Medieval English
LIST OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..................
PART 1.
TRILINGUAL MEDIEVAL BRITISH CULTURE.......................
1.1 Middle Ages: Historical
Background....................
1.2 The British Culture during
Middle Ages . Medieval Literature....................
PART 2.ENGLISH
LANGUAGE OF MIDDLE AGES: FORM GENERATED FROM INTERPLAY OF ENGLISH, FRENCH
AND LATIN.........................
2.1 Middle English Dialects......................
2.2 English, French and Latin Interplay in forming the Medieval Language............
CONCLUSIONS...................
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................
INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Old English was a language that had a typically Germanic grammar and vocabulary. During the Middle Ages, the most important thing that happened to the English language was a set of changes, mostly to the vocabulary, resulting from the Norman Conquest, and causing the incorporation of words from French. The English Language subsequently became recognizable as such to modern readers with the Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer.
This can be said to be a topicality of the course paper. The course paper theme is “Trilingual Medieval British Culture, The Form of Middle English Generated by The Interplayof English, French and Latin”
So, the subject of it is development of English language during Middle Ages, the object – the language itself.
The main aim of the course paper is to show how language was changing, find out the trilingual nature of it and make sure the language really was trilingual on the base of the history, literature and writing of that time.
The course paper consists of Introduction, Two Chapters, Conclusions and Bibliography.
In Introduction we outline the theme of the investigation, its main aims, its topicality, name the subject and object of it.
The First Chapter tells us about the historical background of England in Middle Ages, we analyze the culture of the country and its literature.
The Second One outlines the Englisj dialects and shows the trilingual nature of that time English create by interplay of three languages. There we give some actual examples from that time literature and documents to show this interplay.
In Conclusions we make the final conclusion of the course paper and prove that the aim of it was reached.
Bibliography lists the sources from which the information was taken.
PART 1. TRILINGUAL MEDIEVAL BRITISH CULTURE
As the name of this period indicates, Middle English (ME), constitutes a kind of middle stage within the evolution of English when one looks at it from a contemporary perspective. Lasting from about 1150 to about 1500, ME is the period that lies between Old English (650-1100) and (Early) Modern English (1500-today).
But rather than regarding the period as a purely temporal middle stage, ME should be seen as a transition point. The transformation of English in the Middle Ages marks its turn from the early Anglo-Saxon to the modern period. By the end of the ME stage, all the basic linguistic parameters that lead to its modern structure and anatomy are established.
1.1 Middle Ages: Historical Background
The landmark that triggered many of the most striking changes in the Middle English period was the Norman Conquest of England. In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England from Normandy and killed king Harold in the Battle of Hastings.
The events at Hastings were woven into the famous Bayeux tapestry a unique and
extraordinary document to reflect this episode of English history.
The historical and political context that led to the Norman invasion frames a complex story about collaboration, intrigue, and treachery. Both Harold and William the Conqueror had claims to the throne, which they both regarded as their rightful inheritance. When William invaded England he came to gain what he regarded his own possession and right[2, p. 14].
As this event was one of the most essential for our investigation we should discuss it in more details.
King Edward of England (called "The Confessor" because of his construction of Westminster Abbey) died on January 5, 1066, after a reign of 23 years. Leaving no heirs, Edward's passing ignited a three-way rivalry for the crown that culminated in the Battle of Hastings and the destruction of the Anglo-Saxon rule of England.
The leading pretender was Harold Godwinson, the second most powerful man in England and an advisor to Edward. Harold and Edward became brothers-in-law when the king married Harold's sister. Harold's powerful position, his relationship to Edward and his esteem among his peers made him a logical successor to the throne. His claim was strengthened when the dying Edward supposedly uttered "Into Harold's hands I commit my Kingdom." With this kingly endorsement, the Witan (the council of royal advisors) unanimously selected Harold as King. His coronation took place the same day as Edward's burial. With the placing of the crown on his head, Harold's troubles began.
