Pre-Norman England and the Norman Conquest (1042–1100)

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Harold Godwinson (chosen by the Witan and the most powerful English earl); Harald Hardrada of Norway (a dynastic claim through earlier Scandinavian kings); William, Duke of Normandy (claimed Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne and that Harold had sworn an oath to support him).

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The Anglo-Saxon royal council of nobles, leading churchmen, and officials who advised the king and could choose his successor. After Edward the Confessor's death, the Witan chose Harold Godwinson as king on 6 January 1066.

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William of Normandy's forces (cavalry and archers) defeated Harold Godwinson's exhausted English infantry on a ridge in Sussex. Harold was killed — reportedly by an arrow. William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066.

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A deliberate campaign of destruction in northern England in response to Danish-backed English rebellions. William's armies burned crops, slaughtered livestock, and destroyed settlements. It killed tens of thousands and depopulated the region for a generation — effectively ending northern resistance to Norman rule.

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A comprehensive royal survey ordered by William I recording the ownership and value of all land and resources across England. Its purposes were to establish accurate taxation and to settle disputes over land ownership arising from the conquest. It was the most detailed administrative record in medieval Europe.

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He replaced Anglo-Saxon bishops with loyal Normans (notably Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070). The church provided administrative literacy, moral legitimacy (the Pope had blessed the conquest), and a network of loyal institutions across England.

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A hierarchy in which the king owned all land and granted it to tenants-in-chief (barons and bishops) in return for military service, who in turn sublet to under-tenants (knights). It replaced the Anglo-Saxon land-holding system and tied the entire ruling class to the king through obligations of service.

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Henry I defeated his older brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, imprisoning him for life. This reunited England and Normandy under a single ruler for the first time since William I's death in 1087 and secured Henry's position as the dominant Anglo-Norman king.

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A document issued by Henry I at his coronation promising to end abuses of William Rufus (over church appointments, taxation of baronial estates). Though partly political propaganda, it was a written royal commitment to limit certain powers — seen as a precedent for Magna Carta (1215).

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A royal accounting office that met twice a year to audit the revenues collected by sheriffs, using a chequered cloth as an abacus for calculations. Henry I developed it into a systematic tool for monitoring and controlling royal finances, making English royal administration more professional than any comparable European monarchy.

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The White Ship sank in the English Channel, drowning Henry I's only legitimate son, William Adelin. Henry had no male heir and attempted to secure the succession for his daughter Matilda — but after his death in 1135 the barons chose his nephew Stephen, leading to 'The Anarchy', a prolonged civil war.

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Before 1066: power was shared between the king, the Witan, and powerful Anglo-Saxon earls; land tenure was not uniformly feudal; the church was partly independent. After 1066: the king owned all land in theory (feudal pyramid); a new Norman ruling class replaced the Anglo-Saxon thegns; the church was reformed and tied to royal loyalty; a more centralised, literate royal administration began to develop.