Historia y cultura I
Strong post-conquest monarchy

Rev. 13 October 2003

England's post-conquest kings were chief feudal lords, the pinnacle of the feudal pyramid, but they were primarily sovereign kings. William I and his followers (especially Henry I and Henry II) retained those institutions that constituted the royal centralization of Anglo-Saxon England:

• shire and hundred courts
• the sheriff in each shire (county);
• the Witan's practice of consultation with the great magnates (now called curia regis);
• danegeld, a "national" tax system;
• the fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon militia (until the reign of Henry II);
• the custom of universal allegiance to the monarch.

They also controlled feudal privilege and power through their exercise of monarchical authority over specific feudal features:

• castle building was only permitted by royal license;
• William I prohibited private warfare, usually endemic to a feudal society;
• these monarchs (seen vividly in the Salisbury Oath [1085] and the Cartae Baronum) insisted in express demonstrations of loyalty from the knights to the monarch.

There were also innovations. William I, for example, claimed ultimate ownership of all English land, and his decision to survey England (Domesday Book) was highly original and reflects a definite administrative and organizational capacity, a talent that would emerge in his son, Henry I and in his great-grandson, Henry II.

Upon the late 11th-century foundation laid by William I -- a feudal society ruled by a relatively strong monarchy -- Henry I and Henry II added many significant pieces to the structure of central government. Both monarchs were innovators in the areas of royal administration and the royal judicial system. Both made conscious efforts to deal with any feudal realities (e.g. discontents produced by William Rufus and his abuse of feudal rights and the feudal chaos and aggrandizement that had characterized Stephen's "reign" for almost two decades) that threatened the primacy of royal authority vis-à-vis feudal powers.