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World history from an Islamic perspective
Readers are advised to use Islamic terminology if they are
to really understand historical events properly.
CE Christian Era/Current Era
Crusades: Acts of Institutionalised (State-sponsored)
International Religious Terrorism. This involved gross
human rights violations, mass genocide, crimes
committed against humanity including murder, rape,
sodomy and every conceivable torture has been done to
the victims of the Christian Era. Victims have included
Christians themselves, Pagans, Muslims, Slavs, Irish,
Today known as Portugal and Spain. These two countries
did not exist when the Muslims / Moors ruled the Iberian
Peninsula. Spain is only five centuries old whereas the
Moors had a presence in the Iberian Peninsula for over
“Thus We have made you into a just Ummah so that you can
be WITNESS against other nations, and the Messenger a
witness over yourselves.”
'And thou seest many of them vying with one another in sin
and transgression and their devouring of illicit gain. Verily
evil is what they do'
'Why do not the rabbis and the priests forbid their evil-
speaking and their devouring of illicit gain ? Verily evil
is their handiwork'
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................7
ISLAMOPHOBIC ISLES .......................................................................................11
THE GROWTH OF DAR AL-ISLAM .................................................................14
THE GROWTH OF DAR AL-KUFR...................................................................15
PREPARING FOR THE CRUSADES................................................................19
CRUSADING CLERICS ........................................................................................22
WILLIAM THE BASTARD ...................................................................................25
1066: NORMAN CRUSADE OF THE BRITISH ISLES..............................27
THE NORMAN SUBJUGATION OF ENGLAND ............................................31
FRENCH LANGUAGE ...............................................................................................37
CATEGORY FRENCH WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE .............................38
THE NORMAN CHURCH IN BRITAIN ......................................................................40
INSTITUTIONALISED FEUDALISM ................................................................43
FINANCING THE CRUSADES: TAXING THE ENGLISH UNTIL
ROYAL FINANCES AND TAX COLLECTION ...............................................58
TAX AVOIDANCE: LADY GODIVA ..................................................................60
DEATH OF THE MAN OF THE MILLENNIUM ............................................60
Preface and Acknowledgements
This book and others in World History from an Islamic
Perspective series would not have been researched and
written without meeting Brother X – a revert to the religion
of his enslaved ancestors. I first met Brother X when he
returned to England after having travelled and studied in
Sudan where he learnt Arabic, history, philosophy, etc. It
was during a brief discussion that he suggested that there
was a religious dimension to historical events such as
European colonialism, African slavery and the voyages of
discovery. Finding this hard to believe, I began borrowing
library books to check to see if this was true. After several
years of research, I have concluded that the definition of
'secularism' should be expanded to include 'the separation
of religion from history'. What is taught as history is in fact
his story. In reality, the European Voyages of Discovery
were in fact the Naval Crusades, the Protestant Revolution
was in reality The Protestant Crusade, the First World War
was The Last Crusade, the objective of the Crusades and
Zionism is one and the same.
My thanks also goes to those brothers and sisters, work
colleagues, acquaintances, family and friends who have
suggested, advised, assisted, read unpublished versions of
this book and provided valuable feedback.
Finally I would like to thank the publishers…
This book is the first in a series of Islamic History books
which shows its reader the reality of many Historical
events and how the West have glossed, conveniently
forgotten, manipulated and simply lied to absolve
themselves from their bloody deeds.
History is always a testament to the future and we must
be aware of our Islamic History and how we have allowed
ourselves to be humiliated.
The Crusades are not over and will continue until the day
we meet our Lord. This is evident from the conflicts in
Bosnia, Kosova, Indonsia, Nigeria, Somalia as well as
Palestine. Infact, in every part of the Muslim World conflict
is instigated by the West, their allies and the friends of the
Jews and Christians – the Rulers of the Muslim nations.
The God of secularism and the hatred of Islam is
Millions of Muslims are killed, their homes destroyed, their
families broken up all in the name of freedom….
The question is should we remain silent when this fierce
Jihad is being fought against us, against our mothers,
against our children, against the teachings of our Prophet
ε and against the will of Allah Υ.
Allah Υ says in the Quran:
…Nor will the unbelievers cease fighting you until they
succeed in turning you away from your Religon if they
Surah Al Baqarah 217
This above ayah is very, very clear and if one was to look
at the tafsir of Ibn Kathir, this ayah is barely explained.
Allah Υ tell us that the kuffar will never stop fighting us ,
until we ourselves(or they make us) become kuffar.
This brutal killing and slaying of Muslims must be halted.
This suppression of the innocent must be stopped – we
must not become indifferent to these continuous killings
over the centuries.
We must look to the future
We know what we have to do
“Allah is the one who has sent his messenger with the
Guidance and the True Religon to make it prevail over all
other Religon, even though the polytheists may detest it”
Surah al Taubah 32 & 33
Maktabah Al Ansaar
According to the Roman Christian calendar, 15th July
1999 marked the 900th anniversary when Crusaders first
captured Jerusalem and slaughtered up to 70,000
Muslims i.e. over four and half centuries after Jerusalem
had first fallen to the Muslims without a single loss of life.
There has never been a religion in the annals of the world
with such a bloody record as Christianity. Many of the
murdering Crusaders were Normans from Normandy in
Northern France. One of the Crusaders was William the
Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose – a Norman who
took a British contingent with him to the Holy Land where
he led assaults on Antioch and Jerusalem. After sacking
Jerusalem in July 1099 CE, Robert's commanders offered
to make him the king of Jerusalem, but he declined the
nomination to get back to England. William's son-in-law,
Count Stephen of Blois was killed in the Holy Land.
However, Muslims were not the first victims of Christian
and Norman terrorism. The first victims were the English /
British in 1066 CE i.e. 29 years before the First Crusade,
when Pope Alexander 2nd excommunicated king Harold of
England and gave papal blessing to Duke William of
Normandy, to invade and subjugate England, and tax the
English until Doomsday. The Norman Crusade of 1066
changed and determined the history of the British Isles
ever after. Thereafter, for the Muslims, the Sceptred Isles
became the Islamophobic Isles, playing an adversarial role
in the Muslim world, even after the Protestant Revolution,
and the introduction of secularism and Parliamentary
At the time of the first Christian Millennium (1000 CE), the
British Isles was a small backwater and culturally divided
island on the northwest fringes of mainland Europe. It had
been subject to numerous and brutal invasions for over a
thousand years; first by the Romans in 55 BC, and then
by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc from 367 CE. From 793
CE, much of the British Isles came under the political
hegemony of northern Europe e.g. the Danes and Vikings.
By 1027 CE, Canute – a Dane, was king of England,
Denmark and Norway and part of Sweden. In essence, the
British Isles was a weak and backward colony.
However, in 1066 CE the British Isles – a relatively
peaceful Christian state, was subject to an unprovoked
and brutal conquest by a fellow Christian state –
Normandy in Northern France. Normandy had only been
Christian for less than two centuries i.e. much less than
the British Isles. Under the hegemony of the Dukes of
Normandy, the British Isles came into contact with
Continental Europe and Muslims. Not only was England's
wealth seized and transferred to Europe to finance the
Crusades but the Sceptred Isles was transformed into the
Islamophobic Isles, a united kingdom and an organised
entity, with the capability of conducting its very first
military campaign, one thousand miles away, into Islam's
homeland – Palestine. And so began the alleged English
propensity to violence and ethical foreign policy. Unlike
Spain and France, which felt the presence of a powerful
Islamic neighbour, this was never the case with the British
The victory of the Normans in 1066 brought revolutionary
changes in its wake, not merely for southern Britain but in
due course for the rest of the British Isles. Over the next
millennium, Britain was transformed into one of the
strongest and most influential countries in world history to
dominate the world of Islam. The British Empire ruled
more Muslim subjects than any other religious
The Norman Crusade of the British Isles also produced the
everlasting 'Anglo-French Alliance' against Islam (Crusades,
Colonialism, First World War, Suez War); and the
introduction of the following into the British Isles, for the
o Institutionalised Islamophobia
o Militant Christianity
o Public houses named Saracens or Turks Head
o Institutionalised Feudalism
o Taxation till Doomsday
o The eternal 'Irish Problem'
o Institutionalised Racism including anti-
Semitism against Arabs and Jews; racism against
the Irish, Turks and Africans
o Organisation, stability and administration
through new or reformed institutions such as the
Church, monarchy, government, army, academia
During the global chess game called The First World War
(Another Crusade / Great Conspiracy), the Anglo-French
Alliance fought against the Ottoman Caliphate on the
Eastern Front. Britain and Germany were two theological
(Protestant), military, political and royal allies since the
time of Martin Luther. Britain's royal family are
descendants of the German House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha
and Mountbattenburg (now renamed Windsor – the name
was changed during the First World War). Queen Victoria
was married to her German cousin, Albert and her
favourite grandson was the Emperor of Germany – Kaiser
Wilhem 2nd. The Kaiser was also an officer of the British
Army until the outbreak of War. The Great War started in
Europe and spread into Islam's homelands.
