Throughout the ninth century, the Vikings had made a concerted effort to conquer and rule all of Anglo-Saxon England. In 878, however, Alfred, king of the West Saxons (or Wessex), defeated the Vikings, inaugurating a period of recovery and stability in England. Alfred and his immediate successors built a system of local defenses and slowly extended royal rule beyond Wessex to other Anglo-Saxon peoples until one law, royal law, took precedence over local custom. England was divided into local units called shires, or counties, each under the jurisdiction of a sheriff appointed by the king. Sheriffs were unpaid officials from well-off families responsible for collecting taxes, catching and trying criminals, and raising infantry when the king required it.

The Viking invasions of England resumed, however, and the island eventually came under Viking rule, with the Viking Canute (r. 1016–1035) making England the center of his empire. When Canute’s heir Edward died childless, there were three claimants to the throne of England — the Anglo-Saxon noble Harold Godwinson (ca. 1022–1066), who had been crowned by English nobles; the Norwegian king Harald III (r. 1045–1066), grandson of Canute; and Duke William of Normandy, who was the illegitimate son of Edward’s cousin.

In 1066, the forces of Harold Godwinson crushed Harald’s invading army in northern England, then quickly marched south when they heard that William had invaded England with his Norman vassals. Harold was decisively defeated by William at the Battle of Hastings — an event now known as the Norman conquest. In both England and Normandy, William the Conqueror limited the power of the nobles and church officials, and built a unified monarchy. In England, he retained the office of sheriff, but named Normans to the posts. William wanted to determine how much wealth there was in his new kingdom and who held what land. Royal officials were sent to every part of the country, and the resulting record, called the Domesday Book (DOOMZ-day), helped William and his descendants tax land appropriately. It also helped William and future English kings regard their country as one unit.

William’s son Henry I (r. 1100–1135) established a bureau of finance called the Exchequer that became the first institution of the government bureaucracy of England. In addition to various taxes and annual gifts, Henry’s income came from money paid to the Crown for settling disputes and as penalties for crimes, as well as money due to him in his private position as landowner and lord.

In 1128, Henry’s daughter Matilda was married to Geoffrey of Anjou; their son became Henry II of England and inaugurated the Angevin dynasty. Henry II inherited the French provinces of Anjou, Normandy, Maine, and Touraine in northwestern France, and in 1152, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was heir to Aquitaine, Poitou (pwah-TOO), and Gascony in southwestern France. As a result, Henry claimed nearly half of today’s France, and the histories of England and France became closely intertwined.