The Norman Conquest occurred in 1066 when William the Conqueror defeated Harold, the Saxon king, and changed the ruling class in England. “The Conquest, while preserving the framework of the Old English state, gave to England a new dynasty, a new ruling class, and a new system of land holding.”1 The Saxons who were stood against William the Conqueror and were slain forfeited their lands, which William the Conqueror redistributed to his Norman followers.2

  1. Cornelius J. Moynihan & Sheldon F. Kurtz, Introduction to the Law of Real Property 1 (4th ed. 2005). ↩

  2. Id. ↩