The Norman occupation
due to the change in their preferred huntingmethods. Anglo-Saxons hunted in haga (enclosures), while the Normans favoured par force open landscape hunting which suited Red Deer more than Roe. The cultural changes experienced by the population, principally the nobility but also wider society, in the forms of new activities and architecture, and reinforced with a hard backbone of fortifications, led to a permanent psychological and physical impact on English society. It is undeniable that following William’s successful invasion in 1066 he exploited the existing societal, governmental, and religious structures that were in place in Anglo-Saxon England. However, despite this continuity of base structures, it would be grossly unfair to state that therefore he represented nothingmore than an occupying army. He used the dominance of newNorman personnel to bend these structures to his benefit. He also imposed a more centralized Norman feudal society, diminishing the power held by earldoms like Mercia or Wessex and the Church, while also consolidating Norman presence in England through culture and brute force in the form of castles – a factor that likely affected all of the two million people who are thought to have lived in England at the time. Although founded in Anglo- Saxon administration, it is unequivocal that William’s regim e transformed England substantially and with great lasting effect, thus making the new ruling power more than simply ‘an army of occupation’.
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