Towns and Villages

Trade

The conquest disrupted trade and towns, destroying parts of towns such as half of York.
Fighting destroyed Lincoln, Exteter and Durham, with castles pulling own homes. 166 in Lincoln. Taxes increased, shown by the Doomsday book. Intermarriage created stability.
London was well knwn for trade thanks to the Thames, William produced writs protecting London's traditional rights. It had to recover to its original prosperity.
Castles initially disrupted trade but they brought stability in garrisons. 21 towns with castles.
New castles and churches encouraged merchants and artisans to produce goods.
They traded grain, hides, tin (mines in Cornwall), fish, beer and wool.
Trade also came from Outremer and Europe, each city had trade quarters in London.
Frenchmen had exemptions- 'French Street' in Southhampton had 96 French traders.
Jewish community appeared, trading foregin and English coins.

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Peasants had brutality, plunder and murder. Many refugees were displaced.
1/3 of Yorkshire was waste, its value dropped by 60% in Doomsday.
Normans wanted higher rents and increased work obligations.
The ASC describes English laments over rents. Normans took land for their demense.
Many landowners became tenants and had to pay rent on thier own land.
There were less land owning peasants and more landless labourers.
However, they did not change agricultural systems or introduce any innovations.
Nucleated villages had a manor house, church and three large common fields.
These were invented to have more power over the workforce.
The ASC describes fires, bad harvests. famines, diseases, and stomrs from 1066-1100.

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Source of opression/pleasure for the Normans. Also used for food.
William loved hunting, took Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Essex as royal forest.
Sherwood forest in Nottingham, New Forest in Hampshire.
2000 were displaced and 20 villages destroyed for the forests.
Restrictions were placed under wood gathering, farming and scavanging.
Civil law was based around land- the Forest laws had separate rules since everything belonged to the royal reserve, animals and nature, timber, and food.
William Rufus faced a rebellion from his uncle in 1088- he used forest law to gain support against his uncle.

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10% of Edward's population were slaves, for manual, agricultural and domestic work.
They were born into slavery, captured or raided and distributed round the country.
Got rid of slavery, you get more money from tenants' rent and taxes.
The church disliked slavery for morality, stopping abuse and stopping illegitimate children.
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury from 1070, stopped slavery.
Church reform was part of William's promises to the Pope, slavery was a sin.
Slaves in Essex fell 25 percent between 1066 and 1086 (Doomsday).
Lanfranc persuaded William to free men in Wales in 1081 and made freeing slaves a law.

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