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Theory

Unit 1. Socio-historical introduction to the Middle English period:

The Norman Conquest and its influence on language
development.

Introduction
The Normans were 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.

Unit 1. The Norman Conquest 1

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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 a Norman 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.

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The Conquest of England

The Norman Conquest of England began 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.

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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

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, who spent 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
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
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elected king by the Witenagemot of England and crowned by Archbishop Ealdred of

York. 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 if either 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 replacement
A 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 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 decades that 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

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landowning class, ultimately found Norman domination 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 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 government accounting office

called the Exchequer was established by Henry I. In 1150, some years after

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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 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 the
connection established in 1066. Thus, the entanglement of the English kingdom

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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.

Linguistic Consequences on the 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 more mainstream 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, 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.

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 half of 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

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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: <ch>, <wh>, <sh>, <v>;
<ou> (ME long u), etc.
2. French books were imported and reproduced;

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 outdate 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 accompanied William

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
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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 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 the later 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).
Latin /k/
Anglo-Norman Central French
/k/ /t/

Old French /w/

/w/ /gw/ > /g/

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After the Conquest

After 1066 three languages were available in England: French, Latin and English-
and it is with the position of French and relations with France that we are
going to deal with now. Although the kings of England lost their Norman
possessions in 1204, they did not cease to have any involvement in French
affairs. In 1152 the French queen divorced the king and married Henry of
Anjou, who became King of England in 1154.

This French queen was Eleanor of Aquitaine who brought with her as a dowry
Aquitaine, made up of the two provinces of Guyenne and Gascony. But the
English presence in Aquitaine was quite different from that in Normandy. The
conquerors of England had held lands in Normandy and thus had possessions on
both sides of the Channel. Although the kings of England became dukes of
Aquitaine, the number of English people who held lands there was small. If
anything the tendency was the opposite: Gascons came to England and acquired
lands there. Often this caused resentment and anti-French feeling among the

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English nobles. In 1328 Charles IV of France died without immediate heirs, and

as Edward III of England was the son of Isabella of France, Charles sister, he
claimed the throne of France through her, though this claim was dismissed in
France since the Salic Law did not allow inheritance through the female line.
Edward was not strong enough in 1328 to take steps to pursue his claim. The
French for their part elected Philip of Valois king. When in 1338 Philip started to
support the Scottish king against the English, Edward pressed his claim more
strongly and decided to follow up his claim with force. This was the beginning
of the Hundred Years War, which l asted until the middle of the fifteenth
century when England lost all its possessions in France except Calais. The war
fluctuated with now one and now the other side gaining the advantage. For
instance in 1415 Henry V had a victory at Agincourt.
In addition to the dynastic quarrels that existed between France and England, the
two countries were often involved in trade disputes involving wool and wine. It
was impossible for France and England not to have conflicts over a variety of
issues. France during this period was rapidly achieving some linguistic cohesion in
the north where FRANCIEN was assuming the status of the standard variety. In
England Anglo-Norman remained the language of bureaucracy and estate
management. In literary matters it was FRANCIEN that was becoming more
important not only in France, but also in England. Material written in England
might well use Anglo-Norman, but texts imported from France, particularly
literary and religious ones, were likely to be written in Francien. French,
therefore, had a twofold hold in England at this time: in one form as a language
of bureaucracy, and in its other forms a language of literary excellence. With the
increasing influence of French literature during the fourteenth century, the
latter variety of French may seem the more important because it was so visible.
One need only think of the introduction and translation of romances and fabliaux
in England to understand this influence, for it is especially significant in the
work of Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the fourteenth century. But one
should not underestimate the influence of Anglo-Norman, even though its effects
were less obvious. All those involved in estate management or legal affairs would

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need to be familiar with it. Literary and cultured people like Chaucer may have
been exposed to a high level of French literary influence, but the average person
would be more familiar with Anglo Norman, because that was a more pervasive
factor in the daily lives of those who were outside the sphere of the court and
the major nobles. The kings of England may still have been largely French-
speaking and this would have affected the linguistic situation at court, but
elsewhere English was the language of daily communication, and Anglo-Norman
the language of administration.
The influence of Latin should not be underestimated, but it was the language
of learning and scholarship. At that level, it was predominant. University
education was dedicated to understanding the Latin language and its
exploitation so that the various authors available in Latin texts, even if they had
originally written in a different language, could be studied in depth. The 12th
century renaissance led to the renewal of the study of Latin, and the foundation
of many universities in the thirteenth century provided the culmination of that
renewed interest. As a language of administration Latin had the disadvantage
that it was not a spoken language, and consequently had to borrow many words
from Anglo-Norman in England. Many documents in Latin appear to be often
little more than Anglo-Norman texts in a Latin dress because so many of the
words and formulas used in them have been taken over from the vernacular
language. Often indeed the words used in Latin texts are simply carried over
from Anglo-Norman or even English in the form in which they exist in the
vernacular and are not even given a pseudo-Latin form through the addition of
Latin inflections. The Latin of intellectual texts used at university was not the
Latin of documents or records. The Latin of these texts is often what is referred
to as Vulgar Latin, a version which has few of the forms and inflections of
classical Latin. Even at the spoken level, those who used Vulgar Latin with few
inflections and a word order which resembled that found in Anglo-Norman and
English could have made themselves understood. It may be this Vulgar Latin
acted as a kind of lingua franca for many travellers such as merchants and
pilgrims. Even Anglo-Norman gradually lost its status as a spoken language during

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the fourteenth century. It remained an important language in documents and

legal writings, but once it ceased to be used at the spoken level, its place
would be taken by the French of France for those who wanted to speak French.
English begins to emerge once again as a possible language for documents in the
thirteenth century. In 1258 Henry III was obliged to accept the Provisions of
Oxford, which were issued in both English and French. The English of this
proclamation is essentially south-western and shows some influence of the former
standard including, for example, the use of <>, which here makes its final
appearance in English. Written documents using English in writing are still rare.
Gradually new literary writings in English become more frequent, though they
occur in different parts of the country and in various dialects. Although
literature in English becomes more common, it is often translated from French
and the translators or adaptators, as they might more accurately be called, often
feel called upon to justify their use of English. Because French had a higher status
than English, some reason for writing in English at all had to be offered.

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