Across the English Channel, William, Duke of Normandy, also laid claim to the English throne. William justified his claim through his blood relationship with Edward (they were distant cousins) and by stating that some years earlier, Edward had designated him as his successor. To compound the issue, William asserted that the message in which Edward anointed him as the next King of England had been carried to him in 1064 by none other than Harold himself. In addition, (according to William) Harold had sworn on the relics of a martyred saint that he would support William's right to the throne. From William's perspective, when Harold donned the Crown he not only defied the wishes of Edward but had violated a sacred oath. He immediately prepared to invade England and destroy the upstart Harold. Harold's violation of his sacred oath enabled William to secure the support of the Pope who promptly excommunicated Harold, consigning him and his supporters to an eternity in Hell[15, p.76].
The third rival for the throne was Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. His justification was even more tenuous than William's. Hardrada ruled Norway jointly with his nephew Mangus until 1047 when Mangus conveniently died. Earlier (1042), Mangus had cut a deal with Harthacut the Danish ruler of England. Since neither ruler had a male heir, both promised their kingdom to the other in the event of his death. Harthacut died but Mangus was unable to follow up on his claim to the English throne because he was too busy battling for the rule of Denmark. Edward became the Anglo-Saxon ruler of England. Now with Mangus and Edward dead, Hardrada asserted that he, as Mangus's heir, was the rightful ruler of England. When he heard of Harold's coronation, Hardrada immediately prepared to invade England and crush the upstart[12,p.45].
Hardrada of Norway struck first. In mid September, Hardrada's invasion force landed on the Northern English coast, sacked a few coastal villages and headed towards the city of York. Hardrada was joined in his effort by Tostig, King Harold's nere-do-well brother. The Viking army overwhelmed an English force blocking the York road and captured the city. In London, news of the invasion sent King Harold hurriedly north at the head of his army picking up reinforcements along the way. The speed of Harold's forced march allowed him to surprise Hardrada's army on September 25, as it camped at Stamford Bridge outside York. A fierce battle followed. Hand to hand combat ebbed and flowed across the bridge. Finally the Norsemen's line broke and the real slaughter began. Hardrada fell and then the King's brother, Tostig. What remained of the Viking army fled to their ships. So devastating was the Viking defeat that only 24 of the invasion force's original 240 ships made the trip back home. Resting after his victory, Harold received word of William's landing near Hastings.
Construction of the Norman invasion fleet had been completed in July and all was ready for the Channel crossing. Unfortunately, William's ships could not penetrate an uncooperative north wind and for six weeks he languished on the Norman shore. Finally, on September 27, after parading the relics of St. Valery at the water's edge, the winds shifted to the south and the fleet set sail. The Normans made landfall on the English coast near Pevensey and marched to Hastings[5, p.8].
Harold rushed his army south and planted his battle standards atop a knoll some five miles from Hastings. During the early morning of the next day, October 14, Harold's army watched as a long column of Norman warriors marched to the base of the hill and formed a battle line. Separated by a few hundred yards, the lines of the two armies traded taunts and insults. At a signal, the Norman archers took their position at the front of the line. The English at the top of the hill responded by raising their shields above their heads forming a shield-wall to protect them from the rain of arrows. The battle was joined.
The English fought defensively while the Normans infantry and cavalry repeatedly charged their shield-wall. As the combat slogged on for the better part of the day, the battle's outcome was in question. Finally, as evening approached, the English line gave way and the Normans rushed their enemy with a vengeance. King Harold fell as did the majority of the Saxon aristocracy. William's victory was complete. On Christmas day 1066, William was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.
1.2 The British Culture during Middle Ages . Medieval Literature
Religion:
It was the Age of Faith, not the Age of Reason. Fear, uncertainty, and awe of the unknown defined Medieval society. This was a culture that had, since the fifth century, combined the remnants of the Roman Empire, the masses of (mostly German) tribal people, and the vigorous (and still relatively new) Catholic religion to produce what would eventually be a culture that covered the globe. In a curious way, the Roman, tribal, and Catholic elements all mixed together, each contributing to the culture in its own unique way. The Roman Empire left many useful items in its wake. The Latin language, while no longer used by anyone to raise their children, had become the international language of diplomacy, learning, and, most importantly, religion. Over a century before the Rome fell, Catholicism became the official religion of the empire. This had a greater impact on the church than it did on the empire[11,p.92].
