During the Middle Ages, England, France, and Germany were groups of small local areas governed by the local noble. Each area had its own laws and customs. The only reason that the states were had different names was due to the monarch, who had little power. Slowly, due to brilliant leaders, each state became centralized and slowly evolved into being a modern state.

England was the farthest to centralize during the middle 11th century. It had counties, or shires. Each shire was legally ruled by a sheriff. Since the king chose the sheriff, he had some control of the shire indirectly. William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, took over English when the old king, Edward the Confessor died in 1066. The Norman inquest, which he introduced in 1085, sent royal officials to individual shires to see how much wealth his vassals had. The Doomsday Book, which held all the...