William declared that he did not propose to change the English customs but to govern as Edward the Confessor, the last Saxon king whom he acknowledged, had done. He tried to learn English, maintained the Witenagemot, and observed English practices. But he was a man of too much force to submit to the control of his people. While he appointed counts or earls in some of the shires (now come to be called _counties_), he controlled them by means of other royal officers called _sheriffs_. He avoided giving to any one person a great many estates in a single region, so that no one should become inconveniently powerful. Finally, in order to secure the support of the smaller landholders and to prevent combinations against him among the greater ones, he required every landholder in England to take an oath of fidelity directly to him. We read in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ (1086): "After that he went about so that he came, on the first day of August, to Salisbury, and there came to him his wise men [i.e., counselors], and all the landowning men of property there were over all England, whosesoever men they were; and all bowed down to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him that they would be faithful to him against all other men." [Sidenote: Domesday Book.] William's anxiety to have a complete knowledge of his whole kingdom is indicated by a remarkable historical document, the so-called _Domesday Book_. This is a register of the lands throughout England, indicating the value of each parcel, the serfs and stock upon it, the name of its holder and of the person who held it before the Conquest. This government report contained a vast amount of information which was likely to prove useful to William's taxgatherers. It is still valuable to the historian, although unfortunately he is not able in every case to interpret its terms satisfactorily. [Sidenote: William the Conqueror and the Church.] William's policy in regard to the Church indicates a desire to advance its interests in conjunction with his own. He called Lanfranc, an Italian who had been at the head of the famous monastery of Bec in Normandy, to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The king permitted the clergy to manage their own affairs and established bishops' courts to try a variety of cases. But homage was exacted from a bishop as from a lay vassal, and William refused to permit the pope to interfere in English affairs without his permission in each particular case. No papal legate was to enter the land without the king's sanction. No papal decree should be received in the English Church without his consent, nor his servants be excommunicated against his will. When Gregory VII demanded that he should become his vassal for the land that he had conquered under the papal auspices, William promptly refused. [Sidenote: General results of the Norman Conquest.]