When the Catholic (or simply "Christian," as in "followers of Christ") Church became the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, it adopted the governing techniques of the Romans enthusiastically. For now the followers of Christ had the full weight of the mighty Roman Empire behind them. The Roman form of government lasted over a thousand years because it was efficient and the Church fathers knew a good thing when they saw it. When the Empire in the west fell in the 5th century, the Catholic Church continued as a Roman institution. While everyone else spoke a babble of new languages and Latin dialects, the church did its business in Latin. The pope's official titles was "Pontifex Maximus," the same title the pagan Romans had always given their chief priest. Many of the terms and titles used in the church administration came directly from Roman practice.
Education:
The question related to the church is also education. The matter is that the Church was fundamental for the education those days. Speaking about medieval education we should mention scholasticism.
So the outstanding intellectual achievement of the High Middle Ages was the famous system of dialectics known as scholasticism. This system is usually defined as the attempt to harmonize reason and faith or to make philosophy serve the interest of theology. But no such definition is sufficient to convey an adequate conception of the Scholastic mind. The great thinkers of the Middle Ages did not limit their interests to problems of religion. On the contrary, they were just as anxious as philosophers in any period to answer the great questions of life, whether they pertained to religion, politics, economics or metaphysics’.
“The scholastics, who used Aristotelian methodology and adapted the Aristotelian world view, were especially concerned with these fundamental and intimately related problems: the proper study of theological knowledge, the nature of ultimate reality, and the relationship of faith and reason”.
Characteristics:
- rationalistic, not empirical (i.e., logic v. science or experience)
- authoritarian (i.e., truth is something to be discovered in the past and they relied on authority of the Scriptures, church fathers, and especially Plato and Aristotle.)
- Otherworldly/ethical (Its cardinal aim was to discover how man could improve this life and insure salvation in the life to come.)
- Not concerned with the causes of things but attributes (since universe was assumed to be static, it was only necessary to explain the meaning of things and what they were good for, not to account for their origin and evolution).
Medieval Literature
The literary culture of the Middle Ages was far more international than national and was divided more by lines of class and audience than by language. Latin was the language of the Church and of learning. After the eleventh century, French became the dominant language of secular European literary culture. Edward, the Prince of Wales, who took the king of France prisoner at the battle of Poitiers in 1356, had culturally more in common with his royal captive than with the common people of England. And the legendary King Arthur was an international figure. Stories about him and his knights originated in Celtic poems and tales and were adapted and greatly expanded in Latin chronicles and French romances even before Arthur became an English hero [15,p.54].
Chaucer was certainly familiar with poetry that had its roots in the Old English period. He read popular romances in Middle English, most of which derive from more sophisticated French and Italian sources. But when he began writing in the 1360s and 1370s, he turned directly to French and Italian models as well as to classical poets (especially Ovid). English poets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries looked upon Chaucer and his contemporary John Gower as founders of English literature, as those who made English a language fit for cultivated readers. In the Renaissance, Chaucer was referred to as the "English Homer." Spenser called him the "well of English undefiled."
Nevertheless, Chaucer and his contemporaries Gower, William Langland, and the Gawain poet — all writing in the latter third of the fourteenth century — are heirs to classical and medieval cultures that had been evolving for many centuries. Cultures is put in the plural deliberately, for there is a tendency, even on the part of medievalists, to think of the Middle Ages as a single culture epitomized by the Great Gothic cathedrals in which architecture, art, music, and liturgy seem to join in magnificent expressions of a unified faith — an approach one recent scholar has referred to as "cathedralism." Such a view overlooks the diversity of medieval cultures and the social, political, religious, economic, and technological changes that took place over this vastly long period[10, p.22].
