The Transformation of Yorkshire 1066-1086

By 1086 William the Conqueror and the first generation of Anglo-Norman magnates had laid the foundations of Norman rule in Yorkshire. The county had undergone a social, military and (in places) tenurial revolution. The vast majority of the Anglo-Scandinavian aristocracy had been deprived of their lands or demoted to the level of subtenants, their governmental offices had been taken away, their honours had been partially reorganised and many of their most important administrative and population centres had been subjected to Norman military control. The county probably bristled with Norman castles, around the majority of which a resident continental tenantry was already bringing Norman administration to bear. And coordinating this administration was the Norman sheriff, based in one of the castles at York, and directly responsible to the king.

Paul Dalton (1994) Conquest, Anarchy and Lordship: Yorkshire, 1066-1154, Cambridge University Press, p. 79.