tration of the affairs of
government, which was either brought over from Normandy or developed
in England. A body of trained, skilful government officials now
existed, who were able to carry out the wishes of the king, collect
his revenues, administer justice, gather armies, and in other ways
make his rule effective to an extent unknown in the preceding period.
The sheriffs, who had already existed as royal representatives in the
shires in Anglo-Saxon times, now possessed far more extensive powers,
and came up to Westminster to report and to present their financial
accounts to the royal exchequer twice a year. Royal officials acting
as judges not only settled an increasingly large number of cases that
were brought before them at the king's court, but travelled through
the country, trying suits and punishing criminals in the different
shires. The king's income was vastly larger than that of the
Anglo-Saxon monarchs had been. The old Danegeld was still collected
from time to time, though under a different name, and the king's
position as landlord of the men who had received the lands confiscated
at the Conquest was utilized to obtain additional payments.

Perhaps the greatest proof of the power and efficiency of the
government in the Norman period was the compilation of the great body
of statistics known as "Domesday Book." In 1085 King William sent
commissioners to every part of England to collect a variety of
information about the financial conditions on which estates were held,
their value, and fitness for further taxation. The information
obtained from this investigation was drawn up in order and written in
two large manuscript volumes which still exist in the Public Record
Office at London. It is a much more extensive body of information than
was collected for any other country of Europe until many centuries
afterward. Yet its statements, though detailed and exact and of great
interest from many points of view, are disappointing to the student of
history. They were obtained for the financial purposes of government,
and cannot be made to give the clear picture of the life of the people
and of the relations of different classes to one another which would
be so welcome, and which is so easily obtained from the great variety
of more private documents which came into existence a century and a
half later.

The church during this period was not relatively so conspicuous as
during Saxon times, but the number of the clergy,