SECTION II
NORMAN INSTITUTIONS. 9II-I066.
MINDFUL of what has been said of the two main
sources, Anglo-Saxon and Norman, from which the
English constitution began its growth,1 and having now
seen something of Anglo-Saxon institutions, we turn here
to the Norman background. As this is, in a sense, the
whole continental institutional past with roots running
back to Rome and perhaps further, it is obvious that but
a bit of it can be touched on here, just those parts which
we find expressed in Norman institutions and which
Normandy gave to England.2
Normandy had existed as a duchy during the tenth and
eleventh centuries, just the period when the feudalism of
the continent was dominant. Hence when the Viking
conquerors of the lower Seine were learning the language
and adopting the mode of life of the more numerous con-
quered population they were growing into the feudal life
of northern Prance. They were no isolated group. They
formed a vassal state of Prance and were acquainted with
1 See above, Introduction.
2 "The institutions of the duchy of Normandy occupy a unique place
in the history of Europe, They have their local interest, giving character
and distinctness to an important region of France; they furnished models
of orderly and centralised administration to the French kings after the con-
quest of the duchy by Philip Augustus; and they exerted an influence of
the first importance upon the constitutional and legal development of
England and the countries of English law. Normandy was thus the chan-
nel through which the stream of Prankish and feudal custom flowed to Eng-
land ; it was the training ground where the first Anglo-Norman king gained
his experience as a ruler, and the source whence his followers drew their
ideas of law and government," C, H, Haskins, Norman Institutions,
p. vii,
72