peasants already on the land. They acquired new lords. In England over the longer term
they did experience a diminished change in status since they became tied to the land as
serfs. Their status in Sicily was already diminished. In both instances the new lords were
more demanding of their services. In the long term the underlying path dependent
process favoured the English peasant over the Sicilian peasant. This was linked to both
the underlying history of land relationships in Sicily and in England and the longer term
success and failure of the Normans to establish stable and functional government
institutions.
In Sicily and England the Normans had two basic choices: maintain the status quo or
adopt another model such as the one in Normandy or from another source such as the
French model (on which the Norman model was based). A further variable influencing
the choice was the personal authority possessed by the d’Hautevilles and William of
Normandy. The former had achieved their position by sheer force of arms while
William’s leadership position was based both on military prowess and a legal authority
derived from his position as Duke of Normandy.
In both cases the decision was to adopt the political and administrative system in place.
This was linked to a further decision regarding who would actually staff the system in
place. In the case of Roger, Count of Sicily and even more in the case of his son, Roger
II, King of Sicily, the decision was to maintain most of the personnel from the Greek and
Muslim populations (or more accurately to employ individuals from this background).
To some extent the Normans were constrained by the make up of the overall population
and the small number of Normans who actually were involved in the conquest. Most of
these Norman knights had little or no administrative experience and most of them were
more anxious to exploit their new possessions. The decision to adopt this pyramidal
hierarchical system with its Greek Saracen emphasis on the divine rights of the ruler did
not initially seem to have long term implications when combined with the feudal system
of landholding and vassalage which was based on links of obligation between lord and
vassal.
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Convention