Towards the end of the War, in 1917, Britain colonised its
penultimate colony – Palestine – the 'Jewel in the Crown',
when General Allenby followed by T.E. Lawrence of Arabia,
entered Jerusalem declaring: 'Today the Crusades have
ended'. In Damascus, the French General, Henri Gouraud
strode to the tomb of Saluddin Ayyubi and publicly stated:
'Saladin, we have returned'. At the end of the War, Britain
and France effectively controlled all the Muslim lands from
the Mediterranean east through India; over the next few
decades, western domination over the Muslim world would
be nearly complete as Turkey and Arabian Peninsula came
under direct western control as a result of the Second
World War, Cold War and Gulf War.
Meanwhile, millions were needlessly killed and wounded
on the Western Front in a war to end all peace. The
Establishment was prepared to oversee the deaths and
disruption of millions of peoples' lives just to meet Zionist
objectives. Obviously, these facts are hardly acknowledged
in the subject of 'His story' – a highly secularised and
The Growth of Dar al-Islam
In the seventh century, the last Messenger of Allah,
Muhammad ε united the Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula
to spread the Last Divine Message to the whole of
mankind. As a result, the religious, military and later the
cultural power of Islam grew enormously in three
continents: Africa, Asia and Europe. First Iran, Syria, and
Egypt, then Turkey, then North Africa fell to the Muslims.
When Syria and Asia Minor fell to Muslim rule for the first
time, they were welcomed by Christians of those regions as
deliverers from the intolerable oppression of the ruling
authorities of the Church2.
The Muslims overran the tyrannical Byzantium (Eastern
Roman) and Persian empires at the same time. During the
ten years of Caliph Omar's (RA) reign, he liberated over
forty thousand towns and built two thousand mosques.
The Muslims saved more souls from false gods, toppled
more idols, exposed more pagan temples in fifteen years
than the followers of Moses and Jesus had done in fifteen
The Muslim advance incorporated three of the five
Patriarchates (Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch) and
nearly a fourth (Constantinople). When Jerusalem fell to
Islamic rule in 638 CE, there was no bloodshed, nor
Muslims from Africa then made inroads into Southern
Europe: Mediterranean islands of Cyprus (649 CE), Crete
(654 CE) and Rhodes (654 CE). Muslims from Africa then
advanced into the Iberian Peninsula (711 CE), southern
France – Toulouse (715 CE); Sardinia (750 CE), Corsica
(809 CE), Malta (824 CE) Sicily (827 CE) and southern
Italy in 840 CE. Within one hundred years of the death of
the Prophet ε of Allah Υ, the caliphs had established an
empire greater than Rome at its zenith11.
By the ninth century, Muslims had established trading
links with the Americas i.e. six centuries before Naval
Crusader, Christopher Columbus. By the time of the first
Christian Millennium, Yusuf bin Tachfin – sultan of the
Almoravids (bin Yusuf in the film, El Cid) ruled an empire
stretching from Senegal in the south; southern parts of the
Iberian Peninsula in the north; to the Atlantic in the west,
and included Algeria and Tunisia; an area larger than
The Growth of Dar al-Kufr
In the eighth and ninth centuries, the priesthood that ran
Europe i.e. the Church / Vatican / religious Mafia created
the Islamophobic Frankish / Holy Roman Empire and used
the illegitimate son of a prostitute, Charles Martel (688-
741 CE) and his illiterate grandson, Charlemagne (742-
814 CE) to counter the spread of Islam into Europe.
Charles Martel – The Hammer was the first to halt Muslim
expansion into Europe, with a Frankish army victory in
732 CE at the Battle of Poitiers in Central France, in which
the Muslim leader – the Emir of the Iberian Peninsula was
murdered by a treacherous hypocrite. This defeat led to
the Franks becoming widely recognised as the real
defenders of Christendom.
Charles Martel was advised by an English Benedictine
monk / missionary called Boniface who struggled to
christianise and civilise the barbarian Frankish /
Germanic tribes of Europe, to counter the Muslim advance
into Europe. Boniface was also responsible for unifying the
church in Germany and organising churches in Bavaria,
thereby bringing the Germanic tribes of Europe under
papal control. Boniface was killed in 754 CE by pagans
who resisted Christianity.47
Charlemagne – Charles the great who spent three decades
spreading Christianity by the sword by conducting 53
expeditions and wars against 12 different nations (Avars,
Slavs, Bretons, Lombards, Saxons, etc), also attacked the
Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula several times but
suffered a humiliating defeat in 778 CE when thirty
thousand Moors trapped his army north of Pamplona,,. He
saw his destiny as the evangelical Christian emperor of
Europe, the presence of Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula
as an insult and considered the war against Muslims as a
crusade23. When Pope Urban 2nd launched the First
Crusade in 1095, he invoked the name of Charlemagne to
incite the Crusader knights5.
Interestingly in June 2000, Bill Clinton who presided over
the Balkan Crusades in Bosnia and Kosova, was the first
North American president to receive the Charlemagne prize
from the city of Aachen (Charlemagne's residence), for his
contribution to European unity.
Following Charlemagne's death, the Islamophobic Holy
Roman Empire began to disintegrate as a result of: Muslim
inroads from the South, weak management by his son and
infighting by his grandchildren. The Empire eventually
divided into three kingdoms from which emerged France,
Germany and Italy.
After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, there was a
loss of confidence in the Frankish kings. Islamophobia
then moved northwards to Scandinavia. A monk called
Anskar (801-865 CE) born in Amiens, France and known
as the Apostle of the North moved to Germany and in 826
CE to Denmark, where he christened the king and 400 of
his subjects. Anskar then went to Sweden, where he built
the first Christian church in Scandinavia, at the Viking
centre of Birka, near modern Stockholm. On his return to
Germany in 832 CE, Anskar was made bishop of
Hamburg, with responsibility for all of Scandinavia, and in
848 CE the Pope appointed him Archbishop of Bremen.
Back in Denmark in 854 CE he converted Erik – the king
After Anskar's death, Denmark and Sweden reverted back
to paganism but this would not save the Muslims. Vikings
flooded outwards from Scandinavia in every direction,
raiding, colonising and establishing bases in the British
Isles, Northern France and Northern Germany. Further
South, Vikings fleets raided the Iberian Peninsula, and
struck deep into the Mediterranean, passing through the
Gibraltar Straits and attacking Muslims on the Balearic
Island. Whilst they assimilated with the local population
that they colonised, the Vikings expelled Muslims from the
The Vikings also attacked North Africa and fought the
Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba. They took Lisbon virtually
unopposed; after sacking Cadiz and Medina Sidonia, they
sailed up the River Guadalquivir and captured Seville.
From there, they raided the surrounding countryside until,
five weeks later, they were heavily defeated by a Muslim
army: the Muslims destroyed 30 ships, killed 1000 men
and taken 400 prisoners. The Vikings were no match for
the powerful, well organised and highly motivated Emirate.
In the East, they sailed down the rivers of Russia to cross
the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea to attack the Abassid
At the turn of the last Millennium, Europe christianised
almost at once including Scandinavia, northern Spain,
Russia and the Balkans23; and by the end of the First
Christian Millennium, the Church owned half of western
Europe. The Church then planned the Crusades, but to
fight Muslims, the Vatican needed an immense amount of
resources. England was a wealthy and flourishing kingdom
and its throne a rich temptation. English kings were
powerful enough to gather substantial amounts of silver
through taxation of the wool trade. That silver was a sign
of England's wealth and its coinage was the most stable in
Europe. England had been able to mint its own coinage
controlled from the centre; king Offa of Merica had created
England's first proper penny coinage. With such resources
and with the means for a ruler to tap them, England was
one of the greatest prizes in Northwest Europe.,.
The Church organised Normandy to extract England's
wealth to fight Muslims, as Islam threatened its very
existence, centuries before Martin Luther.
Preparing for the Crusades
The most important long-term consequence of the Viking
involvement in France was the establishment of the duchy
of Normandy. Normandy's impact to the history of
England, France and Italy can hardly be understated.27
In 911 CE, a Dane / Norwegian Viking called Rollo settled
and established a duchy in the Northern fringe of France
i.e. a safe distance from Muslims who were in the South
(southern France and the Iberian Peninsula). This state
became known as Normandy, the leading feudal
principality of the following century. Initially Rollo's
territory seems to have been confined to an area no more
than thirty miles in diameter in the Seine valley above
Rouen, centring around Les Andeleys, where the castle of
Richard the Lion-heart stands today.
Conveniently, Rollo readily adopted Christianity, accepting
baptism at the hands of the Archbishop of Rouen32; and
acting as guard for the Franks. He established a line of
hereditary counts called the Dukes of Normandy.
Normandy developed to become the most powerful of the
Frankish principalities in France and over time it acquired
French characteristics; though the Duchy of Normandy
was a mixture of Roman, Carolingian, Frankish and
Scandinavian elements, with contributions from Italians.
This blend of cultures created an immensely powerful
religious, political and military entity based on feudalism,
in eleventh century Normandy.
The Church played a major role in creating Normandy
which became a centre for militant Christianity in Europe.
