Unit 1 the Norman Conquest

8/10/2019 Unit 1 the Norman Conquest

1/12

Gramtica Histrica de la Lengua InglesaTheory

!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 2

Unit 1. Socio-historical introduction to the Middle

English period: The Norman Conquest and its influence

on language development.

Introduction

The Normanswere the people who gave their name to Normandy, a

region in northern France. They were descended from Viking

conquerors of the territory and the native population of mostly

Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in

the first half of the 10th century, and gradually evolved over

succeeding centuries. The name "Normans" derives from Nortmanni

(Northmen), after the Vikings who founded Normandy.


2/12

3 !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

They quickly adopted the Romance language of the land they settled

off, their dialect becoming known as Norman, an important literary

language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty with

the French crown, was one of the great large fiefs of medieval France.

The Normans are famed both for their culture, such as their unique

Romanesque architecture, and their musical traditions, as well as for

their military accomplishments and innovations. Norman adventurers

established a kingdom in Sicily and southern Italy by conquest, and aNorman expedition on behalf of their duke led to the Norman

Conquest of England. Norman influence spread from these new

centres to the Crusader States in the Near East, to Scotland and Wales

in Great Britain, and to Ireland.


3/12


!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 4

The Conquest of England

The Norman conquest of Englandbegan on 28 September 1066 with

the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, who became

known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of

Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating the then king Harold II of

England. Harold's army was badly depleted in the English victory at

the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Northern England on 25 September

1066 over the army of King Harald III of Norway. By early 1071,William had secured control of most of England, although rebellions

and resistance continued to approximately 1088.


4/12

5 !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

The Norman conquest was a pivotal event in English history. It largely

removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a foreign, French-

speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. This, in turn,brought about a transformation of the English language and the

culture of England in a new era often referred to as Norman England

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest_of_England)

By bringing England under the control of rulers originating in France,

the Norman conquest linked the country more closely with continental

Europe, lessened Scandinavian influence, and also set the stage for a

rivalry with France that would continue intermittently for many

centuries. It also had important consequences for the rest of the British

Isles, paving the way for further Norman conquests in Wales and

Ireland, and the extensive penetration of the aristocracy of Scotland byNorman and other French-speaking families, with the accompanying

spread of continental institutions and cultural influences.

Precedents to the Conquest

In 1002 King thelred II of England married Emma, the sister of

Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their son Edward the Confessor, whospent many years in exile in Normandy, succeeded to the English

throne in 1042. This led to the establishment of a powerful Norman

interest in English politics, as Edward drew heavily on his former hosts

for support, bringing in Norman courtiers, soldiers, and clerics and


5/12


!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 6

appointing them to positions of power, particularly in the Church.

Childless and embroiled in conflict with the formidable Godwin, Earl

of Wessex and his sons, Edward may also have encouraged Duke

William of Normandy's ambitions for the English throne.

When King Edward died at the beginning of 1066, the lack of a clear

heir led to a disputed succession in which several contenders laid

claim to the throne of England. Edward's immediate successor was the

Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson (King Harold II), the richest and

most powerful of the English aristocracy, who was elected king by the

Witenagemot of England and crowned by Archbishop Ealdred ofYork. However, he was at once challenged by two powerful

neighbouring rulers. Duke William claimed that he had been promised

the throne by King Edward and that Harold had sworn agreement to

this. Harald III of Norway, commonly known as Harald Hardrada,

also contested the succession. His claim to the throne was based on a

supposed agreement between his predecessor Magnus I of Norway,

and the earlier Danish King of England Harthacanute, whereby ifeither died without heir, the other would inherit both England and

Norway. Both William and Harald at once set about assembling troops

and ships for an invasion.

Consequences of the Conquest

Elite replacementA direct consequence of the invasion was the near-total elimination of

the old English aristocracy and the loss of English control over the

Catholic Church in England. William systematically dispossessed

English landowners and conferred their property on his continental


6/12

7 !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

followers. The Domesday Book meticulously documents the impact of

this colossal programme of expropriation, revealing that by 1086 only

about 5% of land in England south of the Tees was left in English

hands. Even this tiny residue was further diminished in the decadesthat followed, the elimination of native landholding being most

complete in southern parts of the country.

