Note 255 — Chapter II · THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMITIVE POPULUS

Bluntschli, Theory of the State, 142; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 11. There were nobles both in England and in Normandy before the conquest. After the battle of Senlac most of the English nobles submitted to William, and were allowed to redeem their lands; Freeman, ibid. iv. 13 f., 36 f. It was only in punishment for later rebellion that they lost their holdings, and some English thanes were never displaced; cf. Powell, in Traill, Social England, i. 240.