You are viewing a free preview of this lesson.
Subscribe to unlock all 10 lessons in this course and every other course on LearningBro.
By 1060, England was one of the wealthiest and most sophisticated kingdoms in western Europe. It possessed a functioning system of royal government, a silver-based coinage minted at over sixty centres, a productive agricultural economy, and a Church integrated with Rome. Yet political power rested on a narrow base: the king, the witan (the council of leading men), and a handful of great earls whose regional authority rivalled that of the Crown itself. Understanding this society — its structure, its tensions, and its institutions — is essential because every change the Normans introduced after 1066 was measured against the Anglo-Saxon world they replaced.
This lesson sets out the social hierarchy from king to slave, the rise of the dominant Godwin family, the character and government of Edward the Confessor's reign, and the economic, ecclesiastical, and military foundations on which late Anglo-Saxon England rested. The picture is not of a primitive society waiting to be reformed, but of a mature state in which royal succession was unstable and factional rivalry severe — conditions that would make 1066 possible.
Anglo-Saxon society was stratified and legally defined. A person's wergild (the blood-price payable if they were killed) expressed their rank in law.
| Rank | Role | Approximate wergild |
|---|---|---|
| King | Supreme ruler, lawgiver, war-leader | No fixed price |
| Earl | Governor of a large region; commanded the fyrd | 1,200 shillings (as thegn) |
| Thegn | Landholding warrior; served king or earl | 1,200 shillings |
| Ceorl | Free peasant farmer | 200 shillings |
| Slave | No rights; roughly 10% of the population | None |
The king was chosen from the royal house, but kingship was not strictly hereditary. The witan — an assembly of earls, bishops, abbots and leading thegns — advised the king, witnessed charters, and could approve or contest a succession. In January 1066 the witan would play precisely this role.
By 1060 four earldoms dominated: Wessex (Harold Godwinson), Mercia (Aelfgar, then Edwin), Northumbria (Tostig Godwinson), and East Anglia (Gyrth). Earls collected the "third penny" of the shire's revenues, led its forces, and could raise rebellion if alienated.
Thegns held at least five hides of land and owed military service. Ceorls farmed their own land, paid geld (the national tax), and served in the fyrd. Slaves — about one in ten of the population according to later Domesday returns — could be freed but had no legal personality of their own.
No family rose faster in eleventh-century England than the Godwins. Earl Godwin of Wessex, a Sussex thegn of uncertain origin, had been advanced by King Cnut after 1018. By 1060 his sons controlled three of the four great earldoms and his daughter was queen.
graph TD
G[Earl Godwin d.1053] --> H[Harold Godwinson — Earl of Wessex]
G --> T[Tostig — Earl of Northumbria 1055]
G --> GY[Gyrth — Earl of East Anglia]
G --> L[Leofwine — Earl of south-east Mercia]
G --> E[Edith — Queen of Edward the Confessor]
Earl of Wessex from 1053, Harold was the most powerful subject in the kingdom. He campaigned successfully in Wales in 1063, destroying the power of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, and increasingly acted as Edward's principal lieutenant.
Made Earl of Northumbria in 1055, Tostig attempted to impose southern royal taxation on a region used to light government. His severity — including the judicial killing of Northumbrian thegns — provoked a rebellion in 1065 that his own brother Harold refused to suppress. Tostig was exiled; his grievance would shape the events of 1066.
Edith of Wessex married Edward in 1045. The marriage produced no children, a failure that would become decisive. Edith's political role — patroness of Wilton Abbey, commissioner of the Vita AEdwardi Regis — kept Godwin influence at the heart of the court.
Edward (reigned 1042–1066) had spent his youth in exile in Normandy after the Danish conquest of England under Cnut. He returned to the throne in 1042 shaped by Norman tastes.
Edward was devout, eventually canonised in 1161. His reputation for chastity — and the absence of an heir from his marriage to Edith — contributed to the succession crisis.
Edward promoted Norman clerics and courtiers, notably Robert of Jumieges (Archbishop of Canterbury 1051–52) and Ralph "the Timid", his nephew, made Earl of Hereford. This caused resentment: in 1051 a quarrel between Godwin and Edward over the treatment of Norman visitors at Dover led to Godwin's temporary exile, during which William of Normandy is said to have visited Edward and been promised the succession.
Godwin returned in 1052 with a fleet, forcing Edward to restore him. Robert of Jumieges fled; Stigand was installed at Canterbury. From 1053 — with Godwin dead and his sons in the saddle — Edward governed with, rather than against, the Godwin interest.
England was divided into shires (counties), each under a sheriff (scir-gerefa) who answered to the king. Shires were subdivided into hundreds, which held courts roughly every four weeks to settle disputes and try criminal cases. This territorial system, largely formed in the tenth century, was so effective that the Normans kept it almost unchanged.
The king communicated with his local officials through short, sealed letters — writs — in Old English. Writs allowed rapid, documented royal action across the kingdom and were a technology few continental rulers possessed.
Alfred's burhs — fortified towns — had become by 1060 the economic backbone of England. London, York, Winchester, Norwich and Lincoln each supported mints, markets and mercantile communities. English silver pennies, struck to a uniform weight, circulated as far as Scandinavia and the Rhineland. Geld could be levied nationally; a kingdom that could collect tax was a kingdom worth conquering.
Most wealth came from mixed farming — wheat, barley, oxen, sheep — organised around open fields and nucleated villages, particularly in the Midlands. Estates were worked by ceorls, cottars and slaves under the supervision of thegns or their reeves.
By 1060 the Church was wealthy, literate and in full communion with Rome. Dioceses such as Worcester (Wulfstan) and Exeter were well-run. But there were faults: Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1052, held Winchester simultaneously (pluralism) and had received his pallium from the antipope Benedict X, making his position canonically dubious. Reformers at Rome would seize on this after 1066.
The tenth-century Benedictine revival had founded or refounded houses such as Glastonbury, Ely, Peterborough and Winchester. Monasteries were landlords, schools and centres of manuscript production.
The Anglo-Saxon army had two parts:
The English fought on foot behind a shield wall. It was a proven formation — but one vulnerable to a long campaign or to missile weapons used creatively.
Paper 2 Section B Q4(a) asks you to describe two features. For Anglo-Saxon society that might be "the role of the witan" or "the position of the earls". Give one sentence of identification and one sentence of supporting detail per feature — nothing more. Do not narrate.
For Q4(b) "explain why" questions on Godwin power or Edward's Norman sympathies, structure each paragraph around a clear reason + precise evidence + explicit link to the question. Name Harold, Tostig, Edith and Robert of Jumieges accurately. Avoid vague phrases such as "many people were unhappy"; Edexcel rewards specific, named detail.
For the 16-mark Q4(c)/(d) "how far do you agree" on the state of England in 1066, develop a clear argument — for example that the kingdom was strong institutionally but fragile dynastically — and sustain it through at least three substantiated paragraphs plus a judgement.
This content is aligned with the Edexcel GCSE History (1HI0) Paper 2 British Depth Study specification.