25.3 Europe: a.d. 1001 to 1100  (Page 8/11)

In this century England enjoyed a warmer climate than it had had previously and there were now some 38 vineyards in the country. It was also the first time since the era of the Romans that London gained exceptional status as a city. The fact that England now had a monopoly on tin must have helped the economy. The languages of culture were Latin and French, with English regarded as inferior and all positions of power, both in the church and in the state, went to people of French origin, yet the population was 300:1 English, which is to say - Celt, Roman, German and Viking. By the end of the century, among the majority of the people, Middle English began to supersede Old English. England did not fully recover from this Norman invasion until the 19th century, but it was never invaded again. Celt, Gaul, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane and Norman all mixed blood with the original native stock to produce the modern English people. (Ref. 117 , 43 , 224 , 137 , 213 )

It was in 1086 that the famous Domesday Book was compiled on orders from William I to list the assets of landowners for the purpose of taxation. The book listed 25,000 slaves and 110,000 villains (serfs) among the properties. William died after an accident in 1087 while invading a portion of France and he was succeeded for the remainder of the century by his son, William Rufus. (Ref. 222 ) (Continue on page 588)

Scotland

The mainland of Scotland, apart from Galloway and the far north, was gradually taken over by Scots. The violence surrounding the Scottish kings subsided for awhile at the beginning of this century as Malcolm II ruled for 29 years. He protected his north by marrying a daughter of the Norse Earl of Orkney and then attacked the English in the south. He was defeated and his spearmen ended up with their heads decorating the palisades at Durham. Near the end of his reign, allied with the king of Strathclyde, he burned Northumbria and made his grandson, Duncan, the "King of all Cumbria". But then Malcolm, like so many others, was murdered by his own nobles and Duncan became king (after a few other claimants were killed). Duncan only lasted 6 years before he too was eliminated by the aforementioned Earl of Orkney and Macbeth (made famous by Shakespeare), who then reigned for 17 years. It was a son of Malcolm who finally killed Macbeth, with the help of Northumbrian troops, in the battle of Aberdeen. The victor became Malcolm III, called "Malcolm Canmore the Great Head (1057) and Scotland finally stepped from the Dark Ages.

Life in Scotland in these ages was a cycle of starvation and over-indulgence, temporary peace and wasteful war, drought and flood. Religion was a mixture of pagan myth and Celtic Christianity. People of the lowlands lived in lake houses high on timber piles; in the mountains they had mud huts, dry-stone walls and sod-roofed sheds, huddled about- early monasteries where they retreated when danger threatened. The social system was loosely tribal, a clan system in formation. By the time of Malcolm Canmore, mainland Scotland probably spoke a coalition of Gaelic and Pictish, with the former predominating and gradually replacing also the original Scandinavian language in the north and on the islands. But the Northumbrian rulers of Lothian, in the eastern lowlands, spoke English and this would soon become the language of most of Scotland and its kings, with Gaelic remaining only among the mountain people.