Under clerical supervision, the crop-haired Normans
prepared for extensive military campaigns by investing
time and money in training and equipping their army;
heavily equipped and clad in chain mail. They bought and
bred war-horses and learned to fight from their saddles
with swords and lances; equipping their horses with
stirrups, making it harder to unseat their riders. They also
became masters of the art of digging fortifications, motte
and castles. They gained experience, prestige and wealth
in the feudal wars of France until by the middle of the
eleventh century they had become the most formidable
professional and best-armed heavy cavalry in northern
Between 980 and 1030 CE a feudal revolution took place
in France where the Church legitimised Christian militants
into a cohesive and organised body – the knights.
Knighthood became a kind of class-based corporation, to
which new members were admitted after a ritual requiring
the knight-to-be keeping vigil all through the night with
his arms on the alter in front of him. He then took a
purifying bath, heard Mass and had his spurs put on him.
There followed the dubbing with a sword and a formal
sermon in which the knight's weapons were blessed with
holy water. Another method of initiation was entirely
clerical and involved the reading of a service, Benedictio
A knight had to believe in and be obedient to the teachings
of the Church; he had to defend and love his country and
be merciless to the infidel. It became the knight's duty to
defend the Church and fight to the death against the
infidel. One has only to read of the violence, greed and lust
of the Middle Ages to realise that this code was often 'more
honour'd in the breach than the observance'. When Pope
Urban 2nd launched the First Crusades, he chastised the
knights present for their behaviour: 'You oppressors of
orphans, you robbers of widows, you homicides, you
blasphemers, you plunderers of others' rights…if you want
to take counsel for your souls you must either cast off as
quickly as possible the belt of this sort of knighthood or go
forward boldly as knights of Christ…'5. Not surprisingly,
these knights were known as the Soldiers of Hell21.
The aggression and violence of the knights that
characterised daily life in the Middle Ages was then
channelled into the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula
and the Crusades25. Having adopted Christianity, these
barbarian warriors were anxious to show themselves as
worthy patrons – and in return to make the most of the
power offered them by the Church. Thus the warriors
founded new churches across their newly acquired
territories i.e. they endowed the Church with land from the
estates that they had appropriated as conquerors.29
The Normans were a race inured to war and could hardly
live without it, fierce in attacking enemies, and when force
failed, always ready to use guile or to corrupt by bribery29.
They first colonised territory from Muslims in the
Mediterranean one thousand miles away3. In 1060 CE the
Normans retook Sicily from the Muslims who had held it
since 827 CE. The Normans played a part in the early
stages of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula,
appearing at the siege of Barbastro in 1064 CE25 i.e. two
years before the Norman Crusade of England.
In Normandy, the Church established centres of education
and supplied kings, princes, dukes, etc with able men to
run government. Afterall, the clergy formed a highly
educated elite in Europe. They studied Latin grammar,
logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy,
physics and theology – which they regarded as the queen
of sciences. Pope Sylvester 2nd (945-1003 CE) – the first
French Pope was noted for his scholarly achievements and
scientific learning. He wrote treatises on mathematical,
philosophical and physical subjects and sanctioned the
use of Arabic numerals in Western Europe i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 replaced the impractical Roman numerals:
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X. The concept of 0 i.e. zero
did not exist in the Roman numbering system.
During the first half of the eleventh century the Norman
Church gained a European-wide reputation for
scholarship, capable of attracting other influential recruits
such as scholars and clerics from throughout Europe and
into Normandy along with soldiers33. The new Church
foundations in Normandy became centres of prestige,
wealth, learning and spiritual excellence, and established
a direct link with the great monasteries of Burgundy,
northern Italy and Rome. Pupils from many countries were
attracted there by its reputation for learning33. Medicine
was studied and practised, music and poetry cultivated
and architecture revolutionised; new cathedrals and
monastic churches built7.
The most significant recruit was an Italian ecclesiastic and
scholar called Lanfranc (circa 1005-89 CE) – a Benedictine
monk34. He was born of a noble family and would prove
more important to the intellectual life of the times than
any ruler4. He was regarded as a magnificent scholar7; a
man of impressive learning7; Europe's leading scholar26;
with talents for diplomacy, administration and politics3.
After studying and practising civil law in Pavia, Lanfranc
went to Normandy, where he established a school at
Avranches in 1039 CE. He taught there until 1042 CE,
when he entered the Benedictine monastery at Bec, near
Rouen. In 1045 CE, Lanfranc became its prior. There he
founded a school that became known throughout
Lanfranc transformed an abbey at Bec from relative
obscurity into one of the most famous monasteries in
Europe. According to the historian Orderic Vitalis, almost
all the monks at Bec were philosophers26. Bec would
produce some notable clerics; one would become Pope and
another three would become leading churchmen of
England after the Norman Crusade of England in 1066 CE.
• Lanfranc – ecclesiastical counsellor to the illiterate
Duke William of Normandy. He became the first
Norman archbishop of Canterbury after the Norman
Crusade of England.
• Anselm of Lucca who later became Pope Alexander 2nd.
This Pope granted indulgences to Spanish Christians to
fight Muslims; sanctioning a crusade by the northern
princes of the Iberian Peninsula. He also sent a legate
called Hugo Candidus to the Iberian Peninsula to
persuade Spanish Christians to give up the Islamic
customs that they had adopted26. In addition, this Pope
gave papal sanction to Duke William of Normandy to
• Anselm of Aosta, a formidable intellectual, theologian
and philosopher of his age, who also become
archbishop of Canterbury (after 1089 CE)33.
• Gandulf – a warrior churchman and later bishop of
Rochester. He was the architect responsible for the
Tower of London to overawe London. The Tower was
amongst the largest structures of its kind in medieval
Europe: 85ft high with 15ft thick base33; and a place of
misery for most Englishmen4. He had a reputation as a
While at Bec, Lanfranc met Duke William of Normandy.
Immediately they were attracted to one another and
developed an intimate friendship to the eventual advantage
of both4. William formed his only deep and lasting
friendship with Lanfranc3. William venerated Lanfranc like
a father, respected him like a master, cherished him as the
equal of a brother or son7. Lanfranc became counsellor to
the illiterate William and acted as William's ecclesiastical
agent in developing and strengthening the episcopacy and
forging it as a major tool of government. By appointing
William's nominees, such as his half-brother (same mother
/ different father), Odo as bishop of Bayeux in 1049 CE,
Lanfranc was able to guarantee the allegiance of the
Church to William and most importantly to his military
Odo was made a bishop at the age of nineteen. He was a
warrior bishop par excellence4; more of a soldier than a
churchman; his appointment by William was a piece of
flagrant nepotism7. He was a master of shady politics – an
unprincipled man, and the most militant of churchmen4.
As one of William's most trusted magnates4, Bishop Odo
provided William with one hundred ships to invade
England33. Odo even aspired to become Pope raising an
army to go to Rome in 1082 CE33. Fortunately for
Muslims, he died at Palermo, on his way to the First
Crusade in 1097 CE4.
On a cold October morning in 1066 CE, the British Isles
would be dragged into the brutish world of the Normans
and forced European integration. Europe at the time was
under the despotic rule of the Popes of Rome, as they
sought to transform European society into a hotbed of
militant Christianity in readiness for the forthcoming
Crusades against Islam and Muslims.
William the Bastard
William (Guilliame) the Conqueror (b.1028, d.1087 CE) was
a nickname4. He was known to his contemporaries as
William the Bastard because he was the illegitimate son of
a tanner's daughter. Although William was not the first of
the dukes of Normandy to be illegitimate, the abusive and
humiliating title of bastard stuck to him all his life.
Anyway, illegitimacy and fornication was commonplace in
Christian Europe despite the moral high ground claimed
by the Crusaders e.g. the archbishop Robert of Rouen had
three children by his mistress and most Norman dukes
had illegitimate children. In fact most bishops were neither
particularly pious nor chaste.7
William's father was Robert 1st – The Devil – the Duke of
Normandy. Robert 1st never married and was noted for his
commitment to violence and ruthless subjugation. William
became the Duke of Normandy at the age of eight, when
his father died of unknown causes in Anatolia, whilst
returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem4.
William's rise to power was with the backing of the Church
via his great uncle Robert – the archbishop of Rouen, who
offered strong protection4. However his early years at court
was a nest of vipers; his guardians nearly all perished by
murder or poisoning. William spent most of his life in
violence and war32. During his reign, he built up, trained
and strengthened his military resources resulting in the
most able army in Europe33.
William was an enthusiastic founder of churches and
monasteries31. He dedicated a considerable part of his
busy life to ecclesiastical affairs7. His second daughter,
Adeliza became a nun, as did his third daughter, Cecily,
who was appointed Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen7. Another
daughter, Adela married Count Stephen of Blois in 1080
CE. Adela reacted favourably to the First Crusade by
encouraging her husband to go to the Holy Land. However,
Stephen ran away during the siege of Antioch in 1098 CE.
