We Use English To Study History

Written by Narek Arustamyan 10-3

Since February 1 we have studied some historical events from English History, such as the early ages from English History; starting from’ “The Earliest Men And The Celts, The Roman Conquest, The Anglo – Saxon Invasion and The Norman Conquest”. After we had studied William’s accomplishments we decided to compare him with one of Armenian kings.

I think William the Conqueror as a king and as a statesman is very much like Armenian king Artashes the 1-st Godliness in following features, but the only difference is that King Artashes ruled Armenia in 189 b.c. but he displayed himself as farsighted commander and statesman like William did only 12 centuries Later.

Both of them were for the strong centered government, besides like William who divided the country into shires and sent his royal officials;-sheriffs, to administrate justice in the shires, in the same way king Artashes divided the country into 120 provinces and sent royal family members and courters called “strategos” to govern those provinces. For defensive purposes the following strategy was exercised since both of them built castles and fortresses in different parts of the country. Artashes kept Aldermen as councillers to support the king in governing the country.

William the Conqueror dissolved the Witenagemot and replaced it by the Great Council made up of Bishops and Barons to help him to govern.

One of the functions of Great Council was to act as the king’s Supreme Court.Armenian council of aldermen also functioned Supreme Court but the king had the final word.

In 180 b.c. King Artashes declared land reform according to which all the farm rangers were prohibited to take capture lands from the farmers, so that the villagers should be able to pay taxes to the state treasury house. William the Conqueror, to strengthen himself, declared that all the lands belonged to him by the right of conquest, the forest lands which made up one third of the country belonged to him. Thus the king of England became the richest feudal lord of all. Next we are going to study some more facts from Armenian History into English.