Hello, and thanks for joining me for this Oak Academy history lesson.

My name is Mrs. Knox, and today I'll be helping to take you through all of the resources and the materials associated with this lesson.

So let's get started now.

Our lesson today is going to focus on the Norman Conquest, and we'll be asking the question, how do we know about the impact of the Norman Conquest on England? This specific lesson will look at Norman changes to English landholding.

By the end of the lesson, you'll be able to explain how the Domesday Book can be used to study Norman changes to English landholding.

Now our lesson will use some keywords today, so let's take a moment to run through those now.

The first word we'll come across in the lesson is the word baron.

A baron was a great lord, or landholder in the kingdom.

We will also use the word homage.

When a person places their hands between the hands of a social superior and acknowledges their vassal status, then they are paying homage.

The word vassal is a person who holds land from another within feudalism.

And finally in the lesson, we'll use the word tenant.

Tenant is a person who occupies or looks after property owned by another person.

Okay, so let's get started with the first section of our lesson today, which will focus on feudalism.

There were many changes in England after the Norman Conquest.

This included changes which established a social system known as feudalism in England.

Feudalism would survive to become a fundamental part of mediaeval English society.

When William took power, he inherited, or rather took by force, not just a crown, but a kingdom, a very wealthy kingdom by western European standards of the 11th century and quite a lot of land with it.

William changed the way in which the land was held.

Some historians have argued that William introduced a form of feudalism to England.

The term feudalism is not accepted by all historians, but many of them continue to use it as a way to describe the kinds of power relations and the kinds of land ownership which existed.

Within feudalism, power was concentrated in the hands of the king.

Certainly from William's point of view, the king held the land in England.

He was its owner as he'd won it in conquest, the Battle of Hastings.

He could decide to give some of that land to his most loyal barons.

So for example, he might section out parts of Somerset or Lincolnshire, or Yorkshire.

Giving the barons land was a thank you for their service, and it was also a way to keep them on side.

In return, they would pledge to support William.

They would also promise to give him soldiers in times of war if William ever needed them.

So William was the largest landholder.

He gave out much of that land to others, and in return, they promised to be loyal.

But the barons, of course, couldn't manage all of that land on their own.

There simply weren't enough of them, and so they needed to go through a similar process.

With the land that they'd been given by William, there were bits of it which they gave out to other people.

For example, they might give parts of it to other barons, or they might give parts of it to people a bit lower down in the status hierarchy than they were.

Either way, they broke up their really large estates and gave the land to others.

In return, those people promised them loyalty.

They promised them knights, for example, and soldiers if there was a war.

This chain might go down to the lowest levels of society in some cases, with everyone involved in the great system of landholding.

They knew that they owed their livelihood to their landholding, which ultimately came from the king.

So the king sat at the centre of this complicated web of landholding.

The feudal system has been represented in many different ways, but one of the easiest ways to picture it is to imagine English society as a triangle.

At the top of the triangle, at its smallest point, sits the king, William the Conqueror.

He holds the most power, so he's at the top of society, and there is only one of him so his part of the triangle is the smallest.

Beneath him are the barons.

These are William's most trusted followers.

So they hold a great deal of power that William has given them, which puts them near the top of society, just below the king.

There are a few hundred barons, so they are also represented by a relatively small part of the triangle.

Below the barons are the knights.

There were a few thousand knights, so their part of the triangle is larger than the previous two groups.

The knights would've held land given to them by the barons, which gave them some power in their local area.

And finally, at the bottom of society were the peasants.

This group made up the vast majority of society, so their part of the triangle is the largest.

The peasants had very little power of their own.

Okay, it is time to have a check of your understanding now.

I'd like you to answer this question: Who held the most power within feudalism? Was it A: the king, B: the barons, or C: the peasants? Press pause and then press play to hear the correct answer.

Well done if you said the correct answer was A.

It was the king who held the most power within the feudal system.

One of the most important rituals which was central to feudalism was the act of paying homage.

When one person paid homage to another, they became their vassal.

On the screen, you can see a depiction of an individual paying homage to another.

On the left hand side, we can see the person of inferior status, at least within this relationship.

They are kneeling and they are about to become a vassal.

On the right hand side of the image, we can see the person of superior or higher status.

This person is probably a lord.

They are seated and they're holding the hands of the vassal within their own hands.

So there's an almost religious element to this ceremony of paying homage.

When a baron accepted land from the king within feudalism, he would make himself the king's vassal.

It meant that he promised to be loyal, and he promised to provide soldiers in times of need when the king required them.

But perhaps more importantly than that, the baron was buying into and becoming part of this almost religious system of networks and of honour.

After this point, it would've been very shameful for a baron to betray the king or to go back on his word.

