IV. THE NORMANS.

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.