plete list of the old Saxon gentry and of the Norman nobles and
adventurers who seized the fair acres of the despoiled Englishmen. Many
of them gave their names to their new possessions. The Mandevilles
settled at Stoke, and called it Stoke-Mandeville; the Vernons at
Minshall, and called it Minshall-Vernon. Hurst-Pierpont, Neville-Holt,
Kingston-Lysle, Hampstead-Norris, and many other names of places
compounded of Saxon and Norman words, record the names of William's
followers, who received the reward of their services at the expense of
the former Saxon owners. _Domesday Book_ tells us how land was measured
in those days, the various tenures and services rendered by the tenants,
the condition of the towns, the numerous foreign monasteries which
thrived on our English lands, and throws much light on the manners and
customs of the people of this country at the time of its compilation.
_Domesday Book_ is a perfect storehouse of knowledge for the historian,
and requires a lifetime to be spent for its full investigation.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF A MANOR]

CHAPTER XI

NORMAN CASTLES

Castle-building--Description of Norman castle--A Norman household--
Edwardian castles--Border castles--Chepstow--Grosmont--Raglan--Central
feature of feudalism--Fourteenth-century castle--Homes of chivalry--
Schools of arms--The making of a knight--Tournaments--Jousts--Tilting
at a ring--Pageants--"Apollo and Daphne"--Pageants at Sudeley Castle
and Kenilworth--Destruction of castles--Castles during Civil War period.

Many an English village can boast of the possession of the ruins of an
ancient castle, a gaunt rectangular or circular keep or donjon, looking
very stern and threatening even in decay, and mightily convincing of the
power of its first occupants. The new masters did not feel very safe in
the midst of a discontented and enraged people; so they built these huge
fortresses with strong walls and gates and moats. Indeed before the
Conquest the Norman knights, to whom the weak King Edward the Confessor
granted many an English estate, brought with them the fashion of
building castles, and many a strong square tower began to crown the
fortified mounds. Thence they could oppress the people in many ways, and
the writers of the time always speak of the building of castles with a
kind of shudder. After the Conquest, especially during the regency of
William's two lieutenants, Bishop Odo and Earl William Fitz-osbern, the
Norman adven