"Estates and Orders" samples ideas about medieval society and some of its members and institutions. Particular attention is given to religious orders and to the ascetic ideals that were supposed to rule the lives of men and women living in religious communities (such as Chaucer's Prioress, Monk, and Friar, who honor those rules more in the breach than in the observance) and anchorites (such as Julian of Norwich) living apart. The Rule of Saint Benedict, written for a sixth-century religious community, can serve the modern reader as a guidebook to the ideals and daily practices of monastic life. The mutual influence of those ideals and new aristocratic ideals of chivalry is evident in the selection from the Ancrene Riwle (Rule for Anchoresses) and The Book of the Order of Chivalry. Though medieval social theory has little to say about women, women were sometimes treated satirically as if they constituted their own estate and profession in rebellion against the divinely ordained rule of men. An outstanding instance is the "Old Woman" from the Romance of the Rose, whom Chaucer reinvented as the Wife of Bath. The tenth-century English Benedictine monk Aelfric gives one of the earliest formulations of the theory of three estates — clergy, nobles, and commoners — working harmoniously together. But the deep- seated resentment between the upper and lower estates flared up dramatically in the Uprising of 1381 and is revealed by the slogans of the rebels, which are cited here in selections from the chronicles of Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham, and by the attack of the poet John Gower on the rebels in his Vox Clamantis. In the late-medieval genre of estates satire, all three estates are portrayed as selfishly corrupting and disrupting a mythical social order believed to have prevailed in a past happier age[7, p.18].
The selections under "Arthur and Gawain" trace how French writers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries transformed the Legendary Histories of Britain into the narrative genre that we now call "romance." The works of Chrétien de Troyes focus on the adventures of individual knights of the Round Table and how those adventures impinge upon the cult of chivalry. Such adventures often take the form of a quest to achieve honor or what Sir Thomas Malory often refers to as "worship." But in romance the adventurous quest is often entangled, for better or for worse, with personal fulfillment of love for a lady — achieving her love, protecting her honor, and, in rare cases such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, resisting a lady's advances. In the thirteenth century, clerics turned the sagas of Arthur and his knights — especially Sir Lancelot — into immensely long prose romances that disparaged worldly chivalry and the love of women and advocated spiritual chivalry and sexual purity. These were the "French books" that Malory, as his editor and printer William Caxton tells us, "abridged into English," and gave them the definitive form from which Arthurian literature has survived in poetry, prose, art, and film into modern times[12, p.35].
"The First Crusade," launched in 1096, was the first in a series of holy wars that profoundly affected the ideology and culture of Christian Europe. Preached by Pope Urban II, the aim of the crusade was to unite warring Christian factions in the common goal of liberating the Holy Land from its Moslem rulers. The chronicle of Robert the Monk is one of several versions of Urban's address. The Hebrew chronicle of Eliezer bar Nathan gives a moving account of attacks made by some of the crusaders on Jewish communities in the Rhineland — the beginnings of the persecution of European Jews in the later Middle Ages. In the biography of her father, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I, the princess Anna Comnena provides us with still another perspective of the leaders of the First Crusade whom she met on their passage through Constantinople en route to the Holy Land. The taking of Jerusalem by the crusaders came to be celebrated by European writers of history and epic poetry as one of the greatest heroic achievements of all times. The accounts by the Arab historian Ibn Al-Athir and by William of Tyre tell us what happened after the crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem from complementary but very different points of view.
PART 2.ENGLISH LANGUAGE OF MIDDLE AGES: FORM GENERATED FROM INTERPLAY OF ENGLISH, FRENCH AND LATIN
2.1 Middle English Dialects
During the Middle English period (roughly 1100–1500) the English language is characterized by a complete lack of a standard variety. By contrast, during much of the Old English period, the West Saxon dialect had enjoyed a position as a written standard, and the transition to Early Modern English is marked by the emergence of the middle class dialect of London as the new standard variety of the language.
