This process was to gaurantee the alienation of the Irish by its very alien nature to .
them, for so long a tribalistic society with little clear land confines. The alienating factors of this process were obviously accentuated by the .
fact that the native Irish were the ones deliberately placed at the bottom of the feudal ladder as serfs on the estates of Norman Lords who .
controlled the lands which were once theirs. .
This feudalisation process was pioneered first in Meath,under the guidance of recently appointed Procurator General, or Justicier, Hugh de .
Lacey as, based on English and Welsh models, the territory was divided into eighteen baronies. The fortification of Trim in 1172 heralded de .
Lacey's creation of a new western frontier in Meath, literally cutting off the Gaelic population with defences which stretched as far as Delvyn in .
modern Westmeath. This feudalisation of Meath left Trim an important capital Lordship of the territory, worlds apart from the Gaelic class.
system of noble poets, warriors and Lords. De Lacey presided over a dozen Lords of Meath, along with lesser knights who in turn were sworn .
fealty from the borough-dwelling burgesses. At the bottom of the new social order then, were the Irish, classed as peasants, vassals on the land .
which was once theirs. The borough system was again a further distinction between the two nations, with its emphasis on small agricultural .
constituent settlements and tillage deeply contrasting that of the native Irish, with their continual dependence of grazing cattle in vast .
quantities over ill-defined pastures. Thus, the so-called 'manner system' of the Normans highlighted further distinctions between the two .
nations.
Despite the Windsor Treaty, which had supposedly copper-fastened the roughly equal division of the island between Gaels and Normans,.
the latter's colonial expansion continued unabated. This served to install the Normans, with their ever-expanding lands and wealth as well as .