• Near the end of the 10th century, during the reign of Ethelred, fresh waves of fierce Danish fighters from the continent attacked the south. • In 1013 the Danish king, Sweyen, became master of England, and Ethelred fled to Normandy in France, the home of his wife Emma. • Soon afterwards Sweyen died, and the English sent for their ―lawful king‖. So Ethelred came back.
• Egbert, the king of Wessex, styled himself ―King of the English‖ in 829. • Christianity: all England was united under one well-organized church. The head of the Church was the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• In Sept., Duke William landed on the Sussex coast. • The Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14 Harold was killed and his army completely defeated. • On Christmas Day 1066 Duke William known in history as William the Conqueror was crowned in Westminster Abby.
1.1.2 The Roman Occupation (55 B.C.410)
• Julius Caesar’s two invasions (between 55 and 54 B.C.)，Britain was a Roman province in name. • Roman Occupation (43 A.D.—410A.D) The resulting growth of its civilization was more obvious in urban areas than among the agricultural peasants and weakest in the resistant highland zone. • Slave society was introduced into England.
1.2 THE GROWTH OF FEUDALISM
1.2.1 The Norman Conquest
• England was ruled by the Danish kings until 1042 when Hardecanute died without a son and Ethelred’s son Edward became king. Edward the Confessor ruled for 24 years and died in January 1066. • Harold, Earl of Wessex, claimed to be king • William, Duke of Normandy and the King of Norway insisted that Edward had promised the crown to him and that Harold had promised to help him become king of England.
• After Ethelred’s death in 1016, his son, Edmund, fought most heroically against the Danes, but he could not get enough forces to drive the Danes out. So he made an agreement with Canute, the son of Sweyen, providing that the country should be divided between them. Very soon after the treaty, Edmund died with mysterious suddenness, and Canute became the ruler of England.

• The Celts were wholly defeated • Before long the distinctions between these three tribes lost significance, and by the end of the 7th they regarded themselves as “the nation of the English”. • Heptarchy: but they lacked unity and England was divided into a number of kingdoms, considered by historians to have been seven, and therefore called the “heptarchy”.
• Canute went on collecting taxes in order to pay for foreign wars, which soon made him the King of Demark and Norway, too. But he worked hard to united the Danish and Saxon peoples. Canute died in 1035 and his two sons, Harold I and Hardecanute, reigned successively. After the death of Hardecanute, there was no capable man of the Danish line to claim the throne. The English once again ruled England.
• The Domesday (Doomsday) Book
• In 1086 William the Conqueror had his officials go through England and make a general survey of the land. According this survey, the total population of England was about 2 million, most of them lived in the countryside. Agriculture was the most important means of getting a living. The Anglo-Saxon freemen had been mostly degraded into the status of serfs. • The survey is known as the Domesday (Doomsday) Book
• The Norman Conquest increased the process of feudalism • William the Conqueror established a strong monarchy in England.
• The Norman lords received the grant of land from the king after the conquest, and in turn they were bound to regard the king as their feudal superior, to pay him certain dues and to do their military service for him if necessary. William the conqueror required not only his vassals but also the vassals of his vassals to take an oath that they would be faithful to him against all other men. This pledge bound the vassals directly to the king even against their immediate feudal lords.
1.1.4 The invasion of Vikings and the Danish Rule
• Vikings, around the turn of the 8th century, invaded England. • King Alfred of Wessex, after having defeated the Danes through many great battles, made an agreement with Guthrum, whom he had captured, that Guthrum was allowed to rule the north of England while he himself ruled the south. • ―Alfred the Great‖ – the beginning of Anglo-Saxon Times (871-1060)
Introduction to AngloAmerican Legal System
CHAPTER 1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND