The Norman Conquest had not fundamentally altered the agricultural organization of English life for most people.

The lord might be a Norman with a French name and French-speaking household rather than an Anglo-Saxon with an English name, but the peasants who worked the land had the same work to do.

What changed for ordinary people was primarily who was at the top of the social hierarchy, and what that hierarchy demanded from them.

The Conquest had, however, intensified some existing pressures.

Norman lords were demanding in their extraction of services and rents from the peasants on their manors.