‘William’s Reign Was a Period Of Major Change In t

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‘William’s reign was a period of major change in the government and administration of England’. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement. (24 marks) Life after the Norman Victory in the Battle of Hastings for the Anglo-Saxons saw changes in government and administrative structures for England. New methods of justice and control were introduced as well as new castles and towns being constructed. As well as there being changes for the English culture there was also a lot of continuity in their lifestyle such as the Anglo-Saxon style of long hair and bushy beards and moustaches. Changes were going to be inevitably made as their was a new leader of the land but there were still a lot of cultural and social policies which stuck and in reference to the question, this challenges whether there was a major change. A massive change that occurred was the expansion of cities such as London and this was due to French markets and the Norman building programme, by 1086 there was 100,000 burgesses in England and this signifies a major change during Williams kingship. Culturally, there was change and continuum as firstly there was a large number of castles built all around England and towns such as Oxford and Norwich suffered house clearing to allow room for the castles. There was also a continuity in culture though as there was a rich tradition of written English dating back to the 890’s and this survived through the Peterbrough book showing that not everything was changing during William’s reign. A change that William had introduced was a revolutionary principle that all land belonged to him and therefore all owners were indebted to him permanently, this was a major change for the Conqueror as it put him firmly in charge of running the country and gaining the respect of the citizens through fear. A strong continuum that suggests that there
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