Fearing the mighty Emir of Mosul, Stephen abandoned
camp taking with him a considerable number of
Frenchmen. This was bad timing. A few hours after
deserting, the Crusaders captured Antioch.21
William was surpassingly harsh, ruthless and unlovable, a
man who never showed emotion in his life save on two
occasions : his coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1066
CE when he trembled violently; and his deathbed when he
1066: Norman Crusade of the British Isles
In the distorted secular version of history, people are
taught that the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 was
an accident; or the result of a disputed succession to the
English throne. In fact, it was a Crusade in which one
Christian nation attacked another for its wealth, with the
blessing of the papacy.
One his death bed, the king of England, Edward the
Confessor (1042-66 CE) confirmed that his brother-in-law,
Harold – the earl of Wessex should succeed him. As the old
king lay dying, he designated Earl Harold as his successor;
the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the scene without comment.
Edward was childless because he practised celibacy
(unlike the clergy). The selection was confirmed by Witan,
the council of Anglo-Saxon chiefs. However, William – the
Duke of Normandy and cousin of Edward the Confessor,
claimed that he was the legitimate heir to the English
Meanwhile, the Vatican claimed that: Harold failed to send
a levy (the Peter's Pence) to Rome; England had descended
into a near barbarous condition; and only by the
appointment of a king who was a god-fearing dutiful son to
the Pope, would England be restored into the brotherhood
of the Christian world. Harold was ex-communicated and
declared an infidel. The charges were unreasonable and as
Harold's main supporter, the archbishop of Canterbury
was also ex-communicated, it was impossible for Harold to
defend himself against the papal allegations.
William's ecclesiastical adviser, Lanfranc – went to Rome
to gain papal support for an invasion of England. Pope
Alexander 2nd (r. 1061-73 CE) with Cardinal (archdeacon)
Hildebrand at his elbow gave his blessing to William, to
invade England and install himself as king, providing that
William submit England as a fief to Rome.45
The papal sanction and encouragement for the piratical
adventure included giving a specially consecrated banner
for a religious crusade and a holy relic – one of St. Peter's
hairs4. Copies of the papal blessing were made and sent
from Bec Abbey to all those heads of state who wished to
join William in his crusade45. The prospect of laying hands
on England's wealth, its land and its silver, attracted
thousands of soldiers from all over northern France and
Flanders, to the papal banner41.
Cardinal Hilderbrand (born ~1020 CE) arranged the
presentation of the papal banner to Duke William4.
Hilderbrand was interested in establishing a massive
temporal power base not only in Italy but over the Alps
and beyond, using newly seized fiefs established by
Norman mercenaries (priest-knights)45.
Hilderbrand had connections with the Pierleoni family of
Rome, Jews who had embraced the Catholic faith. There is
reason to believe that he may have been related to them,
and so partly of Jewish origin himself.4 He had a rigid
religious background while he served as monk, probably at
Cluny, where he generated new reform ideals…he returned
to Rome with Pope Leo 9th, and from that time worked in
service of the papacy. He became the real power behind
the throne under five popes. During the reign of Pope
Nicholas 2nd, Hildebrand continued as one of the principal
manipulators of the power structure.4,39.
Hilderbrand was known as a magician and it is said that
he was expert at shaking lightening out of his sleeve2. When
Hilderbrand became Pope (as Pope Gregory 7th from 1073
to 1085 CE), he issued a document called the Dictatus
papae in 1075 CE defining the role of the Church and
Pope in Europe. This included: the Roman Church was
founded by God alone and princes should kiss the feet of
no one but the Pope; the Church of Rome has never been
mistaken, nor will it ever be, as is written in the Holy
Scriptures and many other lies and comical statements25.
German anti-Semitism has its origins with Hilderbrand,
who forced the Emperor of Germany, Henry 4th to kiss his
feet in 1077 CE, over a dispute in which he attempted to
establish primacy of the Vatican over European monarchs
and states. However, this led to a civil war and political
retardation of Germany. As Pope, Hilderbrand expected
William the Conqueror do fealty to him for his English
kingdom7. Hilderbrand was canonised as a saint by the
Vatican47. Pope Gregory 7th was shortly followed by Pope
In 1066 CE, William accompanied by the bishops of
Coutances and Bayeux, invaded and defeated Harold 2nd –
king of the Anglo-Saxons, at the Battle of Hastings (in
Sussex)7. This was an astonishing defeat considering that:
Normandy was a small duchy on the Northern fringe of
France, Britain was Europe's oldest kingdom32; and
England's wealth and military resources were greater than
those of Normandy41.
It is said that Harold was hit in the eye during the Battle of
Hastings. This is not true, nor does the Bayeux Tapestry
show him being hit in the eye42. He was attacked by four
Norman knights; one stabbed him in the chest, another
decapitated him, a third disembowelled him, and the last
cut off his leg at the thigh and carried it away. One of the
Normans, crazy with bloodlust, cut off Harold's genitalia.32
Harold was found dead lying naked and mutilated3. His
body or rather, its pieces, were identified by his mistress.
Both his brothers, Earls Leofwine and Gyrth were also
killed; the Bayeux Tapestry shows Norman knights
penetrating the English defence and cutting down both of
As Charlemagne had often done, William erected a cairn of
stones, to commemorate the battle32. Following an
arrangement between the Pope and William in about 1070
CE, an abbey was constructed at the battle site33; with the
high alter of the abbey erected on the spot where Harold
had been killed32.
It was said that the French had possession of the place of
slaughter, as God granted them because of the nation's
sins32. The Normans felt that God was on their side8.
The bishop of Bayeux (William's half-brother), Odo who
later became the Earl of Kent, gave the order for the
famous Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings –
a masterpiece of propaganda, even by modern standards7.
However, it contains two scenes of nudity and lewdness
and Odo swinging a mace at a Saxon with wicked intensity
battering his enemies senseless3. The abstruse reasoning
that permeates Christianity would say that the bishop was
not guilty of breaking the commandment Thou shalt not kill
as Odo used a wooden weapon that could not shed blood
but strike a blow instead4.
The Bayeux Tapestry confirms that the Church had
created an environment in which the conquest of England
was perceived as a holy war, blessed by the papacy in
Rome. Throughout the Tapestry, William is portrayed
holding the papal banner as confirmation that this was a
just and holy war.33 Papal approval served to enhance
The Norman Subjugation of England
The Norman colonisation of England was a portracted
process which was essentially ecclesiastical, aristocratic
and mercantile in nature33. On Christmas Day 1066,
William was proclaimed king of England in Westminster
Abbey, anointed with holy oil by influential prelates such
as the archbishop of York and the bishop of Worcester7,.
Since this crowning, Westminster Abbey has been the
setting for the coronation of nearly every king and queen of
England. With the help of the Norman clergy, the English
were taught that the king's authority came directly from
God. The coronation service in which the English monarch
is surrounded by archbishops and bishops is a
superstitious ritual that continues to this very day31.
It took another five years before 10,000 Normans living
like an army of occupation safely in castles eventually
subdued the English population of one or two million.
They built vast stone castles financed by Jews3, as focal
points for military power and local government, to
maintain and extend the conquest and overawe the subject
population. Castles were built at Warwick, Nottingham,
Lincoln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Exeter, Colchester,
Dover and Winchester. At least 500 castles were built
throughout England and Wales by 11009. In England
alone, it has been estimated, the Normans built nearly a
thousand castles; there were well over three hundred in
Wales; in Ireland Norman mottes and baileys controlled
the rich lands such as Tipperary8.
The most famous castle was the four storeys-high Tower of
London to overawe London. The Tower of London took
twenty years to build and has been a fortress, royal
residence, prison, place of execution, armoury and now,
home to the crown jewels and loot stolen from African and
Asian victims of British Imperialism, but to most
Englishmen the Tower was a place of misery. The Tower
was built by a warlike churchman, Gandulf – the Bishop of
Rochester, who had a reputation as a military architect by
building a fortress-like tower beside his cathedral.31
The Normans built a new castle in the North East to fight
the Scots. This castle grew into the city of Newcastle (New
Castle). The Normans also constructed an astonishing
number of massive churches, cathedrals and abbeys such
as Peterborough and Durham, commanded by harsh,
Such Cathedrals as Durham and Ely with their imposing
message of dominance may be taken as symbols of
imperialism. Castles, cathedrals and monasteries formed
part of a single colonial complex.8
William conquered by fire and sword and ruled by fear and
terror. The English were crushed, imprisoned,
disinherited, banished and scattered beyond the limits of
their own country. The petty lords who guarded the newly
built castles oppressed all the inhabitants with soldiers
looting and raping. Bishop Odo oppressed the unhappy
English and things went from bad to worse. The new rulers
were so swollen with pride that they refused to listen to
reasonable complaints from the English or to give them
impartial justice.7 Odo was a tough feudal lord who led
punitive military expeditions against the English who
rebelled against Norman rule. He also accumulated vast
wealth by extortion and robbery42.
