At the time of the Conquest a very large number of manors belonged to bishoprics and monasteries. Now the Normans were a Christian race. The Norman Conquest was not like the Saxon or the Danish Conquest--a rush of heathen, bent on plunder and bloodshed. Bitter as the strife was, it was not as bad as those invasions had been. There was something which the Normans and the later Saxons both respected, and that was their religion. The Normans were a particularly religious and devout people, stern and cruel as they were. The lands of the Church and of the monasteries were not interfered with to any extent. King William, however, took care that they were in the hands of people whom he could trust. The story is told that the Saxon abbot, Frederick of St. Alban's, who did not love the Normans, once remarked to King William that he owed his easy conquest of England to the fact that so many of the manors were held by monks and clergy, who could not and would not bring out their men to fight. The king replied that that must be mended; for enemies might again invade the land, and he must have men whom he could depend upon to meet the foe. At that time a great tract of land between St. Albans and London belonged to the Abbey, and the abbot allowed Saxon outlaws to infest it, who were a great nuisance to the Normans. As the land had been given by former kings, the king at once took half of it back again, in order to clear out the outlaws. Abbot Frederick had said too much. He fled away to the Camp of Refuge at Ely, and King William would only accept as abbot a Norman and a friend of his--Paul de Caen. That was a very good appointment for St. Albans. The great tower of the Abbey Church, still standing, was built by him--more than eight centuries ago. CHAPTER XVII In Norman Times (_Cont._) The king, then, granted manors to his followers, and to such Saxon eorls and thanes as were willing to hold their lands on the same conditions as the Normans. If they objected, as from time to time a good many of them did, they had to go. Now, though every manor had a lord, where the lord held many manors it was quite impossible for him to be living in the manor-house of each of them, and looking after his estate himself. He could, if he chose, let out some portions of these manors to a man beneath him in rank, on exactly the same conditions as the king had granted to him. The man must swear to be his vassal, and appear, when required, with his proper number of men, to fight his lord's battles. He, in his turn, might let parts of the lands to others under him.