with its own shire-reeve or sheriff.

In their shire, sheriffs were responsible for collecting taxes and dispensing justice.

True.

William kept the system of shires, hundreds and sheriffs but filled key sheriff posts with loyal Normans.

Hue and cry was when a person who witnessed or discovered a crime raised the alarm, and anyone who heard it had a duty to help catch the culprit.

In the Anglo-Saxon legal system, constables could arrest people and put them in the stocks for fighting and disorderly behaviour.

The Normans introduced the honorial courts.

From 1076, people who worked for the Church were tried in separate Church Courts.

The Church Courts were established by Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

True.

Punishments in the Church Courts were often less severe than those in the secular courts.

Trial by ordeal was trials based on the belief that God would protect the innocent and prove guilt or innocence through an ordeal.

In trial by cold water, if the accused floated it meant the holy water was rejecting them, so they were guilty.

The Normans introduced trial by battle.

The 'murdrum' fine was a heavy fine issued to all Anglo-Saxons in the area where a Norman had been murdered.

The 'murdrum' fine was intended to act as a deterrent to prevent Normans in isolated, unfriendly areas being attacked and killed.

William ended ordinary people's access to the forests by introducing the Forest laws.

True.

Punishment for hunting under the Forest Laws could involve fines or even executions.

The Domesday Book was a written survey of England that recorded who owned land, its value, its occupants and how much tax was owed to the king.

William commissioned the Domesday Book in December 1085.

To collect the information, the 34 shires in England were divided into seven areas known as circuits.

Each circuit was inspected by 4 commissioners.

The commissioners inspected 13,400 places, in less than a year.

True.

One aim of the survey was to find out if any land had multiple people claiming ownership.

The three main ways the Domesday Book was significant to Norman government were military, legal or financial.

The military threat that made the Domesday Book useful to William in 1085 was the threat of another Viking invasion.

The book gave William a much better idea of how many knights could be provided by his tenants-in-chief.

Legally, the Domesday Book established that the Normans were the rightful owners of the land and all landownership was at the king's discretion.

True.

The Domesday Book helped William see who was not paying enough tax.

The book was named after the Day of Judgement because its judgement on land, tax and disputes was seen as final and could not be argued with.

In villages, a Norman baron normally replaced the Anglo-Saxon thegn as the lord of the manor.

Around 97% of England's population were peasants.

Villeins were semi-free peasants who could not leave the village or marry without the lord's permission and worked the lord's land for free, usually three days a week.

Around 10% of England's population were slaves in 1066.

The biggest stone building and centre of village life was usually the church.

Lords often built a watermill to grind the village's grain into flour.

Peasants did not work on Sundays and holy days.

The walls of peasants' homes were constructed from wattle and daub.

True.

Peasants' homes were windowless, single rooms in which the whole family and its animals slept.

In summer, peasants did jobs such as harvesting crops, picking fruit, shearing sheep or gathering wood (any one).

The average life expectancy in Norman villages was around 30.

Pottage was a thick soup made from peas, beans and whatever was available, cooked in a big pot and added to daily.

True.

The rich ate more meat and less vegetables and dairy, and wine featured more in noble diets after the Conquest.

21 new towns were developed between 1066 and 1100.

True.

Life in towns changed considerably after the Conquest, unlike life in villages.

A villein would be declared a freeman if they secured employment and lived in a town for a year and a day.

A charter was a grant a town could apply for once large enough, letting it elect a council and mayor, set its own taxes and hold a regular market or fair.

Burgesses were people who lived in towns and had full citizenship rights, tried in town courts.

Almost all town houses were at great risk of fire because they were made of wood, heated by open fires, often held workshops with open fires, and were cramped closely together.

The ground floor of a town house was often used as a shop, alehouse or workshop for a craftsman.

Guilds were merchant organisations, introduced by the Normans, that controlled who could set up and operate businesses.

England's biggest industry was the wool trade.

Apprentices worked with their masters for seven years in exchange for food and housing.

A masterpiece was a faultless piece of work a journeyman had to complete to become a master craftsman.

Life expectancy was lower in towns than in villages because towns were more cramped and overcrowded and had more visitors, so disease spread more easily.

True.

People in towns had a richer, more varied diet and better food security than villagers.