of strong character, able, masterful, and a great soldier in the
modern sense of the word, but he had at his back his wealthy dukedom
of Normandy, which he had himself reduced to obedience and organized;
and, on the other hand, England lay before him, unorganized, yet
stubbornly rebellious to him; its very disorganization and want of a
centre making it more difficult to deal with by merely overrunning it
with an army levied for that purpose, and backed by a body of house-
carles or guards, which would have been the method of a Scandinavian
or native king in dealing with his rebellious subjects. Duke
William's necessities and instincts combined led him into a very
different course of action, which determined the future destiny of
the country. What he did was to quarter upon England an army of
feudal vassals drawn from his obedient dukedom, and to hand over to
them the lordship of the land of England in return for their military
service to him, the suzerain of them all. Thenceforward, it was
under the rule of these foreign landlords that the people of England
had to develop.

The development of the country as a Teutonic people was checked and
turned aside by this event. Duke William brought, in fact, his
Normandy into England, which was thereby changed from a Teutonic
people (Old-Norse theod), with the tribal customary law still in use
among them, into a province of Romanized Feudal Europe, a piece of
France, in short; and though in time she did grow into another
England again, she missed for ever in her laws, and still more in her
language and her literature, the chance of developing into a great
homogeneous Teutonic people infused usefully with a mixture of Celtic
blood.

However, this step which Duke William was forced to take further