THE LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD

(12^TH-13^TH centuries)

 

The Norman Conquest. When King Alfred died, fighting with the Danes soon began again. Parties of the Norsemen sailed round Scotland and over to Ireland. Others sailed south across the Channel to France. They conquered the north of France and settled there. In the next hundred years they came to be called Normans, and their country Normandy.

In the middle of the 11^th century the internal feuds among the Anglo-Saxon earls invited a foreign conquest. The Normans did not miss their chance. In the year 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, cross the Channel and defeated the English at Hastings [‘heistingz] in a great battle. Within five years William the Conqueror became complete master of the whole of England. The lands of most of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy1 were given to the Norman barons, and their feudal laws to compel the peasants to work for them. The English became an oppressed nation.

William the Conqueror could not speak the Norman dialect of the French language: but the Anglo-Saxon dialects were not suppressed. During the following 200 years communication went on in three languages:

1) at the monasteries learning went on in Latin;

2) Norman-French was the language of the ruling class and was spoken at a court and in official institutions;

3) the common people held firmly to their mother tongue.

In spite of this, however, the language changed so much in the course of time that we must speak about it.