The Norman
was more alien to the Mercian than had been Northumbrian or West-Saxon,
and rival tribes at last discovered a bond of unity in the impartial
rigour of their masters. The Norman, coming from outside and exempt
from local prejudice, applied the same methods of government and
exploitation to all parts of England, just as Englishmen bring the same
ideas to bear upon all parts of India; and in both cases the steady
pressure of a superimposed civilization tended to obliterate local and
class divisions. Unwittingly Norman and Angevin despotism made an
English nation out of Anglo-Saxon tribes, as English despotism has made
a nation out of Irish septs, and will make another out of the hundred
races and religions of our Indian empire. The more efficient a
despotism, the sooner it makes itself impossible, and the greater the
problems it stores up for the future, unless it can divest itself of
its despotic attributes and make common cause with the nation it has
created.
The provision of this even-handed tyranny was the great contribution of
the Normans to the making of England. They had no written law of their
own, but to secure themselves they had to enforce order upon their
schismatic subjects; and they were able to enforce it because, as
military experts, they had no equals in that age. They could not have
stood against a nation in arms; but the increasing cost of equipment
and the growth of poor and landless classes among the Anglo-Saxons had
transferred the military business of the nation into the hands of large
landowning specialists; and the Anglo-Saxon warrior was no match for
his Norman rival, either individually or collectively.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31