The Norman Conquest and its Influence on the Linguistic Situation in England

 

The Norman conquest of England began in 1066. It proved to be a turning point in English history and had a considerable influence on the English language. The Normans were by origin a Scandinavian tribe (Norman < Norþman). In the 9^th century they began inroads on the northern part of France and occupied the territory on both shores of the Seine estuary. Under the treaty concluded in 912 with the Norman chief Rollo, the French king Charles the Simple ceded to the Normans this stretch of coast, which since then came to be called Normandy. During the century and a half between the Normans’ settlement in France and their invasion of England they had undergone a powerful influence of French culture. Mixing with the local population, they adopted the French language and in the mid-eleventh century, in spite of their Scandinavian origin, they were bearers of French feudal culture and of the French language.

Soon after Canute’s death (1042) and the collapse of his empire, the old Anglo-Saxon line was restored but their reign was short-lived. The new English king, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), who had been reared in France, brought over many Norman advisors and favourites; he distributed among them English lands and wealth to the considerable resentment of the Anglo-Saxon nobility and appointed them to important positions in the government and church hierarchy. He not only spoke French himself, but insisted on it being spoken by the nobles at his court. William, Duke of Normandy, visited his court and it was rumoured that Edward appointed him his successor. In many respects Edward paved the way for Norman infiltration long before the Norman conquest. However, the government was still in the hands of Anglo-Saxon lords, headed by the powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex.

In 1066, upon Edward’s death, the Elders of England (OE Witan) proclaimed Harold Godwin king of England. As soon as the news reached William of Normandy, he mustered a big army by promise of land and plunder (one third of his soldiers were Norman, others mercenaries from all over Europe), and with the support of the Pope, landed in Britain.

In the battle of Hasting, fought on October 14, 1066, Harold was killed and the English were defeated. A victory in battle by Alfred saved the English language, less than two hundred years later a defeat in battle by Harold threatened to destroy it. This date is commonly known as the date of the Norman Conquest, though the military occupation of the country was not completed until a few years later. After the victory at Hastings, William by-passed London cutting it off from the North and made the Witan of London and the bishops at Westminster Abbey crown him king. In the course of a few years, putting down revolts in various parts of the country, burning down villages and estates, the Normans became masters of England. Mercia and Northumbria, which tried to rise against the conquerors, were relentlessly crushed and almost depopulated. Old fortifications were replaced by huge stone Norman castles while most of the lands of the Anglo-Saxon lords passed into the hands of the Norman barons. William’s own possessions comprised about one third of the country. The Normans occupied all the major post in the church, government and in the army.

Following the conquest hundreds of people from France crossed the Channel to make their home in Britain. Immigration was easy, since the Norman kings of Britain were also dukes of Normandy and, about a hundred years later, took possession of the whole western part of France, thus bringing England into still closer contact with the continent. French monks, tradesmen and craftsmen flooded the south-western towns, so that not only the higher nobility but also much of the middle class was French. Generally speaking, during the reign of William the Conqueror (1066-1087) about 200 000 Frenchmen settled in England. After the Norman conquest of 1066 the linguistic situation in England was the following: the royal family and the court, the government and the feudal upper classes spoke Norman (French). It was also the everyday language of many nobles, of the higher clergy and of many townspeople in the South. The intellectual life, literature and education were in the hands of French-speaking people; French, along with Latin, was the language of writing. Teaching was largely conducted in French and boys at school were taught to translate their Latin into French instead of English.

However, the main bulk of the population – the peasantry and the townspeople, and people in the countryside, those who lived in the Midlands and up north – spoke Anglo-Saxon (English) and looked upon French as foreign and hostile. Since most of the people were illiterate, the English language was almost exclusively used for spoken communication.

Alongside these two languages a third language existed, Latin, as the international language of the church and medieval church science (within the boundaries of Western Europe).

At first French and English existed side by side without mingling. Then slowly and quietly they began to permeate each other. The Norman barons and the French town-dwellers had to pick up English words to make themselves understood, while the English began to use French words in everyday speech. A good knowledge of French would mark a person of higher standing giving him a certain social prestige. With time probably many people became bilingual and had a fair command of both languages.

These peculiar linguistic conditions could not remain static. The struggle between French and English was bound to end in the complete victory of English, for it was the living language of the entire people, while French was restricted to certain social spheres and to writing. Yet the final victory was still a long way off.

In the 13^th century only a few steps were made in this direction. The earliest sign of the official recognition of English by the Norman kings was the famous Proclamation issued by Henry III in 1258 to the councilors in Parliament. It was written in 3 languages: French, Latin and English. King Henry IV (1399-1413) was the first English king whose mother tongue was English. In 1399 when accepting the throne he made his first official speech in English. In 1362 (under king Edward III) Parliament, acting on a petition of the City of London, ruled that courts of law should conduct their business in English, as ‘French was too little known’. In the same year English was first used in Parliament itself. About this time French was replaced by English as the language of teaching in schools. Thus, by the end of the 14^th century supremacy of Anglo-Norman came to an end, though some scattered remains of it stayed on till a much later time, and isolated French formulas have survived until the present, such as the motto on the British coat-of-arms: ‘Dieu et mon droit’ (God and my right). The victory of English was due to the rise of social layers that spoke it – the gentry and the town bourgeoisie, which took the upper hand in the struggle against the feudal top layer of society. And there are some other reasons why English survive? 1) and the most obvious: the pre-Conquest OE vernacular, both written and spoken, was simply too well established, too vigorous, and, thanks to its fusion with the Scandinavian languages, too hard to be obliterated. The English speakers had an overwhelming demographic advantage. Pragmatically, it’s obvious that the English were not going to stop speaking English because they had been conquered by a foreigner.

2) English survived because almost immediately the Normans began to intermarry with those they had conquered. Of course, in the first generation after the conquest, there were bound to be deep divisions within the society. Barely 100 years after the invasion, a chronicler wrote that “the two nations have become so mixed that it is scarcely possible today, speaking of free men to tell who is English and who is of Norman race”.

3) In 1204, thanks to military impetuosity of King John, the Anglo-Normans lost control of their french territory across the Channel. Many of the Norman nobility, who had held lands in both countries and divided their time between them, were forced to declare allegiance either to france or England.