The lack of a written standard in Middle English is a natural consequence of the low status of English during this period. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the ruling classes spoke (Norman) French, while English lived on as the spoken language of the
lower classes. In the absence of a high-prestige variety of English which might serve as a target for writers of English, each writer simply used his own variety of the language.
The Old English dialects evolved and became ME dialects: Kentish, Southern, Northern, East-Midland and West-Midland[11, p.9].
The Middle English dialects can be divided into five major groups:
• South-Western (SW) (or simply Southern), a continuation of OE West Saxon;
• South-Eastern (SE) (or Kentish, though it extended into neighbouring counties as well), a continuation of OE Kentish;
• East Midland (EM), in the eastern part of the OE Mercian area;
• West Midland (WM), in the western part of the OE Mercian area;
• Northern (N), north of the Humber.
The traditionally recognized Middle English dialects are as follows: Kentish remains the same as in Old English, West Saxon transformed into Southern, and Northumbrian into Northern. The Mercian dialect constituted two parts: East Midland and West Midland.
The London dialect, comprising predominantly features of East Midland, became the written form of official and literary papers in the late 14th century. The London dialect had extended to the first two universities of Cambridge and Oxford, thus constituting the famous literary and cultural London—Oxford—Cambridge triangle.
Thus the year 1066 is the date of the Norman Conquest in England. The conquestsymbolizes the beginning of a new social, cultural, and linguistic era in GreatBritain, i.e. the conventional transition from Old English to Middle English, thelanguage spoken and written in England from the end of the 11th c. to the end of the 15th c. Undoubtedly French as the language of conquerors influenced English greatly. French, or Norman French was immediately established as the dominant language of the ruling class. Strikingly but Anglo-Saxon dialects were not suppressed. During the following 300 years communication in England went on in three languages: 1) at the monasteries learning was conducted in Latin; 2) Norman-French was spoken at court and in official institutions; 3) the common people held firmly to their mother tongue[9, p.39].
During the the Middle Ages in Britain educated people would have been trilingual. English would have been their mother tongue. They would have learned Latin as the required language of the Church, the Roman Classics, most scholarship and some politico-legal matters. And they would have found French – essential both for routine administrative communication within Britain and in order to be considered fashionable throughout Western European society.
Norman-French or Anglo-French, the language of the ruling class in medieval history of English, was the variety of the Northern dialect of French, spoken predominantly by Norman French-speaking noblemen and their descendants in Britain.
Some scholars (David Crystal, Seth Lerer) admit that the Norman Conquest had major effects on the English language but at the same time they claim that English was changing long before the conquest and continued to change throughout the British Isles despite the influence of the French-speaking Normans.
Traditionally linguists look for written evidence showing a level of literacy high enough to record sounds and forms that they can find many signs of ongoing changes. Both David Crystal and Seth Lerer assert that the Middle English period has a much richer documentation than Old English[15, p.2].
An illustrative example of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle proved this. The Chronicle did not stop in 1066. In one manuscript scholars find entries continuing for nearly a century after the Norman Conquest. This is the Peterborough Chronicle, so called because it was first copied in the Benedictine monastery at Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. It was copied in 1121, and updated to that year, and various scribes kept it going until1131. No further additions were then made for twenty-three years. The Peterborough Chronicle entries up to and including 1131 were written in Old English, in the West Saxon literary standard; but the later entries are sufficiently different in spelling, grammar, and vocabulary that they have to be considered an early example of Middle English. Also, the final continuation of the Peterborough Chronicle is of special interest because of the way its style can be directly compared with an analogues sample of Late West Saxon of only twenty-five years before. Nowhere else is the transition between Old and Middle English so visible. And one of the most notable features—the Peterborough Chronicle as a whole has very few new French loanwords (about 30).
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is not a single text, but a compilation from several sources which differ in date and place of origin. It takes the form of a year-by-year diary, with some years warranting extensive comment, some a bare line or two, and many nothing at all. Most ancient European chronicles were kept in Latin[3, p.44].
