By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 273 
to rule his new subjects with moderation, large properties and 
offices of trust were left in the hands of Englishmen; and, though 
after a period of twenty years (the interval between the battle of 
Hastings and Domesday), he had been induced, by the risings of 
the English, to increase the weight of his yoke and the amount of 
his territorial spoliations, yet he frequently contented himself with 
putting his own men into the best things and the most influential 
position (as here Humphrey de Il’Isle), while he continued the 
smaller fiefs and manors to the original Saxon proprietors (as here 
to Saward and Rainburgis). They all held of the King directly, 
and not any of them through a mesne lord, but Humphrey had 
said to the three nameless thanes: ‘“‘ Hwe mea sunt; veteres migrate 
coloni,”’ whereas Saward and Rainburgis were themselves these 
ceteres colon. And yet these last did not occupy their precise 
former position under the Saxon rule. I am not going to enter 
into the vexed question of feudal tenures before the conquest. The 
name probably did not then exist, though to a certain less metho- 
dised and less oppressive degree the thing did. There were not 
(under Edward the Confessor) the forms of feudalism, the peculiar 
ceremonies and incidents of a regular fief, such as homage and oath 
of fealty; but there were that dependance of one class on another, 
and that territorial jurisdiction,! which may be held to constitute 
the essential character of the feudal relation. William extended 
and enlarged the rights of a suzerain over his vassals, he did not 
invent them. He moulded Saxon institutions into a Norman 
shape. The most notable instance of usurpation was his assuming 
to himself the direct ownership of all the lands in the country: on 
his acquisition of the crown, he made himself the one proprietor, 
as well as the one King. He was actually for a certain time, and 
not by any fiction as in succeeding ages, the fountain of all pro- 
perty. Allodial lands, or lands held under no superior, ceased with 
Harold; these were converted into feudal tenures, involving many 
and oppressive burdens, such as personal service, relief or fine 
(which a new heir paid on entering into possession) ; premier seisin 
‘This is implied in what I take to be the true derivation (it is Lord Coke’s) of 
the word manor, namely from mesner to manage. 
