Normans
The coming of the Normans brought depression of the peasantry. A good deal of the land became the lord’s domain-land, and “churls” mostly saiak into “villeins,” serfs bound to the soil. Nevertheless, the divisions between classes were less sharp than in France. Between lords and villeins there were sokemen, who were freemen and freeholders in a limited sense; they served in the wars, and formed the yeoman class, described by Raleigh as “an order of men which generally have composed our better sort of foot soldiers, and with which few parts of the world besides England are acquainted.” The Norman kings were not obliged or disposed to give their great vassals the independence and power which they enjoyed in France. William and his successors always had mercenary troops in their pay, which might be used against rebellious lords, and they encouraged the payment of scutage in lieu of military service as it furnished them with the means of hiring knights. Private war was restricted, and few nobles had strong castles except during the years of anarchy which preceded the rule of Henry II. The barons, when resisting aggressions of the crown, and the king, when upholding the royal authority, felt the need of help from the lower classes, and had to buy it by concessions. As time went on the status of the villeins improved, the services due from them to their lords were defined, they became well-to-do, and were able to commute their obligations for money which was readily accepted by lords bound on Crusades or distant expeditions. By the middle of the fourteenth century a large proportion of the peasantry had become hired labourers instead of villeins. There is a ring of good fellowship which would have seemed strange to a French prince in the speech of the Black Prince to his archers before the battle of Poitiers.
The armies which Edward III. led to France were national armies of paid soldiers. The drawbacks of feudal service had been keenly felt by Edward I. m his Welsh and Scottish wars. It yielded an ill-trained and undisciplined host which was not bound to remain more than forty days in the field. The twelfth century alternative, to accept scutage and hire foreign mercenaries, had been checked by Magna Carta, and could only be adopted on a small scale, as in the case of Gascon crossbowuien. The king might bargain with his vassals that they should furnish him with a reduced number of knights for an increased period, and so obtain a more useful force ; but this method did jiot prove sufficient, and Edward I. introduced thesystem of payment in spite of the opposition of the greater lords.i Of the 2400 men-at-arms which he took with him to Scotland in 1298, more than half were receiving wages from him.In the fourteenth century this developed into the indenture system, under which tEe king made contracts with certain leaders to furnish so many men at fixed rates of pay.