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But he was not just a conqueror. He was also a controller, and his recasting of England has reverberated for centuries. It was not enough to transfer lands owned by Anglo-Saxon nobility to his own supporters; he required these men to provide him with military service in return for their land and to owe him ultimate loyalty. He convened juries of locals to find fact and give a collective verdict under oath in land disputes. He commissioned a monument to centralized power: the Domesday Book, an invasive audit of the wealth of England. William has been credited with the emergence of the bureaucratic state in Europe; certainly his utter domination of a compact kingdom became a model for monarchs of the next 800 years.
But Norman order was cruel, and the systematic cronyism William installed bred a rapacious class of official epitomized by Robin Hood's Sheriff of Nottingham. When the grossly obese King died in 1087 (of a riding injury sustained while torching the city of Mantes), some of his servants rushed off to secure their properties; others stole his silver and furniture. His body broke in two while attendants tried to force it into a coffin; the stench cut the service short. In death, he lost control. But he had set in place a new order.
--By David Van Biema