The Norman occupation was characterised by military
suppression and plunder, during which Norman magnates
and their principal tenants took over the greater part of
the English landed estates. This was followed by a phase of
colonisation and exploitation, marked by large-scale
donations to religious houses in Normandy. During this
phase much transportable wealth and many works of art
and literature were taken across the Channel to
Normandy. The Church in Normandy was enriched by the
wealth seized from England. The twin abbeys at Caen were
largely paid for out of English money and so were the
extensions to the cathedral at Bayeux; bishop Odo
enhanced his bishopric at Bayeux with spoils lifted from
England. English coinage was melted down and re-minted
in Normandy31. For hundreds of years the resources of a
fertile and prospering land were diverted to fulfil
impossible political ambitions on the other side of the
Not only was the English throne taken by force but was
also defended by force. Any opposition to Norman rule was
brutally crushed31. William inflicted terrible vengeance
with no mercy and ruthless severity. Those areas such as
the Midlands and the North, where the English revolted in
1069-70 CE, were subjected to total destruction,
devastation, and unparalleled ferocity, creating conditions
of starvation and famine32.
'Harrying' involved taking hostages and mass deportations,
burning and looting; the littering of highways with
putrefying corpses and the transference of the vacated
lands to the king's supporters – a tactic employed in
mainland Europe since the time of Charlemagne33.
'Harrying of the North' resulted in a large expanse of
devastated land in the Midlands and the North29. In these
areas, land values fell by as much as two-thirds as
agricultural land was systematically laid to waste with fire
and sword. William ordered corn, cattle and implements of
husbandry to be collected in heaps and burned.7 In the
Domesday Book, such land was recorded as 'waste' i.e.
land that had gone out of cultivation principally as a result
of deliberate devastation33. William's soldiers destroyed
every town, village and house between York and Durham,
slaughtering every human being that they could find3.
William consciously set out to devastate old earldoms like
Mercia so that they could never again become centres of
resistance to his supremacy7.
One chronicler wrote that the city of York and the whole
district around it was destroyed by the French with the
sword, famine and flames. Another wrote that so many
were killed that there was nobody left to bury them, that
there was no village inhabited between York and Durham
and that the land remained uncultivated for nine years.33
The Normans set aside enormous tracts of land for
themselves resulting in famine. Compelled by hunger,
people were forced to eat human flesh, and that of horses,
dogs and cats, and whatever was repulsive to notions of
civilisations. The famine was created by man not by nature
affecting innocent and unarmed people who died in abject
misery7. This was no ordinary warfare. There is much
evidence for a widespread emigration of Englishmen into
other countries, into Denmark, into Scotland and, most
remarkably of all, to Greece and the Byzantium empire
where there is good contemporary evidence that large
numbers of Englishmen took service with the emperor in
Constantinople in the generation following the Norman
Some people went as far as to sell themselves into
perpetual slavery, provided only they could support a
miserable existence4. However Archbishop Anselm, at the
London Council of 1102 CE, denounced the practice of
selling Englishmen as brute beasts; his contemporary,
Bishop Wulfstan preached against the practice of selling
English slaves from Bristol to Ireland. But the Church
remained a slaver owner.
In Anglo-Saxon England, women had a high status and
had always been able to own and dispose of land32. Under
the Normans, the status of women declined ending the
condition of rough equality that existed between men and
women in Anglo-Saxon times7.
The inferior position of women, stipulated by St. Paul, was
accepted without question, an attitude which was fostered
by St. Augustine and other early fathers of the Church. In
early Christian writing, women were falsely regarded as
the devil's gateway and a temple built over a sewer. St.
John Chrysotom claimed they were plegm, blood, bile,
rheum and the fluids of digested food. It was also
considered inconceivable that a man might be in love with
his wife, however fond he might be for her; some
theologians actually stated that passionate love by a man
for his own wife was adultery. There was much hostility
towards the education of women. Clerics believed that
women who had been taught to read and write would
spend their time composing love letters and reading
heretical literature. A French noble, Bertrand du Guesclin
said 'in women there is no more sense than there is in a
sheep', a sentiment that found support in England, where
one visitor noted that 'the working of a woman's wit is
considered of small account'.34
In direct contrast the Last Prophet ε of Islam said in his
Last Sermon that women had the right to be fed and
clothed in kindness and to be treated well for they are
partners and committed helpers.
No other conquest in European history has had such
disastrous consequences for the defeated. The English
became an oppressed majority in their own country;
12,000 foreigners ruled 1.5 to 2 million English6. England
had become a colony of a French principality – Normandy
where the Duke of Normandy paid homage to the king of
France and the king of France owed allegiance to the Pope.
For over two hundred years thereafter, Norman kings were
likely to spend less time in England than elsewhere i.e.
England was considered subordinate territory compared to
William never bothered to learn the language of his new
kingdom, French became the new language of the court
and remained so until the fifteenth century29. For the next
300 years, monarchs of England spoke their native tongue
i.e. French. As a result, legal terms such as embezzle,
judge, jury, larceny, lease and perjury were introduced into
the British Isles33. The following table shows some of the
French words that were introduced into the English
Category French words in the English Language
Administration, Law Crown, Parliament (from the word
parler – to speak), reign, royal, state, city, council, court,
evidence, fine, fraud, gaol, prison. Also, embezzle, judge,
jury, larceny, lease and perjury33.
Dress Apron, bonnet, boot, brooch, chain, collar,
jacket, jewel, lace, ornament, petticoat
Family Aunt, cousin, nephew, niece, uncle
Food Beef, mutton, partridge, pheasant, pigeon, poultry,
sugar, tripe, veal, dinner, feast, supper, date, fig, grape,
lemon, orange, raisin, flour, oil
Home / Household Chamber, pantry, blanket,
curtain, cushion, quilt, towel, chair, dresser, wardrobe
Military Army, battle, guard, navy, peace, soldier, spy
(also military ranks e.g. Captain, Lieutenant)
Ranks Clerk, duke, farmer, master, mistress, prince,
Religion Abbey, convent, lesson, mercy, parson, pity,
prayer, preacher, saint, sermon, vicar
Names William (Guilliame?), Robert and Richard
Financial Sterling which comes from the Norman French
word 'esterlin', meaning 'little star', a symbol found on
pennies minted in Normandy
Miscellaneous dozen, flower, grease, hour, litter, more,
pasture, people, person, pocket, quarry, quart, quarter,
rein, second, squirrel, stallion, stranger, tailor, tune
Of the few educated Englishmen that existed, were
trilingual, knowing his mother tongue, some Latin and
fluent in French51. Latin and French became the
languages of the upper classes7. Under king Henry 3rd
(Richard the Lion-heart's nephew), French became the
language of written law and under Crusader king, Edward
1st, the language of the courts8. Scholars and clerics opted
for Latin – it was the international language of the Church,
and was also the language of officialdom34.
What is normally spoken of as English political history
during the Middle Ages on events such as the murder of
Thomas Becket, Magna Carta, etc relates almost
exclusively to the French-speaking elite8.
Much of the vernacular literature of Anglo-Saxon England
was destroyed and the English language was relegated to
the underworld of the lower classes29. Anglo-Saxons came
to occupy second-class status8. To speak a language like
English could be a mark of bondage; Lanfranc – the
Norman archbishop of Canterbury, referred when writing
to Pope Alexander 2nd to his own ignorance of the language
of barbarous peoples8.
It would be another 300 years before Anglo-Saxons began
thinking themselves as English again31. English emerged
as a socially acceptable medium during the fifteenth
century when it became the language of the trading
community; it was the rise of London, Norwich, Bristol and
other towns which brought about the elevated social
status of English8. In the Tudor age, the English
playwright (plagiarist) William Shakespeare wrote in his
play, Henry 5th in 3.5: Normans, but bastard Normans,
The Norman Church in Britain
The importance of the Church was paramount following
the Norman Crusade of 1066. Churchmen, controlled from
Rome entered British politics with enthusiasm34. Thus the
Norman Crusade saw a radical transformation of the
British Isles into militant Christian State. This was
accomplished by completely reorganising the Saxon
Church resulting in far greater papal involvement than
had been the case previously33.
Many English churches were taken over by Norman or
French monasteries; over twenty Norman monasteries
were recorded as possessing English manors by 1086 CE.
Monastic houses with a French affiliation were established
at Chester, Tewkesbury and Evesham. The abbot of
Glastonbury in the early twelfth century was the Norman
Henry of Blois. Evesham also had a Norman abbot.8
French clerics began to occupy to the highest positions in
England to reform the English Church. One by one English
churchmen were removed. Remigius from Fecamp was
made Bishop of Dorchester in 1067 CE; in 1070 CE
Thomas from Bayeux, became the archbishop of York, and
Walkelin, the Bishop of Winchester. In the same year
William secured papal support from Pope Alexander 2nd for
other major ecclesiastical changes and Stigand – the
English archbishop of Canterbury and five other English
bishops were removed.33 Stigand was excommunicated by
no less than five Popes7.
