The giver was considered the absolute owner of whatever he gave, as is the commander of a vessel at sea. It was a beneficium conferred by him, to which certain indispensable conditions were attached. Military duty was the first, but not the only one of these. Writers on feudalism mention a great number, the nonfulfilment of which incurred what was called forfeiture. In countries where the pirates succeeded in establishing themselves, all the native population was either destroyed by them, as Dudo tells us was the case in Normandy, or, as more frequently happened, the sword being unable to carry destruction so far, the inhabitants who survived were reduced to serfdom, and compelled to till the soil for the conquerors; they were thenceforth called villeins or ascripti glebae. It is clear that such only as possessed land could claim civil and political rights in the new states thus called into existence. Hence the owning of land under feudal tenure was the great and only essential characteristic of mediaeval feudalism. This system, which was first introduced into Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, was brought to a fixed and permanent state by the Normans--followers of William the Conqueror; and, when the time came for treachery to summon the Norman knights to Irish soil, the devoted island found herself face to face with an iron system which at that period crushed and weighed down all Europe. The Normans had now been settled in England for a hundred years; all the castles in the country were occupied by Norman lords; all bishopries filled by Norman bishops; all monasteries ruled by Norman abbots. At the head of the state stood the king, at that time Henry II. Here, more than in any other country in Europe, was the king the key-stone to the feudal masonry. Not an inch of ground in England was owned save under his authority, as enjoying the supremum dominium. All the land had been granted by his predecessors as fiefs, with the right of reversion to the crown by forfeiture in case of the violation of feudal obligations. Here was no allodial property, no censitive hereditary domain, as in the rest of, otherwise, feudal Europe. All English lawyers were unanimous in the doctrine that the king alone was the true master of the territory; that tenure under him carried with it all the conditions of feudal tenure, and that any deed or grant proceeding from his authority ought to be so understood. The south-western portion of Wales was occupied by Norman lords, Flemings for the most part. Two of these, Robert Fitzstephens and Maurice Fitzgerald, sailed to the aid of the Irish King of Leinster. They were the first to land, arriving a full year before Strongbow.