A Saxon Noble serves King William the First :: Papers

A Saxon Noble serves King William the First About twenty years ago I made my submission to William of Normandy when I saw that we Saxons could no longer resist the rule of William and his knights and men-at-arms; they were simply too strong and well organized to be effectively 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. Several 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 decided 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 William’s court together and discuss terms. William was surprisingly generous to us, although he did insist that we should all pay homage to him and give him whatever service he would demand. For example he wanted our help in bringing criminals to justice and he also wanted us each 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 other land in its place. This had the effect of mixing our Saxon ruling class with the new foreign ruling class of Normans and others. I didn’t particularly like this but I couldn’t see any alternative.