tened from another enemy of infinitely
greater importance--Duke William of Normandy. It was not only this
sovereign, and his land, but a new phase of development in the history
of the world, with which England now entered into conflict.

_The Conquest._

Out of the antagonism of nationalities, of the Empire and the Church,
of the overlord and the great chiefs, in the midst of invasions of
foreign peoples and armies, the local resistance to them and their
occupations of territory, a new world had, as it were, been forming
itself in Southern Europe, and especially in Gaul. Still more
decidedly than in England had the invading Vikings in France attached
themselves to the national element, even in the second generation they
had given up their language; they discovered at the same time a form
which reconciled the membership in the kingdom, and the recognition of
the common faith, with provincial freedom. In France no native power
successfully opposed and checked the advancing Normans, such as that
which the Danes had encountered in England. On the contrary they
exercised the greatest influence over the foundation of a new dynasty.
A system developed itself over the whole realm, in which, both in the
provincial authorities and in the lower degrees of rank, the
possession of land and share in public office, feudalism and freedom,
interpenetrated each other, and made a common-weal which yet
harmonised with all the inclinations that lend charm and colouring to
individual life. The old migratory impulse and spirit of warlike
enterprise set before itself religious aims also, which lent it a
higher sanction; war for the Church, and conquest (which meant for
each man a personal occupation of land) were combined in one. Starting
from Normandy, where great warlike families were formed that found no
occupation at home (for these young populations are wont to multiply
quickest), North French love of war and habits of war transplanted
themselves to Spain and to Italy. How must it have elevated their
spirit of enterprise when in the latter country the Papacy, which had
just thrown off the supremacy of the emperor, and entered on a new
stage in the development of its power, made common cause with their
arms, and a practised Norman warrior, Robert Guiscard, appeared as
Duke of Apulia and Calabria 'by grace of God and of S. Peter and,
under his protection, of Sicily also in time to come'![11] The Pope
gave him lands in fief, which had hi