So the act of paying homage was an incredibly powerful and meaningful one to the people who lived in the 11th century in England and who were part of the system.

It meant that William secured his power and rebellions became less likely, as the barons were drawn into these personal relationships of land and loyalty to the king.

It also meant that the way in which the English people thought about land ownership had to change.

In Anglo-Saxon England, it had been possible to own your own land outright.

And in fact, there were very many farmers who held modest amounts of land.

These were quite small, humble estates, but they owned them outright.

It was theirs.

And although they paid tax to the king and were loyal to the king, they had that security.

That entire class of people disappeared in Norman England and was replaced by, perhaps on paper, people who held more land, the barons.

However, in reality, they held that land because the king had done them a favour, and they knew in the backs of their minds always that the land could be taken away from them by the king.

Here's another quick question for you now.

To which group did William the Conqueror grant vast amounts of land? Was it A: existing English landholders, B: followers of the Pope, or C: loyal Norman followers? Press pause and then press play for the answer.

That's right.

You should have said the correct answer is C.

It was loyal Norman followers who received land from William the Conqueror.

Here's a final check of your understanding.

How did the barons receive land following the Battle of Hastings? Press pause and then press play for the answer.

You could have said in your answer that William took vast amounts of English land from existing landholders and gave it to the barons who had to pay homage to him in order to receive the land.

In this way, the barons became vassals of the king.

It's now time to put everything you've learned in this section into practise by completing these tasks.

Firstly, I'd like you to label each section of the hierarchy pyramid to represent the structure of a mediaeval society.

Press pause now to complete the diagram and then press play to see the correct labels.

Let's see how you got on.

Your completed diagram should look like this.

At the top, you should have the king, followed by the barons, then the knights, and finally, the peasants.

Finally, in this section, I'd like you to complete the sentence to explain how the introduction of feudalism helped William to consolidate his power.

You can use the sentence starter below to help you to structure your answer.

Press pause now and then press play to see what you could have written.

Let's see how you got on.

Your answer could have included some of the following: "The introduction of feudalism helped William to consolidate his power because it concentrated power over landholding in his hands, which meant he could give out land and authority only to his most loyal followers." Alright, we're now ready to move on to the second half of our lesson today.

In this section we'll be talking about Domesday Book.

In this half of the lesson, we're going to think about one of the most important sources for Norman England.

And in fact, it's one of the most important documents produced by any European mediaeval government.

It is Domesday Book.

Now, you'll notice that I'm not referring to it as "the Domesday Book." That's because we might talk about the Domesday Survey, after all, William conceived it as one project commissioned in 1085 and then collected in 1086, but it hasn't been written up into one single volume, at least not one single volume that survives.

We talk largely about two important volumes, Little Domesday and Greater Domesday, but historians use the phrase Domesday Book to refer to both of these volumes as well as some other records relating to the great survey.

So when we talk about Domesday Book, we have to avoid saying "the Domesday Book" because it's not one book.

It's basically a collection, really, of documents and pieces of writing which historians have used to understand something about landholding.

So with all that said, Domesday Book was ordered in 1085 by William the Conqueror.

He wanted his commissioners to find out the answers to three important questions: who owns this piece of land, how much land do they own in this area, and how much is it worth? He wanted to know the answers to these questions over three different points in time.

The first was when King Edward was alive.

The second was in 1066 when he came to the throne, and finally, he wanted to know the answers to the questions in 1085 when the survey was being collected.

Historians have speculated about why he did this and still don't really agree on the purpose of Domesday Book, but it seems likely that it had something to do with working out how much tax revenue he might be able to raise.

Why, after all, was he so interested in finding out how much land is worth and whether that value had increased or decreased over time? It might be that he wanted to produce some kind of survey of the level of the population, to work out how many people could defend England in the case of an invasion.

Or it might be that Domesday Book was simply to do with landholding and land tenure.

Perhaps he just wanted proof that the feudal system, which he had introduced, was now the basis of English law.

Historians will probably never know the precise purpose of the Domesday Book, but they do enjoy debating it and debating the exact nature of the document and the meaning which sits behind it.

On this slide, you can see a list of some of William's tenants taken from an extract from Domesday Book.

One use historians have made of Domesday Book is to work out exactly who the tenants were.

Who are these people who had arrived in England and taken over the land? By looking at lists like this and other excerpts from Domesday Book, historians can work out exactly how much land was taken away from Anglo-Saxons and given to Normans.

In this way, they can track the impact of the conquest by seeing who lost land and who gained land, who lost status, and who gained status, and who had to leave power behind, and who entered the corridors of power.

So these tenant lists are a very useful way in which Domesday Book shines a light on landholding in England.

So let's have a check now of your understanding.

Why did the English give the Great Survey, the nickname "Domesday Book"? Press pause and then press play for the answer.