Natives were also soon purged from high governmental and

ecclesiastical office. After 1075 all earldoms were held by Normans,

while Englishmen were only occasionally appointed as sheriffs.

Likewise in the Church senior English office-holders were either

expelled from their positions or kept in place for their lifetimes but

replaced by foreigners when they died. By 1096 no bishopric was held

by any Englishman, while English abbots became uncommon,

especially in the larger monasteries.

English emigration

Large numbers of English people, especially from the dispossessed

former landowning class, ultimately found Norman domination


7/12


!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 8

unbearable and emigrated. Scotland and the Byzantine Empire were

particularly popular destinations, while others settled in Ireland (as

did Godwine and Magnus, sons of Harold Godwinson), Scandinavia

and perhaps as far afield as Russia and the coasts of the Black Sea.

Governmental systems

Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon England had one of the

most sophisticated governmental systems in Western Europe. All of

England was divided into administrative units called shires (shares) of

roughly uniform size and shape, which were run by officials known as"shire reeve" or "sheriff". The shires tended to be somewhat

autonomous and lacked coordinated control. English government

made heavy use of written documentation, which was unusual for

kingdoms in Western Europe and made for more efficient governance

than word of mouth.

The English developed permanent physical locations of government.

Most medieval governments were always on the move, holding court

wherever the weather and food or other matters were best at the

moment. This practice limited the potential size and sophistication of a

government body to whatever could be packed on a horse and cart,

including the treasury and library. England had a permanent treasury

at Winchester, from which a permanent government bureaucracy and

document archive began to grow.

This sophisticated medieval form of government was handed over to

the Normans and grew stronger. The Normans centralised the

autonomous shire system. The Domesday survey exemplifies the

practical codification that enabled Norman assimilation of conquered


8/12

9 !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

territories through central control of a census. It was the first kingdom-

wide census taken in Europe since the time of the Romans, and

enabled more efficient taxation of the Normans' new realm.

Systems of accounting grew in sophistication. A governmentaccounting office called the Exchequer was established by Henry I. In

1150, some years after Henry's death, the Exchequer was established at

the Palace of Westminster. The tradition continues to the present day,

with the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at nearby 11

Downing Street, adjacent to number 10, the office of the First Lord of

the Treasury who in modern times is also the Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom, and just a block from HM Treasury at 1 Horse

Guards Road.

Relations with France

After the conquest, relations between the Anglo-Norman monarchy

and the French crown became increasingly fractious. Considerable

hostility had already developed between William and his Capetian

overlords before the invasion of England, and this was soon

exacerbated by Capetian support for his son Robert Curthose, who

fought a series of wars against his father and later against his brothers.

As Dukes of Normandy, William and his descendants were still vassals

of the King of France, but as Kings of England they were his equals.

In the 1150s, with the creation of the Angevin Empire, the Plantagenet

successors of the Norman kings controlled half of France and all of

England, dwarfing the power of the Capetians. The contradictions

inherent in this situation became more problematic as the French

monarchy grew stronger and increasingly assertive in the rights it


9/12


!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 :

claimed over its vassals. A crisis came in 1204 when Philip II of France

seized all Norman and Angevin holdings in France except Gascony.

In the fourteenth century, the intermittent warfare over the continental

territories of the Kings of England, which had continued since

William's time, escalated into the Hundred Years War, prompted by

the efforts of Edward III to regain his ancestors' lands in France and to

extend the sovereignty he enjoyed in England to his French

possessions, cutting the ties of vassalage binding him to the French

crown. This struggle ended only with the final collapse of the

Plantagenet position in France in 1453, which effectively severed theconnection established in 1066. Thus, the entanglement of the English

kingdom with the continental possessions and interests of the French

magnates who had seized the throne embroiled England in almost

four centuries of recurrent warfare against the Kings of France. These

conflicts gave rise to a deep-rooted and durable tradition of Anglo-

French rivalry and antagonism.

