The date of the Conquest provides the opening bracket for Rollison's long social revolution and the intensification of his analysis of the
commonalty. He describes their struggle over subsequent centuries against their Norman rulers, who embraced a chivalric, warrior culture.
If we start out from the idea that the city is the physical domain for the modern development of the
commonalty, we have to accept that in physical terms the city is the conjunction of its public spaces.
While royalty, aristrocrats, and great gentry sought enforcement of their hunting privileges, lesser, nonarmigerous, non-seignorial gentry with their poaching friends among the
commonalty evaded punishment in common-law courts or through nonenforcement.
