Hard on the heels of massacre and starvation came plague. And all across England, William built least 90 castles, dominating areas of potential revolt, engines of terror that helped William control over 2 million Saxons with just 25,000 Normans. Most of the voices that have come down to us describing the events after 1066 are written from the victor's perspective, unapologetic and crowing, sketching the starkest possible contrast between the Machiavellian perjurer Harold and the noble, betrayed William. But among this rather nauseating chorus of congratulation, there is at least one that dares break rank, that in fact sees the conquest as it surely was - a brutal, ruthless and completely successful act of aggression and cruelty. The voice is all the more credible because it belongs to someone who by rights, should have found nothing to fault in the Norman Conquest - the monk Orderic Vitalis, whose family came over with William and belonged, therefore, to the conquering class.


而且紧跟着大屠杀和饥荒而来的就是瘟疫，在英格兰全境，威廉建造了至少九十座城堡，用来镇压这些地区潜在的反抗。恐怖镇压使得威廉仅以两万五千名诺曼人，统治了两百多万撒克逊人，流传到我们手中的那些记载着1066年之后重大事件的史料，都是胜利者书写下的，毫无悔意，洋洋自得，毫无掩饰地对比了不择手段，背信弃义的哈罗德与高尚却遭背叛的威廉。在这些对胜利者肉麻的颂歌中，至少还有那么一个声音敢于打破这和谐。它实际上真实地描述了这次征服，一次野蛮残忍，却无比成功的侵略活动。这种说法更为可信，因为按理说，写这句话的人，断不会刻意责难诺曼征服。他就是修道士奥尔德里克·维塔利斯，他的家族跟着威廉来到这里，因此他应属征服者一方。