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This is all the more regrettable as the effects of Guillaume's invasion are still with us. In 21st century England, 70% of the land is still owned by less than 1% of the population; the second most unequal rate of land ownership on the planet, after Brazil. It is questionable whether this would be the case had the Normans not concentrated all of it in the hands of the king and his cronies nearly 1000 years ago.
Other Norman legacies remain with us too, or have only recently been purged from our society. Automatic hereditary monarchy, the 'ownership' of a wife by her husband, the inheritance of land and titles by the first-born son, the legal ownership of all lands by the monarch; all are Norman introductions. Historians today tend to sniff at the old radical idea of the 'Norman Yoke'. History, like any academic discipline, has it's fashions. In my view the Yoke was very real, and echoes of it can still be found today.
