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occasionally collected during this time, it “illustrates perhaps more vividly than anything else Anglo-Saxon England’s progress towards royal central- ization and administrative sophistication.”19 The Domesday Inquest, which was commissioned by William the Conqueror, contains information about the geld system of Anglo-Saxon England.
Although Late Anglo-Saxon England was politically volatile, it was institutionally stable. “Beyond the mayhem at court and the bloodshed of the battlefield, churches were being built, cases were being heard in court, merchandise was being produced and marketed and a strong and copious coinage was being minted.”20 The Anglo-Saxon institutions that were developed prior to 1066, although in many ways still vague and loosely structured, provided a firm foundation on which the Norman kings would build a strongly centralized and coherent administrative organization.
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offered.”26 The Anglo-Saxon institutions that William found and revised were the codes of law, the witan, the local courts, the writ, and the processes for collecting revenue.
Codes of Law
The existing Anglo-Saxon codes of law were followed as far as possible by William, and no attempt was made to produce new codes. Chibnall27 lists several reasons for this. First, the small numbers of Norman settlers had no need for new codes because they were accustomed to settling disputes in the court of their lord. Second, because William expressed a desire to allow the local people to keep their own customs, they were allowed to settle property disputes in the local shire courts. Third, William respected the traditional methods of proving ownership in the matter of those disputes: either trial by battle or “compurgation,” the practice of clearing an accused person by the oath of others who swear to their belief in his innocence.
If a dispute could not be settled in the local courts, it was heard in the court of the king. If the solution produced a general ruling that was to be followed in the local shire courts, a writ was issued by the king and sent to the local officers of the courts.
Witan/Curia Regis
The witan of the Anglo-Saxons and the ducal court of Normandy were gradually combined into the Anglo-Norman institution of the “Curia Regis,”
or King’s Court.28 This became the central institution of William’s govern- ment and consisted of the “Anglo-Norman aristocracy, lay and ecclesias- tical, who best could help him in his work.”29
As with the witan, the Curia Regis could be a large or a small gathering, depending on the business to be conducted. It did, however, meet with greater frequency than the witan, and full sessions came to be held regularly during religious holidays, including Christmas and Easter. This regular schedule of meetings is considered to be one of William’s inno- vations in administration.30
The sessions, which were characterized by ceremony and entertainment, enabled the Norman and English rulers to maintain contact with each other, and allowed the king to become acquainted with all the areas of his kingdom through his administrators. There was no differentiation of gov- ernment functions within the King’s Court during this time; specialized functions and offices developed after William’s death. “In the Conqueror’s reign, government was still viewed in a simpler way. The king ruled the
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land, and his feudal vassals were called upon to assist him in his task: to offer him counsel and support his executive acts.”31 That the king needed the support and consent of his vassals for his decisions and actions has been documented in royal charters, writs, and decrees from this period.
This has been termed the “preparliamentary” period of English history.32 It was at the annual Christmas court in 1085 that the Domesday Inquest was initiated. That survey will be discussed later.
Local Courts
The appointment of royal officials such as the ealdorman and the sheriff contributed to the growth of an administrative organization. These officials allowed the king to exercise his delegated powers on the local level. The ealdorman was originally the king’s principal contact with the shires, and the sheriff’s position came into existence to assist the ealdorman.
In spite of the fact that the Anglo-Saxon position of sheriff had no equivalent in Norman society, sheriffs rose to the heights of their power under the reign of William.33,34,35 Fesler36 attributes this to the fact that William converted the position “to his own use, appointing Nor man barons, who were granted substantial lands in their respective shires.”
Thus, he turned a nonfeudal position into one that contributed to the rise of the feudal state in England.
Under William, the sheriff became the chief officer of the shire and was responsible for royal, military, financial, and legal duties within his jurisdiction. Through him, the king was able to direct administration on the local level, and the sheriff provided the bridge between local and central government.37,38
The Writ
Stenton39 notes that it was the very good fortune of the Conqueror to come to a country where the writ, or writ-charter, had been established,
“an instrument of government so effective in itself and so adaptable to so many purposes.” The royal writing office had, by the time of William, become an important entity in the royal household, as was the practice of placing a king’s royal seal on written documents. William and his descendants took over the sealed writs of the Anglo-Saxons and utilized them for their own purposes.
As discussed previously, William sent out writs to inform the local shire courts of general rulings that would apply to them. This was, according to Douglas,40 in contrast to the writs of the Anglo-Saxons, which were used to record grants of land or rights. The later writs of the
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