suspended others by the feet, or the head, or the thumbs, kindling
fires below them. They squeezed the heads of some with knotted
cords till they pierced their brains, while they threw others into
dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads."

The nation was mapped out, and the owners' names inscribed in the
Doomsday Book. There were no unoccupied lands, and had the
possessors been loyal and prudent, the sovereign would have had no
lands, save his own private domains, to give away, nor would the
industrious have been able to become tenants-in-fee. The
alterations which have taken place in the possession of land since
the composition of the Book of Doom, have been owing to the
disloyalty or extravagance of the descendants of those then found
in possession.

Notwithstanding the vast loss of life in the contests following
upon the invasion, the population of England increased from
2,150,000 in 1066, when William landed, to 3,350,000 in 1152, when
the great-grandson of the Conqueror ascended the throne, and the
first of the Plantagenets ruled in England.





V. THE PLANTAGENETS.


Whatever doubts may exist as to the influence of the Norman
Conquest upon the mass of the people--the FREEMEN, the ceorls, and