Approaching seventy years of age, Lanfranc – counsellor
and ecclesiastical agent to the illiterate William went to
England, where, in 1070 CE, he became the new
archbishop of Canterbury4. Lanfranc was a first-class
administrator and the critical figure in the reform of the
Church in the British Isles, just as he had been in
reforming the Norman Church7. He insisted on the control
of the whole English Church, obtaining written promises of
obedience from each new consecrated bishop33. Lanfranc
initiated a vigorous program of reorganisation of the
English Church remodelling them according Norman
standards to produce a highly organised and hierarchical
structure. Lanfranc strengthened his own position by
subordinating the see of York to the see of Canterbury. The
Scottish Church was, with papal approval, put under the
archbishop of York and new bishoprics of the Anglo-
Norman type were created in Wales and Ireland resulting
in the establishment of a sort of patriarchate over the
Lanfranc supported William's policy of deposing English
bishops; thereafter no Englishman was appointed to either
bishopric or abbey51; only Norman compatriots and a few
other Continentals53. By 1070 CE, nearly all the bishops
both in England and in Normandy were friends or relations
of William7. William never allowed Englishmen to be
By 1086 CE, of the fifteen diocesan bishops, eleven were
Norman. So complete was the foreign take-over of the
Church that William of Malmesbury, writing fifty years
after the Conquest, claimed that England had become a
residence of foreigners and the property of aliens. At the
present time there is no English earl nor bishop nor abbot;
strangers all they prey upon the riches and vitals of
The traditional learning and liturgy of the English church
was treated with contempt by clerics educated in the
schools of Europe41. By about 1200 CE almost every
Anglo-Saxon cathedral and abbey had been demolished
and replaced by Norman ones – a visible sign of the
Norman regime. As a result no great Anglo-Saxon church
has survived to modern times29.
The Church also had a damaging effect on morality in
society. Hypocrisy was rife amongst the clergy. Some
parishes felt it advisable to force their priests to marry, in
order to protect the local wives and daughters. The vicar of
Brent Eleigh was described as a common ravisher of wives
and virgins. Although figures are not available for Britain,
statistics for the composition of the clientele of a brothel at
Dijon showed that 20% were clerics, and the situation was
probably little different in England. Many priests got round
their problems by employing 'housekeepers'. During the
twelfth century, unnatural / same-sex relationships
flourished in many monasteries, but as penalties became
stricter it was kept more under wraps. Lesbianism was
also common in nunneries.34
The penalty for the crime included a whole year's penance,
with a further two years for nuns who had used sexual
aids. Monks who used aids had a mere forty days'
penance. One nun, Margaret Wavere, who was the
prioress of Catesby was charged not only with pawning
church silver, but with allowing frequent visits from her
lover, a priest called William Taylour. The Church was all
in favour of saving fallen women, and one nunnery was
entirely composed of repentant or retired prostitutes – the
Order of the Repentant Sisters of St. Catherine. Religious
demands upon such nuns were not onerous – a few Hail
Marys and Our Fathers usually sufficed, with confession
once a month.34
The new Norman regime introduced feudalism (class
structure and elitism) into the British Isles in which
society was divided into three estates: priests, warriors
(knights – later Crusading knights) and peasants. During
the two centuries that followed the Norman Crusade of
England, the feudal elite controlled resources through the
related institutions of Church, castle and borough.8
The Norman Crusade of England was followed by major re-
ordering of English society modelled on the rigid feudal
lines of the Continent for raising funds for warfare and
holding conquered territory. Feudalism originated with the
Franks e.g. Charles Martel to counter the spread of Islam
into Europe in the 8th, 9th and 10th Christian century39.
Feudalism in England after 1066 involved significant
curtailment of individual liberty30 and the imposition of
alien kings and landlords31. By 1086, there were only two
surviving English lords of any account (Thurkill of Arden
and Colswein of Lincoln). More than 4,000 indigenous
landowners were replaced by a group of less than 200
The greatest baron of all was Robert of Mortain, another
half-brother of Duke William, who had holdings in
nineteen counties54. The vast majority of the population
became the property of the gentry, so that the peasants
paid taxes to their feudal lords (just like the ones who,
today sit in the House of lords as unelected representatives
of the Mother of Parliamentary Democrazy); the feudal
lords paid taxes to the king; and the king paid an annual
tribute to the Church. This tribute was called the Peter's
Pence – an annual tribute by the kingdom to the Papacy7.
This was the beginning of British economic integration
with Continental Europe, run by an oppressive and
unaccountable institution – the Papacy.
The feudal system was designed to finance and support
the institution of knight service that was introduced from
Normandy. This was a powerful religious-military
organisation in which warrior monks of the Templars,
Hospitallars, Teutonic knights were the cutting edge of
extreme militant Christianity. In addition to their
fanaticism, they drew on enormous financial resources of
the peasants of the feudal system and the services of
Englishmen to fight in France and in the Crusades. During
the Crusades, special Orders of fraternities of knights were
created, uniting the militant warriors in a common
purpose. Instead of fighting each other, they fought a
common enemy – the infidel. The first of these Orders were
known as the Hospitallers which was founded by a
Benedictine monk, Gerard. As early as 1113 CE, only
forty-seven years after the Norman Crusade of Britain,
Pope Paschall 2nd approved the Order and his approval
was solemnly confirmed by a Bull of Pope Calixtus 2nd six
years later. The Hospitallers founded a priory in England
in 1154 CE; the Prior was regularly summoned to sit in
the House of Lords. The Order acquired much property in
England. One has only to consider how many streets in
London are called St John Street, to appreciate the landed
wealth of the Order, for, in most cases, the Order owned
property in these areas.35
Meanwhile, the largest proportion of the population were
known by a variety of different names, such as villein, serf,
native, bondman and peasant. The status of many English
peasants declined as their property was destroyed and
livestock pillaged. They also lost their privileges and
subject to all sorts of burdens imposed upon them by
Large estates in the West of the country lent themselves to
slavery, and in Devon as many as 28 per cent of the
population on the estates of William's wife were slaves in
1086 CE. The Domesday Book records that up to 12 per
cent of the population in 1086 CE were slaves. The
principal characteristics of a freeman, the right to bear
arms and the right to testify on oath in public courts, also
diminished in status under Norman feudalism.33
The local Church, might also demand ten per cent of a
peasant's produce – one parish priest in 14th century
England even demanded the tenth son of a local villein as
tithe. Modern research is uncovering a whole new class of
landless people who barely entered the records of the
feudal system at all. Feudal society was organised
principally for the benefit of the few at the top of the
By the end of the twelfth century the various kingdoms
and provinces of the British Isles which had been
independent entities were ruled by an aristocracy, which
in its turn was linked by ties of vassalage to a single
monarch. Even the king of Scotland with large estates in
Central England was in measure incorporated within the
Feudalism has survived to this day though it is heavily
disguised as the economy and society has become more
complex. The monarchy is subsidised by the public to the
tune of millions of pounds. Before the demise of the royal
yacht, the monarchy was costing the taxpayer £100m per
annum of which £20-25m was for security alone i.e.
double the cost of all the other European royal families put
The Church of England and the monarchy (Crown Estates)
remain the two largest landowners in Britain. On 27th
January 2000, an article by Nicholas Timmins on page 7 of
the London Financial Times stated that though the past
century has been a century of dispossession for the
aristocracy, the bottom half of the British population hold
just 7 per cent of marketable wealth, defined as assets
which can be valued and sold. The top 1 per cent of the
British population hold almost 20 per cent of wealth. The
top quarter holds 82 per cent of wealth, a figure that has
risen from 73 per cent 20 years ago. The share of
marketable wealth, less houses, held by the bottom half of
the population has halved since 1976 – down from 12 to 6
per cent. Feudalism permeates and retards Britain and
many of its institutions today.
Elite fee-paying public schools and Oxbridge graduates
who end up in senior positions in government, military,
industry, media, etc. The Oxbridge MA is obtained
automatically, seven years after graduating with a BA. In
other universities, students have to work for a MA!
In an article on page 19 of the London Financial Times
(1999) titled, 'Low marks for educational equality', Michael
Prowse stated: 'About 90 of the top 100 schools are fee-
paying even though they educate only 7 per cent of the
population. The inequalities in British secondary
education have few parallels in other advanced
democracies. For instance, private schools account for
about half of entrants to Oxford and Cambridge, in spite of
their small market share. Also surveys shows that those
educated at the top private schools still command a
disproportionate number of the most attractive jobs in
privileged domains such as law, medicine, the City and the
higher reaches of the civil service. Exclusive private
schools reinforce social divisions. Such inequality has
increased as the best grammar schools went private.'
Officers and ranks train, dine and sleep separately. When
business management guru, John Harvey Smith visited
the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea during
the Bosnian Crusade, he was shocked to discover that it
required 1600 personnel just to keep a handful of Harrier
jump jets flying around the clock. In addition, there were
different canteens catering for the various officer grades!
A devastating effect of this feudal structure in the military
was seen in the Great European War (1914-1918) when
the indifferent upper-class officers (donkeys) sent
hundreds of thousands of young men of working-class
origin to their deaths on the Western Front; they used
them as fodder. Half an entire generation of young men
were wiped out with a million killed17; and two and a half
million wounded, many permanently disabled51.
Civil service – the old boys' racist and sexist network
White & blue-collar workers; management-union conflict;
fat cat bosses.