Language

One of the most obvious changes was the introduction of Anglo-

Norman, a northern dialect of Old French, as the language of the ruling

classes in England, displacing Old English. This predominance was

further reinforced and complicated in the mid-twelfth century by an

influx of followers of the Angevin dynasty, speaking a moremainstream dialect of French. Not until the fourteenth century would

English regain its former primacy, while the use of French at court

continued into the fifteenth century.

By this time, English had itself been profoundly transformed,


10/12

2; !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

developing into the starkly different Middle English, which formed the

basis for the modern language. During the centuries of French

linguistic dominance, a large proportion of the words in the English

language had disappeared and been replaced by French words,leading to the present hybrid tongue in which an English core

vocabulary is combined with a largely French abstract and technical

vocabulary. The grammatical structures of the language had also

changed dramatically, although the relationship, if any, between this

transformation and the marginalisation of English resulting from the

conquest is uncertain.

Linguistic Consequencies on the Language

To many people the Norman Conquest symbolises the submersion of

the English language under the influx of French. This is partly because

a large number of French loan-words entered English in the period

1066 to 1500. In fact the majority of these loans date from the latter halfof that period and most of them are of a more technical and literary

nature than contact between languages at a spoken level would

promote. The view that French completely changed the nature of

English after the Conquest is not sustainable. Although two languages,

English and French, were spoken in England, it is doubtful whether it

ever became a truly bilingual country. The majority of the population

was monolingual and only used English.

Where French was important was in writing.

1. French writing systems were introduced: , , ;

(ME long u), etc.

2.

French books were imported and reproduced;


11/12


!"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01 2

3. And the law and other documents were written in French or

Latin. In so far as bilingualism existed it was only in writing , for

to be educated involved not only learning Latin but also

becoming familiar with French.Apart from Celtic, which was spoken by those on the periphery of the

country, three languages were used in England: English and French in

both speech and writing, and Latin as essentially only a written

language. At the spoken level English consisted of numerous dialects,

some of which were probably difficult for speakers of other dialects to

understand. At the written level there was the surviving Old English

standard, which was gradually becoming outdated because it not

longer reflected the speech of most English people. It was also no

longer the prestige written language, because French and Latin were

now supported by the monarchy. It soon became antiquated and was

not the primary language for official business.

It is also important to understand that the men who accompaniedWilliam included not only Normans, but also Frenchmen from other

parts of France. They all spoke their own local variety of French, for at

this time the standardisation of French based round the Ile de France,

which is today known as FRANCIEN, had hardly begun. The French

spoken in England was not the French that ultimately spread from

there to the rest of the country; it is that variety which we know as

Anglo-Norman. Chaucer, in his description of the Prioress in The

Canterbury Tales, mentions that she spoke the French of STRATFORD-

ATTE-BOWE rather than that of Paris. He was not necessarily poking

fun at her, but merely signifying that her French was of the sort found

in England. Because of the use of Anglo-Norman in England, French


12/12

23 !"#$ &'()*+ ,'+-.$/01

loan-words borrowed before the thirteenth century often show the

phonological characteristics of Anglo-Norman rather than those of

Central French. In many cases English borrowed a word in both its

Anglo-Norman and its Central French form, with the second being thelater loan. Latin initial /k/ remained in Anglo-Norman as /k/, but in

Central French it developed the palatal form /t!/. This difference led

to the English pair CATTLE from Anglo-Norman and CHATTEL from

Central French. Similarly the initial /w/ of Old French was retained in

Anglo-Norman, whereas in Central French it progressed through

/gw/ to /g/. This has led to the following pairs in English from each

of these respective dialects: wage/gage, warrant/guarantee and

wardrobe/garderobe (where the latter is now used in descriptions of

castles and suchlike buildings).

Unit 1 the Norman Conquest

Documents

Transcript of Unit 1 the Norman Conquest