Complex sentence: Their quick adaptability expressed itself in the shrewd Norman willingness to take on local men of talent, to marry the high-born local women; confidently illiterate Norman masters used the literate clerks of the church for their own purposes.
Split into simpler sentences: Their quick adaptability expressed itself in the willingness to take on local men of talent, to marry the high-born local women. Illiterate Norman masters used the literate clerks of the church for their own purposes.