Chapter 5 - Land and Folk

Summary

Hhaving now taken a brief constitutional survey of the rulers, both civil and ecclesiastical, we may cease for a while to consider them in their daily action, and look at the land and the people upon whom they were to act. English Common Law is in its foundation a collection of folk customs; and, again, it might perhaps be as true to say that the folk made medieval religion, as that the religion made the folk. The story of development here will help to illustrate a truth too often neglected in our present natural reaction against the Great War: that nationalism is a necessary and healthy step towards internationalism.

Anglo-Saxon England clearly showed a want of national coherence. It needed the Conquest to bring the people to that point of civilization at which they should be conscious of nationality all over the country. For instance, a year after Hastings, the South-West was still unsubdued, openly defying William; so again was the North—Yorkshire and Northumberland. Yet there was no attempt at concerted action. The two risings were not even timed to be simultaneous; so that William was easily able to beat each in detail. He had the immense military advantage of a more despotic government. This Saxon incoherence was remedied by the Conquest. Here was a strong man, able to hold the country when once he had taken it, and supported by companions in arms whose interests coincided with his own; so that the Norman rule, continuing unbroken for nearly a century, welded England together by its heavy irresistible pressure.