It is remarkable proof of the Conqueror's statesmanship that his tenurial revolution never degenerated into a scramble for land. In every part of England the great redistribution was controlled by the king and carried out by his ministers on lines which [William] himself laid down.

it became usual for a Norman lord in England to find himself endowed within each shire not with a miscellaneous collection of manors but rather with all the lands which had formerly belonged to one or more pre-Conquest landowners … while the transference of possession was of course sometimes accompanied by private violence, it was more often effected without disturbance, and it is wholly remarkable how frequently cases of dispute were settled at the king's command by reference to traditional legal process … [and with a] respect for legal precedent.