They are definitely founding fathers of the English Political and social system which evolved on the ground plow and sow by the revolutionary changes and institutions introduced by the Normans to the Anglo-Saxon subsoil.
Not a single part of that is true.
The Normans were considered at the time the poor relations of the English in Europe. The only reason the Normans were able to seize control of the crown and country was the pre existing social structures. The Norman Lords just took over English earldoms (earldormen,thegns) and the lands that went with them. It was more of a Coup than a conquest in many ways.
One thing they did introduce was Primo geniture,but you would probably like that stuff and not see it as a problem, I mean, why should the Anglo Saxon women continue to have equal rights eh? ;) This was no *cunning plan* by the Normans but what it did do was slightly cut down the number of mini wars between brothers that allowed for England to become a far more stable sociaty than the rest of Europe at the time,but not completly as our Kings had a habit of fighting against their own brothers,wives or dads :)
Unfortunatly that leads to the problem of all those nasty things like Serfdom etc *we* like to blame on the Normans were actually English home grown laws.
Id agree with everything citizen just said apart from the fact that London was not the capital of England back then,it never had even been a capital of the earlier Anglo Saxon Kingdoms,just a fairly *open city* in Mercia.