House of Lords for the un-elected clergy, monarchy,
aristocracy; and House of Commons for the commoners /
the masses / peasants i.e. it is Parliamentary Democrazy /
Theocracy. The richest woman in the world is the Queen of
England, yet British taxpayers continue to pay her about
£8 million annually. Old habits die hard.
The system of honours originated from the units of land
that William gave to his trusted followers. These units were
called honours7. Disgraced and depraved traitor, Anthony
Blunt was allowed to keep his knighthood.
In some cases, titles and estates were given to buy off
hypocrites and collaborators of subject countries, as
depicted in the film Braveheart – a historical account of
England's brutal attempt to colonise its neighbour
Scotland, in the thirteenth century. However, in
Braveheart, Sir William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson)
rejected such offers, stating that acceptance would mean
SLAVERY and that he would not be a Judas.
New recruits to the feudal system are: Nazir Ahmed of
Rotherham, Pola Uddin and Waheed Alli – a man guilty of
indulging in the same crimes as the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah) (if you want the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
as neighbours, vote Labour).
The latest recruit is a Christian cleric, formerly a Shi'a
from Karachi, Pakistan called Michael Nazir Ali – now the
bishop of Rochester. However, the use of such house
slaves is nothing new – the feudal system was successfully
deployed in South Asia by the British Raj, enabling no
more than 200,000 British personnel to rule 300 million
people in British India, through the appointment of
approximately 600 titled local collaborators.
Lottery money of the working classes funding upper-
classes operas; royalty previewing new film releases – the
royal premiere. Even anti-Establishment or unconventional
types are co-opted through honours, for example, Sir Sean
Connery, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Richard Branson.
Sports follows and reinforces existing social divisions along
class lines. Football for the masses; tennis and golf for
middle-classes; polo & horses e.g. Ascot for the upper-
classes. Royalty present at football & tennis finals. Cricket
is played by the English and their neo-colonial subjects.
Traditionally, the upper classes i.e. the clergy, monarchy
and nobility celebrated Christmas Day on the 25th
December. The next day, the lower classes were permitted
to celebrate Christmas and they used to exchange
Christmas presents in little boxes. Hence, the term Boxing
Day. The twentieth century saw the introduction of new
feudal traditions such as 'Trooping the Colour'; the
Christmas broadcast to the neo-colonies of the
Commonwealth by the Governor of the Church of England
– the Queen; and the Armistice Day ceremonial. Royal
weddings were moved from the privacy of Windsor to the
public domain in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's
Financing the Crusades: Taxing the English
In 1085 CE William commissioned a new taxation system
at his Christmas Court in Gloucester. A Great Inquisition
or Survey of England was carried out in 1086 CE where
the extent, value, ownership, wealth and liabilities of
everyone in England were listed, for taxation purposes. Not
even one ox, or one cow or pig escaped notice, though
there were large gaps in the book's coverage of parish
churches33. It was made law that would be in operation
until the end of the world. Till Doomsday – the Day of
Judgement, that terrible verdict against which there was
no appeal. Thus was born the famous Domesday Book, a
two-volume book, written in clerical Latin. English
translations did not appear until the nineteenth century
i.e. English people still do not appreciate the religious
nature and purpose of the book.30
Muslims should reflect on what the book would be called
in Arabic [???]. With the Bible and Quran, Domesday Book
is one of the three most famous books in the world; all but
a handful of the 13,418 places mentioned in the Domesday
Book are occupied today. However the illiterate William
never even read the Domesday Book and was only able to
sign it with a CROSS58.
There was a massive redistribution of wealth in England as
the new taxation financed the Church and its activities
both at home and abroad (Church and Mammon)32. The
Church became one of the richest and most powerful
landowners in the country, influencing politics and
government. Bishoprics and abbeys became feudal
baronies and most bishops and abbots were tenants-in-
chief, establishing sub-tenants on their lands.34
By 1086, the Church in England gained an additional 5%
of land45. Bishops were earls and earls were bishops30.
Bishops and abbots were great landowners and key figures
in central and local administration51. The bishop of
Worcester founded Stratford. The earls of Chester founded
Stockport and Salford. Control of the town of Coventry was
disputed between the local feudal and ecclesiastical lords.
Under the auspices of the bishop of Norwich, the town of
Lynn expanded to be known first as Bishop's Lynn and
then late as King's Lynn. At Tavistock, the abbot closely
supervised the borough which the abbey had founded: the
abbot's steward presided over the borough court, levied a
percentage on corn ground at the town mill and collected
inheritance dues. Between 1066 and 1130 CE, forty new
towns were founded (not including eighteen in Wales).
During the period 1191-1230 CE, nearly fifty new towns
In 1066 CE there were some fifty religious houses in
England and perhaps 1,000 monks and nuns. By 1216
there were approximately 700 religious houses and some
13,000 monks, nuns, canons, and canonesses. A century
later, the total was nearer 900 religious houses and
17,500 members of religious orders51. In 1147 CE there
were 13 houses belonging to the French-based Cistercians
(reformed Benedictine order). The Cistercians financed
their business of property development, sheep farming and
wool exports by borrowing from the famous Jewish
moneylender, Aaron of Lincoln34. By 1154 CE there were
about 40 Cistercian monasteries in England and Wales
and the north borderlands. Some 30 Benedictine
nunneries were founded mostly in the Midlands and the
Of the land described in the 35 counties of the Domesday
Book (90 per cent of the counties / shires survive today),
the bishops and abbots held 26 per cent; the king and his
family held about 17 per cent; and a dozen or so leading
barons together controlled about a quarter of England30.
William and a handful of magnates who were related to
him are estimated to have owned almost half the lands of
England. Most of the rich families were related to William.7
By the time of William's death in 1087 CE it is estimated
that only eight per cent of land was still held by the Anglo-
England's wealth ended up overseas and a terrible toll
followed the forced integration of the English economy with
that of Europe, which William came to regret on his
deathbed. He confessed that he had 'subjugated England
by slaughter and by persecuting it beyond endurance'.
Almost at his last breadth, he added: 'I have cruelly
oppressed my subjects, unjustly disinherited them, and
killed large numbers of them by famine and violence. May
God forgive me for my sins'.
William was both the Duke of Normandy in France and the
king of England. When he died, his kingdom was split
between the two oldest sons. The eldest son, Robert
Curthose became the new Duke of Normandy. The second
son, Rufus (the Red also known as William 2nd) became the
new king of England (reigned: 1087-1100 CE).
Robert Curthose financed his participation in the First
Crusade by mortgaging* Normandy to his younger brother,
Rufus for 10,000 marks in 1096 CE51; a give-away price
considering that it would cost 150,000 marks to pay for
Richard the Lion-heart's ransom. Robert met Pope Urban
2nd at Lucca on his way to the Crusade5. As Rufus had no
money to pay Robert, he resorted to other means of raising
the necessary finance. He imposed an insupportable tax
throughout the whole of England. Many bishops and
abbots came to Rufus's court complaining about the
severity of the tax, saying that they could not meet so great
a tax without driving away their wretched peasants. The
courtiers, with their usual sarcasm, replied: 'Do you not
have reliquaries made of gold and silver, full of dead men's
bones?' Realising what the reply meant, the clergy
stripped saint's caskets, despoiled crucifixes and melted
down chalices, not for the benefit of the poor, but for the
king's treasury.21 He would milk the English dry if he
The Crusades was a profitable enterprise for the Church –
people sold their fiefs and mortgaged their lands to the
Church. Indeed the Church did do very nicely out of its
role as banker to the Crusades5.
By repute, Rufus (William 2nd) was not a Christian7 i.e. he
was not a compliant stooge of the Church. It has been
suggested that he was an atheist, shocking the clergy with
profanities3; effeminate and guilty of indulging in
When Lanfranc – the Norman archbishop of Canterbury
died in 1089 CE, Rufus delayed naming a successor for
four years and helped himself to Church revenues, relying
on the ingenious aid of a quick-witted and worldly clerk,
Ranulf Flambard, who eventually became bishop of
Durham51. When Rufus thought he was dying, he
appointed Anselm of Aosta, a formidable Italian theologian
and philosopher, as the new archbishop of Canterbury in
However, a dispute arose between Rufus and Anselm over
the appointment of Pope Urban 2nd. Anselm had already
sworn to obey Urban 2nd and took it for granted that
Urban 2nd was the rightful Pope but Rufus disagreed.
Under continual harassment from Rufus, Anselm left
England in 1097 CE and was forced to spend most of his
reign in exile, while Rufus plundered churches and stole
their lands31. Rufus enjoyed the revenues of three
bishoprics and twelve abbeys41. As Rufus was a serious
impediment to the Crusades, he was killed in suspicious
circumstances on 2nd August 1100 CE (just like Dodi and
In 1154 CE, Henry 2nd – great-grandson of William the
Conqueror became the new king of England. Henry 2nd
was born in Le Mans (France) and married Eleanor of
Acquitaine (France). Eleanor was once married to king
Louis 7th of France and had accompanied Louis on the
Second Crusade probably because Louis could not trust
her to remain chaste while he was away fighting.