Your answer could have included that the English used this nickname because they named it after God's final Day of Judgement , when every soul was thought to be assessed with the word "doom" meaning a law or a judgement.

Let's look at some precise excerpts now which have been translated so that we can understand them and think about what historians might be able to learn from them.

Here's an entry taken from Earley in Berkshire: "The King that is William the Conqueror holds the land in Earley.

Almar used to hold it freely from King Edward." This is an incredibly rich entry.

It tells us a lot of things.

Firstly, historians can work out how much land William held personally by collating all similar entries.

If you went through all of Domesday Book and pulled out every entry where it says the King holds the land in X, you would be able to add it all up and find out exactly how much land William himself maintained control over.

And that's exactly what some historians have done.

You can look at the Anglo-Saxon landholders who are mentioned in Domesday Book as having held the land in the time of King Edward on the date when King Edward was alive and dead.

Almar here, for example, in 1066, was linked to 179 places, and in 1086, to just 17.

So what does that tell us? Well, I think it tells us that Almar and other Anglo-Saxon landholders like him, had had their land taken away from them.

Clearly, he was still alive.

He was around in 1086, but he's had to give up the vast majority of his land.

And if we take a look at lots of entries in Domesday, we can see that this is a consistent pattern.

The Anglo-Saxons lose their land and they lose their status.

Let's look now at a second entry, this time from Newington in Oxfordshire.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury holds Newington.

In the time of King Edward, it was worth 11 pounds.

Now it is worth 15 pounds." What do you think historians could learn from this section of Domesday? This entry from Domesday Book shows that the land in this part of southern England has become more valuable.

This is probably because when the Normans arrived in England, they brought with them trading networks and relationships with the rest of Europe.

So the economy in the south of England, which after all, is closer to Western Europe, was expanding more quickly and more wealth was coming into the country.

Therefore, historians can use Domesday Book to track these kinds of patterns.

Here's a final extract from Yorkshire this time.

"Ulfkil holds Carleton.

In the time of King Edward, it was worth 40 shillings or two pounds.

Now it's worth 20 shillings or one pound." So we can see that the value of the land in this area has dropped.

Land in this part of Yorkshire, and in Yorkshire more generally, became much less valuable during the reign of William.

Part of that has to be linked to the Harrying of the North of 1069, when William destroyed much of the infrastructure in Yorkshire and the North.

These areas became poorer when they couldn't grow crops and when their houses were burnt to the ground.

So the Domesday Book can be used by historians to look at the impact of the Harrying of the North and to shine a light onto the lives of people and what they were able to earn and what they were able to grow.

Clearly different parts of England were affected differently by the Norman Conquest.

The impact was not uniform throughout the country.

Therefore, the Domesday Book is an incredibly useful source for tracking these complex patterns of regional variation.

Here's another check of your understanding now.

For which two of the following questions can historians use Domesday Book to help find an answer? A: Did most people support the collection of information into Domesday Book? B: Did land in England become more or less valuable after 1066? C: Did William the Conqueror personally control lots of land after 1066? Or D: Did people offer up information about landholding enthusiastically? Press pause now, and when you're ready to hear the answer, press play.

Well done if you said that the Domesday Book can help historians to find out about whether land became more or less valuable, and whether William the Conqueror personally controlled lots of land.

What the Domesday Book can't do is tell us about how people felt about giving their information to the commissioners.

Here's another question now.

In which part of England does Domesday Book suggest that the value of land decreased following the Norman Conquest? A: East Anglia, B: Hampshire, or C: Yorkshire? Press pause again and then press play for the answer.

That's right, you should have said that the correct answer is C: Yorkshire.

Finally, in this section, I'd like you to explain in one paragraph what historians interested in the Norman Conquest can learn from Domesday Book.

Try to give at least two examples to support your point.

Press pause to complete the work and then press play to see what you could have written.

Welcome back.

Let's see how you got on.

Your answers could have included the following: "Historians can use Domesday Book to study Norman changes to English landholding.

For example, historians can learn how the value of land in England changed after 1066, as well as how much land was taken away from Anglo-Saxons and given to Normans instead.

Furthermore, historians can learn which individuals and groups controlled the most land after 1066." We've now reached the end of our lesson today, so it's time for a summary of everything you should have learned.

William the Conqueror introduced a system of feudalism, which made it easier for him to control the entire kingdom.

Under the feudal system, the king held the most power, followed by barons, knights, and then peasants, who had minimal power.

The new system of landholding was recorded in Domesday Book, which was compiled from 1085 to 1086.

Historians have used Domesday Book to investigate changing patterns of landholding and wealth in Norman England.

Many thanks for your hard work in our lesson together today.

I hope that you feel confident that you've understood the material, and I hope that you'll join me for a future Oak Academy history lesson really soon.