In later times this feudal distribution of estates had greatly increased as the bulk of the nobles followed the king's example and bound their tenants to themselves by a similar process of subinfeudation.

The pure freeholders on the other hand, the class which formed the basis of the original English society, had been gradually reduced in number, partly through imitation of the class above them, but more through the pressure of the Danish wars and the social disturbance consequent upon them which forced these freemen to seek protectors among the thegns at the cost of their independence.

Even before the reign of William therefore feudalism was superseding the older freedom in England as it had already superseded it in Germany or France.
But the tendency was quickened and intensified by the Conquest.

The desperate and universal resistance of the country forced William to hold by the sword what the sword had won; and an army strong enough to crush at any moment a national revolt was needful for the preservation of his throne.

Such an army could only be maintained by a vast confiscation of the soil, and the failure of the English risings cleared the ground for its establishment.