The failure of the Second Crusade was attributed to
allegations that she committed adultery with her uncle,
Raymond of Antioch40. Louis divorced her (the Vatican did
permit divorce – note Henry 8th); and she then married
Henry 2nd producing four sons; the third son would later
be known as Richard 1st or Coeur de Lion or Lion-heart.
In 1171-2 CE, king Henry 2nd invaded Ireland as a
Crusade with papal authority, which was granted to him
by Pope Adrian 4th in 1155. Adrian 4th was the only
English Pope that the Vatican ever had. He came to power
in 1154 CE – the same year that Henry 2nd became the
king of England.
Ireland's wealth was required to finance the Crusades.
Henry 2nd shared out his conquered Irish territories among
his leading followers, turning Dublin and the area around
it into a special dependency of the English Crown. Only
those Irish people willing to become English in speech,
dress and appearance were permitted to live there. The
rest were hunted down and exterminated like vermin.
Having been one of Western Europe's richest and most
advanced countries, Ireland was transformed into one of
the poorest and most backward. Henry 2nd was so
successful that the Pope invited him to lead a new
Crusade (against Saluddin Ayyubi) and become king of
Jerusalem60. Ever since, the British Isles has been
blighted by the Irish troubles. Successive English
governments have been trying to resolve a problem of
religious origin, as a political problem, without success.
After Saluddin Ayyubi recaptured Jerusalem on 4th July
1187 CE, the patriarch of Antioch wrote a letter to Henry
2nd in September 1187 CE, pleading for help from the old
king and the English, since he saw England as a wealthy
realm40. By 1187 CE, Henry 2nd had paid 30,000 marks
into his Jerusalem bank account51.
In 1188 CE, Henry 2nd responded by levying the 'Saladin
tithe' – a general tax of one-tenth on income and property,
except clerics' books, horses, vestments and church
furniture, to finance the Third Crusade, arousing bitter
resentment as it was regarded as a heavy burden5. The
punishment for tax avoidance was excommunication.
Bishops wrote to every parish in their dioceses on
Christmas day announcing the due date of the tithe.40 The
ecclesiastical tithe used in 1166, 1185 and 1188 CE for
financial support of the Holy Land was the most heaviest
tax, based on an estimate of a man's revenues and
In 1189 CE, Richard the Lion-heart became king of
England. On 29th September 1999, the London Times,
described him as Richard the Lioness-heart – a gay
warrior, because he committed unnatural acts with king
Philip Augustus of France and a boy called Sancho – who
was Richard's brother-in-law.
The romantic image of him is a myth i.e. film propaganda.
Although he was born in Oxford, his native tongue was
French47, having spent most of his youth at his mother's
court in Poitiers (Central France). During his ten-year
reign as king, he spent no more than six months in
England31, visiting England twice: once for three months
and later for two months33; a grand total of 160 days. He
hated the English and England which he found wet, boring
and foreign. The English hated him for increasing taxes to
pay for the Third Crusade. According to the royal clerk,
Roger of Howden, Richard 'put up for sale everything he
had'. Castles, titles, official offices – whole towns were sold
off – and the proceeds added to an impressively large
treasury to purchase the biggest and best ships available5.
He was even prepared to sell the city of London21. His reign
was an unhappy one for England for it was marked by
years of destructive conflict between those who governed
in his absence; and years of crushing taxation as the
absent tyrant drew on England's wealth to finance the
While returning from the Crusade, Richard was captured
and held prisoner in Germany for more than a year (Dec.
1192 – Feb. 1194 CE). During the Crusades, he had
quarrelled with Duke Leopold of Austria, who never
forgave Richard for throwing the Hapsburg standard into
the moat at Acre31.
Richard was released after payment of a heavy ransom of
50,000 silver marks (£3 million). The ransom sum was
generated by levying swingeing taxes5 – an ecclesiastical
tithe of one-quarter on the English people51. Cistercian
monks were so wealthy that they raised one-third of the
There is a statue of Richard in front of the most famous
Gothic Cathedral in the world – the British Houses of
Parliament, even though his native tongue was French,
hated England and the English; and is buried in
Fontevrault Abbey in France41.
Royal finances and tax collection
To assist in the tax collection, William the Conqueror
introduced Jews from Rouen into the British Isles for the
first time; they then spread into twenty seven centres
including London, Norwich, Canterbury, Oxford,
Cambridge, Exeter, Lincoln and York. The Jews were
regarded as the personal serfs of the king3; and under the
monarch's special protection for they were also a very
important source of royal finance for funding military
campaigns like the Crusades. During the coronation of
Richard the Lioness-heart in 1189 CE, a riot broke out
when Jews tried to enter the Cathedral to give Richard a
gift; thirty Jews were killed and Jewish houses were
burned down. Just before Richard set off for the Third
Crusade, anti-Jewish riots broke out again and the
English massacred the Jews in Bury St. Edmunds and
York in March 1190 CE, when feudal barons decided to
wipe out their debts by killing their creditors.21,
Merchants, barons and prelates borrowed against incomes
from their estates in Normandy from the Jews3. Jews paid
for the construction of some of Britain's magnificent
cathedrals, abbeys and castles. For example, Aaron of
Lincoln helped finance the building of Lincoln Cathedral,
as well as Peterborough Cathedral, St Alban's Abbey and
nine Cistercian monasteries.64
During the reign of William the Conqueror's grandson,
Stephen of Blois, Jewish houses became banks, and for
security, like those that survive in Lincoln, they were the
first houses of ordinary citizens to be built of stone3.
In 1290 CE, Crusader king, Edward 1st expelled the Jews
from England and seized most of their remaining assets.
Their place as royal creditors was taken by Italians and
Tax Avoidance: Lady Godiva
A famous tax avoidance scheme was one involving
Countess (Lady) Godiva who persistently begged her
husband, Earl Leofric of Chester to free the peasants of
taxes. Eventually he agreed providing that she ride on her
horse naked through the market place in front of all the
people. The feudal system was put under enormous strain
when millions of peasants (taxpayers) died in the Black
Death. Priests and Jews (tax-collectors) were blamed for
the evil of the plague. Frightened men asserted that the
disease was spread by travelling Jews who poisoned the
wells31. England became under-populated, under-
developed, and inward-looking compared with other
Western countries, notably France. Her recovery after the
Black Death had been slow – slower than in France,
Germany, Switzerland, and some Italian cities.51
Death of the Man of the Millennium
On 9th September 1087 CE, William the Conqueror died,
about six weeks after falling off his horse in France while
fighting his eldest son, Robert Curthose and King Philip of
France. Robert (a future Crusader) had become an enemy
of his father, when his father did not assign him the
proprietorship of Normandy which had been promised to
him. Robert went to France, and with the assistance of
the king of France, committed great and frequent ravages
in his father's dukedom, Normandy; he burned the towns,
put to death the people, and gave his father no little
annoyance and anxiety.4
At his deathbed in the priory of St. Gervais, William burst
into a flood of tears as he prayed for divine mercy32. He
confessed, professing tormenting guilt and regret: 'I was
bred to arms since my childhood, and am stained with the
rivers of (English) blood that I have shed'7. 'I have
persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason.
Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them;
many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes
perished through me by famine or the sword…I fell on the
English of the northern shires like a ravening lion. I
commanded their houses and corn, with all their implements
and chattels, to be burnt without distinction, and great herds
of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever
they are found. In this way I took revenge on multitudes of
both sexes by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel
famine, and so became the barbarous murderer of many
thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people.
Having gained the throne of that kingdom by so many crimes
I dare not leave it to anyone but God…'29.
William then directed the lavish distributions of alms onto
the clergy. However, as soon as he died, his magnates
(aristocrats) mounted their horses and departed in haste
to secure their property. The inferior attendants, observing
that the gentry had disappeared, laid hands on the arms,
the plates, the robes, the linens, and all the royal
furniture, leaving the corpse almost naked on the floor.4
William's funeral was also an undignified affair. His body
went mouldy quickly and two of the undertakers caught a
fever from the corpse and died. A man interrupted
William's funeral shouting that William had stolen
monastery land and had no right to be buried there in
Caen. The man was given money to shut him up.58
When William's corpse was lowered into the stone coffin /
sarcophagus, the monks were obliged to use some violence
in forcing the overweight corpse in, because through the
negligence of the masons it had been made too short.
William's bowels burst, and a disgusting stench (foul
smell) filled the Church, choking bystanders and the rest
of the crowd.3,4,51. Towards the end of his life William had
grown very fat (living off England's wealth). King Philip
used to say that William looked like a pregnant woman41.
1087 CE was a year of notorious fires, pestilence and
famine; an appropriate epitaph for one who had brought
about such dramatic and brutal changes to England
through the use of force33.
Not surprisingly, the late Cardinal Basil Hume – a cleric
fluent in Hebrew and head of the Roman Catholic Church
in England and Wales nominated William the Conqueror
as man of the Millennium on BBC Radio 4's Today
programme on 24th December 1998. However, two British
historians have concluded that William was a man who
seems to have been astute without wisdom, resolute
without foresight, a man of very limited aims and very
limited vision, narrow, ignorant and superstitious7.
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