120 THE NORMANS IN DORSET. 



and were left in undisturbed possession. It is also likely 

 that many of the old landowners lived on as occupiers of the 

 ground that formerly belonged to them. As for the lower 

 classes of villeins and ceorls, the main stream of contem- 

 porary politics hardly touched them at all. If they had to 

 work, or if they had to fight, the question of who was in 

 command made little or no difference to them. 



Indeed, the political changes were not so much the real 

 source of trouble as the general atmosphere of demoralisation 

 and lawlessness which followed the flood of truculent foreigners 

 who were scouring the country. In a few } 7 ears the Normans 

 had built 1,200 castles some 30 to each county ; a large 

 proportion of these were veritable hornets' nests, garrisoned 

 by ruthless partisans of King William, who. whilst they 

 exacted his service and that of their lords, did not scruple 

 to help themselves to anything they wanted, and missed no 

 opportunity of bringing home to Englishmen the fact of their 

 subjection. The " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle " and the writings 

 of Ordericus Vitalis draw us pictures which approach in 

 horrid detail the recent atrocities perpetrated in Macedonia 

 and the Eastern Levant. 



These tribulations were not long in coming to Dorset. In 

 1068 the people of the West had organised a plan of resistance 

 to the encroachments of the foreign government. " The 

 smaller towns of Devonshire and Dorset entered into a league 

 with the capital " (Freeman). William at once marched to 

 Exeter, calling out his newly-enlisted English militia from 

 the conquered shires, and after his custom made a progress 

 of terror westwards, " harrying frightfully the towns of 

 Dorset " as he went.* 



At that time four towns were recognised as Royal boroughs 

 in the county Dorchester, which in King Edward's time 

 contained 172 houses before 1085, 100 of them lay in ruins ; 

 Bridport, which by that date had lost 20 houses out of 120 ; 



* "William the Conqueror," p. 113. 



