I should never have done, if I were to tell you all the changes that were made in dear old England by the Normans. But there is one I must try to explain to you, because it will help you to understand the rest of our history. When William was quite settled in England, which was not till after seven years, when the poor English were tired of trying to drive him and his Normans away, he took the houses and lands from the English thanes and earls, and gave them to the Norman noblemen, who were called barons. This was unjust. But as the Normans had conquered the English, they were obliged to submit even to this. But William made an agreement with the barons to whom he gave the lands of the old thanes, that when he went to war they should go with him; that they should have those lands for themselves and their children, instead of being paid for fighting, as soldiers and their officers are now, and that they should bring with them horses and arms for themselves, and common men to fight also. Some of the barons who had very large shares of land given to them, were bound to take a hundred men or more to the wars; some, who had less land, took fifty, or even twenty. The greatest barons had sometimes so much land, that it would have been troublesome to them to manage it all themselves; so they divided it among gentlemen whom they knew, and made them promise to go with them to the wars, and bring their servants, in the same manner as the great barons themselves did to the king. Now these lands were called feuds, and the king was called the feudal lord of the barons, because they received the _feud_ or piece of land from him, and they in return promised to serve him; and the great barons were called the feudal lords of the small barons, or gentlemen, for the same reason. And when these feuds were given by the king to the great baron, or by a great baron to another, the person to whom it was given knelt down before his feudal lord, and kissed his hand, and promised to serve him. This was called _homage_. There is only one more thing that I shall tell you about William. He sent people to all parts of England, to see what towns and villages there were, and how many houses and people in them; and he had all the names written in a book called “Domesday Book.” Domesday means the day of judging, and this book enabled him to judge how much land he had, and how many men he could raise to fight for him.