There are seven surviving chronicle manuscripts, six of which are completely in Old English, the seventh partly in Latin. The scholars have given each text a distinguishing letter name, but they are commonly known by the name of their source location or that of an early owner. Doubtless it is worth mentioning S. Lerer's commentary concerning the language change in the Peterborough Chronicle. Each Chronicle entry is the set of events of a given year, and each one begins with a phrase meaning in this year. Let's consider the following examples:
1083 on þÍsum geare - The endings “-um” and “-e” signal a dative masculine singular. This is classic Old English.
1117
on þÍson geare - The “-um” ending has been replaced with “-on”
The adjectival ending seems to have been replaced with an indiscriminate vowel plus an indiscriminate nasal (“-m” or “-n”). This may be the scribe's attempt to preserve a grammatical ending or to preserve the sound of speech.
1135
on þÍs geare -The adjectival ending of this has been lost, but the “-e” at the end of geare still signals a dative. Concord in grammatical gender is obviously gone by this time.
1154
on þÍs gear - The endings have completely disappeared. We are no longer in the world of inflected Old English.
As we see, in such a way blocks of text highlight the manners in which the English language was changing during the transitional period right after theNorman Conquest.
S. Lerer's idea that “Medieval England was a trilingual culture” can be supported by The Harley Lyrics, a collection of literature written probably in the 1330s in Hertfordshire, which gives us clear evidence of writers and readers being, in a broad sense, trilingual. One poem in the manuscript ends with this quatrain:
Scripsi hec carmina in tabulis;
Mon ostel es en mi la ville de Paris;
May y sugge namore, so wel me is;
Ʒef hi deƷe for loue of hire, duel hit ys.
I have written these verses on my tablets;
My dwelling is in the middle of the city of Paris;
Let me say no more, so things are fine;
But if I die for love of her, it would be a pity.
The first line here is in Latin, the second is in French, and the third and the fourth are both in Middle English. This poem shows us the brilliance of medieval trilingual culture, to be found in the stratifications of languages.
So we may conclude that the English, or rather the Anglo-Normal literature of the 11th-13th cc. reflected the complicated linguistic situation quite faithfully: church literature was in Latin, chivalric poetry was for the most part in French while folklore continued to develop in Anglo-Saxon. Thus without losing its native basis, with the help of few writers of genius, and profiting by the situation, the English language of the 14th c. was transforming from the language of common people into a general, unifying language for all the strata of English society )[11, p.52].
Among the authors who contributed much in the progress of literary tradition in Medieval England are worth mentioning John Wyclif (1320-1384), William Langland (1332-1400 appr.), John Gower (1325-1408), an anonymous poet created an elegy for a daughter lost “The Pearl”, and another created a chivalric romance in verse “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” of the King Arthur cycle. English literature was flourishing gradually in the 14th c., reflecting the culmination of the medieval genres and promoting the way to the Renaissance.
Apart from changes in pronunciation, the most striking characteristic of this process is the influence of Scandinavian in the Danelaw, which led to the division of the Midland dialects (the former Mercian dialects) into the East and West Midlands dialect areas.
Among many other features, the Scandinavian influence can be seen in the use of the plural 3rd person personal pronoun they, which was first used in the North and East Midlands and then spread to the other dialects from there.
2.2 English, French and Latin Interplay in forming the Medieval Language.
A new era of multilingualism and multidialectism dawned in the Middle Ages. As a result of the Norman invasion, England became a nation in which Latin, French, and English coexisted. Educated people were trilingual as a matter of course. English would have been their mother-tongue. They would have learned Latin as the required language of the Church, the Roman Classics, most scholarship, and some politico-legal matters. And they would have found French essential both for routine administrative communication within Britain and in order to be considered fashionable throughout Western European society[13, p.49].
The Origin of The Normans and their influence on English language and culture.
