A Saxon Noble serves King William the First :: Papers

A Saxon Noble serves king William the First About twenty years ago I do my submission to William of Normandy when I saw that we Saxons could no longer resist the restrain of William and his knights and men-at-arms they were simply too strong and well organized to be efficaciously resisted. My friend Hereward, known as the Wake, held out of for eight years in the Isle of Ely, in the Fens but then even he had to submit. I realised that if we Saxon nobles continued to resist we would lose our land, our animals, our crops, our houses and possibly our lives. roughly(prenominal) of the Saxon lords in Yorkshire and Northumbria had all their land laid waste and the peasantry who served them barely survived and many died from starvation. They called it the Harrying of the North. That showed just how ruthless William could be. In the year 1069 we seven gesiths of Warwickshire and the west Country held council together to decide what we should do. We immovable not to play heroics since that would be like sentencing most of the geneats, geburs and kotsetlas to starvation and death. These were our people they depended on us. We seven gesiths decided to go to Williams court together and discuss terms. William was surprisingly magnanimous to us, although he did insist that we should all pay homage to him and give him any(prenominal) service he would demand. For example he wanted our help in bringing criminals to justice and he also wanted us individually to raise a troop of knights and men-at-arms to give him military service when he needed it. He wanted provisions too from our estates. He re-organized some of our estates, taking away some of our lands for his Norman, Poitevin and Angevin knights, but giving us opposite land in its place. This had the effect of mixing our Saxon ruling enlighten with the new foreign ruling class of Normans and others. I didnt peculiarly like this but I couldnt see any alternative.