f their land to sub-tenants, each engaging to bring
himself and a specified number of knights. There might thus be a
regular chain of sub-tenants, A engaging to serve under B, B under C,
C under D, and so on till the tenant-in-chief was reached, who engaged
to bring them all to serve the king. Almost all the larger
tenants-in-chief were Normans, though Englishmen were still to be
found amongst the sub-tenants, and even amongst the smaller
tenants-in-chief. The whole body, however, was preponderantly Norman,
and William could therefore depend upon it to serve him as an army in
the field in case of an English rising.

6. =How William kept down the Normans.=--William was not afraid only
of the English. He had cause to fear lest the feudal army, which was
to keep down the English, might be strong enough to be turned against
himself, and that the barons--as the greater tenants-in-chief were
usually called--might set him at naught as Eadwine and Morkere had set
Harold at naught, and as the Dukes of Normandy had set at naught the
kings of France. To prevent this he adopted various contrivances.

_(a) Abolition of the great Earldoms._--In the first place he
abolished the great earldoms. In most counties there were to be no
earls at all, and no one was to be earl of more than one county. There
was never again to be an Earl of the West Saxons like Godwine, or an
Earl of the Mercians like Leofric.

_(b) The Estates of the Barons scattered._--- Not only did William
diminish the official authority of the earls, he also weakened the
territorial authority of the barons. Even when he granted to one man
estates so numerous that if they had been close together they would
have extended at least over a whole county, he took care to scatter
them over England, allowing only a few to be held by a single owner in
any one county. If, therefore, a great baron took it into his head to
levy war against the king, he would have to collect his vassals from
the most distant counties, and his intentions would thus be known
before they could be put in practice.

_(c) The Fyrd kept in readiness._--Still more important was William's
resolution to be the real head of the English nation. He had weakened
it enough to fear it no longer, but he kept it strong enough to use
it, if need came, against the Norman barons. He won Englishmen to his
side by the knowledge that he was ready to do them justice whenever
they were wronged, and he could therefore ventur