The development of English literature during the Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest contributed to the expansion of English culture and

literature. First,there was the enrichment of English Language and Literature by the
direct cultural and literary influence of Rome which the Norman had brought.
Secondly,there was the immense enlargement of Scholarship and learning as a
result of the contact with the scholars of Europe. Thirdly, literary themes and
expressions were greatly multiplied by the Norman inclusion of French themes and
modes of expression.

The English writers ,under the French impact,attempted every form of literature
known to the continent - Romances, Story telling in verse, Chronicles, Allegories,
homilies and legends. They sought to imitate the best that was in the French works -
their clarity and logical reasonings, their variety of color and shade, their fullness of
details and Romantic interest in live and women. In English poetry, the rhymed
verse of French replaced the Anglo-Saxon alliterative tradition.

MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
Chronicle is a usually continuous historical account of events arranged in order of
time without analysis or interpretation.

The word is from the Middle English cronicle, which is thought to have been derived
from the Greek chrónos, “time.”

o the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

o Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of
Britain)
o Andrew of Wyntoun’s Orygynale Cronykil
o Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland

ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE

Started under the patronage of King Alfred.

From the 9th century and continued until the 12th century.

Nine manuscripts survive in whole or in part

The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign.

The most recent was written at Peterborough Abbey after 1116.

THE MEDIEVAL CHIVALRIC LITERATURE

Chivalric romance is a type of prose or verse narrative that was popular in the
aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe (from the 12th
century onwards).

They typically describe the adventures of quest-seeking, legendary knights who are
portrayed as having heroic qualities.

Romance

Historically, “romance” derives from the Medieval French romanz/s referring to a

work written in the vernacular rather than in Latin. The romans first appeared in
France in the 12th century and applied to both verse and prose, and from the
beginning were associated with adventure tales (e.g. the chivalric poems of Chretien
de Troyes 1135?-1183?, or the Roman de Troie or Roman de Thebes, between 1155
and 1180).

Chivalric romance

literary scholars generally use the term to refer to an early modern form of the
prosaroman that was widespread throughout Europe.

Such works were often based on medieval antecedents, being prose reworkings of
Arthurian and heroic epics (Heroic poetry) (epics with Lancelot, Tristan, or Roland
as protagonists), but could also derive from other sources.

Sources of chivalric literature

o Folklore and folktales

o Religious practices
o Medieval epic
o Contemporary society
o Classical origins
o Courtly love

The Norman Conquest stands for much more than a change of rulers. It altered the
socio-cultural life of England and imparted a higher and more sophisticated, and
specialized order of civilization. The English language lost its rigid inflections and was
enhanced by ornamental vocabulary. The writers of English, at school under the new
masters of the land, were able to give fuller expression to their creative impulses.
The stage was set for the full blossoming of the genius of Chaucer.