rlike retainers, and erected each into a Barony.
The Barons rented a portion of their domains to their Knights, which were
denominated knights' fiefs, and were 60,215 in number;--these again
sub-let part of their fiefs to their Esquires. The cultivation of the
soil and all kind of manual labor were carried on by the vassals, or
villeins, who formed the mass of the people. Each class owed rent, suit,
and service to their superiors, and the whole were subject to the Lord
paramount, or Sovereign, to whom the right to the soil of all the land in
his kingdom was reserved, and the herbage or surface alone was granted to
the Barons and their tenants, on condition of yielding suit and service
to the King, failing which the land reverted to its original owner--the
Lord paramount. The wily Conqueror thus founded a superstructure of
government which proved impregnable to all assaults from the vanquished
races, and reared a cordon of despotism strong and compact from within,
and unassailable from without.

The object of this superstructure being military strength, each Norman
Baron erected a stately castle fortified by walls, towers, and, if
available, a moat, on the strongest site or position within his manor.
Here the Baron dwelt, with his domestics, and a chosen body of his
warlike vassals, who always bore arms, and watched and were prepared by
day and by night at any alarm to sally forth to any summons of conquest
or defence. In times of peace the chief occupation of the Baron and his
principal retainers was the chase, and the game on the manor was
preserved with the greatest care, and its destruction guarded against by
the forest laws, which were the most cruel of any enactments on record,
inasmuch as the punishment for killing a deer or even a hare was the
taking out the eyes of the delinquent; while at the same time the
punishment of homicide, or murder, was only a small pecuniary fine, and
when perpetrated by the Baron or any of his retainers on an inferior
vassal was seldom enforced. In short, under this system there was then
no appeal or redress by an inferior for any crime or wrong perpetrated by
his superior in rank; and the vassals, or people at large, were in a
state of the greatest subjection and most abject slavery, inasmuch as the
will and pleasure of the superior liege formed the only law of the land.

It is certain that the feudal system after the Norman model never existed
among the Saxons in this island, o