1070-1089 Domesday Survey, Spanish Reconquista

This twenty year period covers the reign of the first Norman king of England, William the Conqueror, who humiliated the English even more with the 1086 Domesday survey of England because it counted them like animals, not given the respect of having their names recorded.

Only four years after William’s humiliating defeat of the English people and the confiscation of their lands, the full brunt of the conquest hit home to the upper classes, too.

The English aristocracy was dispossessed and replaced by a Norman one -- headed by William the Conqueror -- and England also received a new culture and a new language (which was used as a barrier between the indigenous population and the new ruling class).

The conquest sparked many rebellions which were ruthlessly crushed. One group of rebels, headquartered on the Isle of Ely, led by Hereward the Wake gained particular fame.

In 1073 Pope Gregory VII announced the infallibility of the Pope and in 1081-1492 the Spanish Reconquista took force (reclaiming formerly Christian lands from the Muslims).

If the Norman Conquest of England was a tactical move sanctioned by the Pope in order to fortify western lands against Muslim invasion, then the English people might be grateful that their new rulers were the same race and religion as themselves, and were fortifying and protecting their land.