[* Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. cap. 30.]
The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides
his brave Normans, he might employ against England the flower of the
military force which was dispersed in all the neighboring states.
France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal
institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and
baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within
them selves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as
independent sovereigns, and maintained their propertied and privileges,
less by the authority of laws, than by their own force and valor. A
military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout Europe;
and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their princely
situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises; and being
accustomed to nothing, from their infancy, but recitals of the success
attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural ambition to
imitate those adventures which they heard so much celebrated, and which
were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the age. United, however
loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and by their connections
with the great body of the community to which they belonged, they
desired to spread their fame each beyond his own district and in all
assemblies, whether instituted for civil deliberations for military
expeditions, or merely for show and entertainment, to outshine each
other by the reputation of strength and prowess.
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