the changing social hierarchy may have reverted to the original rigidity of the eleventh
century immediately following the Norman Conquest in 1066. As explored above regarding
Freeman and Round, time aided the development of this debate into many historians,
primarily in the latter half of the twentieth-century, taking a more mixed opinion,
recognising that there was a sporadic reversion to intense serfdom. 13
Within the historical literature on the Norman Conquest and feudalism in England
(and, to some extent, in Normandy too), analysis of class relationships can be further broken
down into specific spheres of focus: service to lords in the agricultural and military sectors.
Although Chibnall focuses on the differing debates over the military aspect of feudalism, she
does put forward that despite the rejection of using such a hypernym as feudalism has
become, it ‘has not involved the rejection of the adjective 'feudal'’. 14 Instead, it is generally
agreed by those leaning more towards Round's interpretation that the basis of English
society after the Conquest was the introduction of lordship and tenure.
Despite both agricultural labour and military service being important features of
English feudalism, the latter are often dealt with less, as Garnett explains, one of his primary
sources, Eadmer, a twelfth-century historian, says very little about it, and so does the
Domesday Survey, the number one primary source for any historian of the Norman
Conquest. Eadmer, according to Garnett, views the introduction of ‘immediate dependency
on the king...as the primary novelty of the Conquest’ suggesting that, as is expected by a
new monarch of a conquered land, William was preoccupied with ensuring obedience to his
new regime by all subjects. 15 He attempted to do so partially through the service of knights
13 Schofield, pp. 102-3 14 Chibnall, p. 83 15 George Garnett, The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 80
14
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