William the Conqueror
historical figure · 6 works · 12 mentions · 25 anchored passages
the Conqueror · William · Duke William · William I · A French Bastard · William I. · William the conqueror · the Duke of Normandy · this great conqueror
in the texts
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
Norman king whose brief legal code is discussed as further evidence of limited royal legislative authority.
† The Norman princes, from William the Conqueror to John, I think without exception, bound themselves, and, in order to maintain their thrones, were obliged to bind themselves, to observe the ancient laws and customs, in other words, the “lex terræ,” or “common law” of the kingdom.
and most of the laws contained in it are taken from the laws of the preceding kings, and especially of Edward the Confessor (whose laws William swore to observe);
Crabbe says that William the Conqueror “solemnly swore that he would observe the good and approved laws of Edward the Confessor.
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
First Norman King of England, who conquered England in 1066 and laid the foundations of the strong medieval English monarchy.
Henry’s Exchequer thus found one of its most powerful weapons in the great Domesday Survey, the most enduring proof of the statesmanship of the Conqueror, by whose orders and under whose direction it had been compiled.
Three kings in particular contributed to this result—William the Conqueror, Henry Beauclerk, and Henry Plantagenet.
Gratitude to the Pope for moral support in effecting the Conquest never modified William’s determination to allow no unwarranted papal interference in his new domains.
Institutes of Roman Law
English king credited with introducing trial by Wager of battle.
So, in English law, trial by Wager of battle, introduced by William the Conqueror, was first partially superseded by the Grand assize, or trial by jury, an alternative substituted by Henry II, and was finally abolished in the reign of George III.
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
Norman king credited in popular theory with confiscating English land
Those again who have paid any attention to its history, have possibly heard that Copyhold Tenure has descended from the precarious holdings of Bondmen or Slaves, a condition to which the greatest part of the Anglo-Saxon population is supposed to have been reduced after the alleged destruction of the ancient land-law of England and confiscation of its soil by William the Conqueror.
The Genius of the Common Law
Norman conqueror of England referenced as an early figure of direct, patriarchal royal intervention in justice.
No room is left for patriarchal intervention like the Conqueror’s or even Henry II’s.
Common Sense
Norman conqueror of England whose seizure of power by force Paine uses to expose the ignoble and usurped origins of English monarchy
A French Bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself King of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.
and that William the conqueror was a usurper is a fact not to be contradicted.