This is a new interpretation of the development of land law in England during the century after the Norman Conquest. Norman society was based on land and lordship, and the relative power of lord and vassal was crucial to the control of the land. The book exploits a wealth of surviving charter and chronicle evidence in this analysis. This approach integrates social, political, administrative, and intellectual history. The book examines the uses to which lords and vassals put their lands, the relationship between them, and the constraints upon them. It traces the increasing sophistication of law and the changes in royal reassessment of legal developments in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England