Doomsday book, The social and historical significance

How did the Normans convince so many people to pay taxes to the conquorers.
The combination of religion and intimidation must have been terriffic to persuade people to adopt Christian names and pay a tax on the possesions they have always owned freely.

Those darn "Democrats"!!!  

 When Edward died without an heir, the Saxon concial of lords voted for his brother in law as king. William of Normandy was relatied by blood, and thought he had a better claim. The way he won the crown. Had a lot to making up the way people reacted to his laws.  He got rid of most of the Saxon Lords, and the comon people were in essance slaves, that belonged to the land.  They were already paing taxes, just to a different group.

Now I am not an expert on the subject, but it is worth noting that the conversion of Celtic peoples to Christianity happened without the tremendous bloodshed that one would normally see through out history when a new religion is imposed on another people.

From what I understand, at the same time Christianity was coming to the Celtic lands, there were many diseases and plagues occurring, which may have made the conversion easier for people to accept....i.e....the Celtic Gods have abandond us, lets switch over to this new religion!

At the same time, it seems that they allowed Celtic and Christianity to inter-mingle because alot of the Catholic traditions seems to have roots in some of the Celtic Traditions.

Well, I look to Welsh Guy to shed his wealth of information on this topic!