Winning a battle, not yet a kingdom
Victory at Hastings did not hand William the whole of England. After the battle in October 1066 he moved through Kent and approached London, and the surviving English leaders eventually submitted to him. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. A new king still had to turn a coronation into control of the kingdom, and that took years.
Revolt and the harrying of the north
Over the next several years William faced uprisings in the southwest, in the Welsh borders, in East Anglia and above all in the north. Some English lords rebelled; some sought help from Danish kings; some accepted Norman rule at first and later turned against it. In 1069 and 1070 William campaigned in the north and ordered devastation of farmland and settlements, usually called the harrying of the north. Contemporary and later chroniclers describe great suffering and famine there, although modern historians disagree about the scale, and exact figures are not trustworthy.
Castles as instruments of control
A central tool of the conquest was the castle. Many of the early ones were wooden structures on an artificial mound, within a fenced yard, known as the motte and bailey type. They could be put up fast and held a small garrison among a hostile population. In time many were rebuilt in stone. Castles were centers from which the new rulers could watch roads, towns and rivers and give a visible sign of authority; the English had had fortified towns, but not castles of this sort in large numbers.
A new landholding class
The most lasting change was in who held the land. William rewarded the men who had come with him, and those who joined later, with estates. English landholders who had fought against him or died at Hastings lost land, and over time very few English families of the top rank kept great holdings. Historians still dispute how quickly and how completely the English elite was displaced, but the broad outcome is clear: within a generation or so the top level of lay and church society was dominated by newcomers from Normandy and northern France.
Land was granted on conditions, usually military service to the king in return, which helped to spread the practices of feudalism more systematically in England. Great lords then divided their land among their own followers in turn.
Counting everything
In 1085 William ordered a huge survey of landholding and resources, and the results, compiled in 1086, are known as Domesday Book. It recorded who held land, what it was worth, and how many people and animals lived there, which gave the crown a detailed knowledge of its resources that few medieval rulers could match. It is still used by historians as a major source, though it has gaps and was never meant as a complete census.
Language and culture
The new ruling class spoke Norman French, and for a long time French was the language of government, the court and the upper nobility. Latin remained the language of the church and most written records. English continued to be spoken by the great majority of people. Over the following centuries it absorbed many French words, especially in law, government, food and war, and changed in grammar and spelling. This is part of the story of how Middle English emerged, and the process was gradual rather than sudden.
Church and ties to the continent
William also reshaped the church. English bishops and abbots were gradually replaced by Normans and other continental clergy, and the church acquired a more orderly, Roman-oriented organization. Many cathedrals and abbeys were later rebuilt on a grand scale in the new Romanesque style.
England was also pulled into the affairs of France. The kings were also dukes of Normandy, which meant that English kings held land across the Channel for generations, a link that shaped relations with France and fed the quarrels behind the Hundred Years War.
What stayed the same
Not everything changed. Shires, the system of local courts, and the use of written royal orders, known as writs, continued from Anglo-Saxon practice, and the new rulers made use of them. Most people were farmers who worked the same fields under a different lord. The conquest was a dramatic change at the top and a slower one beneath it.