Land Ownership

Question 1

How many tenants-in-chief were there?

Answer 1

190

Question 2

How many of the tenants-in-chief were Anglo-Saxon?

Answer 2

2

Question 3

What was a tenant-in-chief?

Answer 3

The large landholders in Norman England, who held their land directly from the king.

Question 4

How much of the land was held by the church?

Answer 4

25%

Question 5

How much of the land was held by the kings royal estate?

Answer 5

A fifth

Question 6

How much of the land was still held by Anglo-Saxon aristocrats?

Answer 6

less than 5%

Question 7

What does tenure mean?

Answer 7

‘to hold’ in Latin, refers to landholding and landownership

Question 8

What is a bookland tenure?

Answer 8

Lords granted out land to their followers, who were given a charter to show their right to the land. This could either be passed on to heirs or sold onto others.

Question 9

What is a lease tenure?

Answer 9

Land was loaned to someone for money and for a set period of time.

Question 10

What was the fyrd obligation?

Answer 10

1 soldier for every 5 hides
Soldiers had to fight for 1-2 months

Question 11

What happened if someone didn’t pay tax?

Answer 11

They could lose their land.

Question 12

What happened if a new thegn took over?

Answer 12

They had to pay a tax to their lord.

Question 13

What were the 2 things tenants-in-chief could do?

Answer 13

1. They were allowed to reallocate land when a thegn died, and make their followers heirs to the thegns land.
2. They could dispossess thegns who acted against them or failed to fulfil obligations.

Question 14

What was the landholding role of William as king?

Answer 14

He owned all of the land. Regardless of previous agreements, everyone only had tenure from the king.

Question 15

What was the role of the Anglo-Saxon landholders under the Normans?

Answer 15

They usually had to redeem the land they held back from William. This meant paying him money for the right to keep their own land. It was unpopular.

Question 16

What happened when William granted land to his followers?

Answer 16

They didn’t have to redeem it after he granted it to them. If they died without an heir the land went back to he king, but if they did have an heir the heir had to pay tax to the king when they inherited.

Question 17

Why did life get worse for peasants under the Normans?

Answer 17

The tenants-in-chief wanted more money from their land which meant they made their peasants work harder.

Question 18

What happened to ‘free peasants’?

Answer 18

They became rarer.

Question 19

What did new lords do to peasants?

Answer 19

New lords made peasants work for them, which reduced their independence.

Question 20

What did the rebellions after William became king show him?

Answer 20

They showed him that the Anglo-Saxon Earls couldn’t be trusted, so he took their lands and granted them to his followers.

Question 21

How many thegns were in England before 1066?

Answer 21

4000

Question 22

What happened to all of the thegns when the Normans arrived?

Answer 22

By 1087, Anglo-Saxon thegns had almost all been replaced by Normans, and most of them had been forced into being dependant on Norman’s for the small amount of land they were allowed.

Question 23

What does forfeit mean?

Answer 23

The king owned all of the land, so if anyone went against him their land could be forfeited. William made his followers the heirs of Anglo-Saxons who had forfeited their land.

Question 24

What did creating new earldoms mean for Williams followers?

Answer 24

The new earldoms (or other forms of land) could be granted to Williams followers.

Question 25

What were land grabs?

Answer 25

Land grabs were straightforward thefts of land. It was an illegal way in which Anglo-Saxons lost their land to Normans. Norman sheriffs were particularly notorious for this kind of exploitation.