The origin of the Normans is hidden in their very name: Nor(se)man. The Normans came to France in the 9th century. They were Norwegian Vikings who raided the French territory when sailing up the Seine. In 911 their king, Rollo, forced the French king to cede French territory.
As a consequence, Rollo became the independent ruler of Normandy. By 1000 Normandy became one of the most powerful and successful regions in Western Europe. In the process, the Normans adopted the language, religion, and customs of the surrounding French population.
What consequences did the Norman invasion have for the English population? It is uncontroversial that the Normans did not civilize the Anglo-Saxon population. The Anglo-Saxons had a highly developed culture: they had an extraordinary literature and crafted beautiful jewellery, they were christianized, and profited from a well-developed and well-functioning economy. The same is true for the Vikings who mixed with them in the North and East of England. Therefore, the Norman Conquest was not a mission of civilization.
Very simply, the Normans brought power with them: the Normans were morepowerful politically and ecclesiastically.
At the time of the Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were politically weak due to internal quarrels. Since many of the Anglo-Saxon nobility were wiped out at Hastings, the English ruling class was replaced by Norman noblemen. The Normans imported the feudal system and lordship by taking the key positions in the state and church. These positions correspond to the high ranks of power in the medieval social order, which was defined by the three-estates of nobility, clergy, and peasants. Since the grammar schools also lay in the hands of the church in the Middle Ages, the Normans also controlled education. In a nutshell, they established the new upper-class.
Material tokens of Norman power are still conspicuously present in today’s England.
The Normans built around 1000 castles, among them the White Tower of London.
Evidence of Norman ecclesiastical power is visible in the many impressive cathedrals usually constructed in Romanesque style[14, p.19].
In addition, the Normans also imported their national symbols. The three golden lions in the coat of arms of England are derived from the symbol of the kingdom of Normandy.
But, the Normans also brought their language – Norman French.
The Norman Conquest influenced the linguistic landscape of England decisively. The following statement in the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester from around 1300 illustrates this nicely:
Thus came, lo, England into Normandy's hand: and the Normans then knew how to speak only their own language, and spoke French as they did at home, and also had their children taught it, so that noblemen of this land, that come of their stock, all keep to the same speech that they received from them; for unless a man knows French, people make little account of him. But low men keep to English, and to their own language still. I think that in the whole world there are no countries that do not keep their own language, except England alone. But people know well that it is good to master both, because the more a man knows the more honoured he is.
So the chronicle indicates that the Norman upper-classes, first and foremost, spoke French – Norman French to be precise - and they taught this language to their children. French was the prestigious H-language. English, however, was the language of the lower classes – the vernacular. But, English was spoken by the majority of the population of England.
The chronicler bemoans this situation as being unique in the world: any nation should stick to its own language – in this case English. However, he nevertheless regards it as a virtue to speak both languages. Clearly, to learn French was the only way possible to climb up the social ladder.
Another important question is the writing of that time. Obviously, the advent of Norman French did not determine the use of Old English dialects. Conservative forms of English were still in use until about 1150. For instance, the archbishopric of Canterbury was fairly resistant to linguistic changes[8, p.30].
The move from Old to Middle English was not a drastic but a gradual development. Nevertheless, there is a recognizable gap in the transition from the Old English to the Middle English text corpus. This is the consequence of the political changes after the Norman Conquest. Written English was basically non-existent for about 100-150 years.
Writing, being an upper-class and church issue, was dominated by the Norman French ruling class. As we have seen, this class used French or Latin and not English. As a consequence, the West Saxon written standard was replaced by French and Latin texts. Literature in English only started to be written again from about 1150 onwards.
Due to the absence of a written standard for English, this literature is highly dialectal. Middle English writers used a dialectal pronunciation-based spelling. The development of the national language was greatly promoted by the work of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), an outstanding poet, “father of English Poetry” as many historians style him. Chaucer's best-known work The Canterbury Tales is the variety of the written language which has been carefully crafted. It contains many variations in word order and frequent literary allusions. Chaucer has managed to capture so vividly the intriguing characters, and to reflect so naturally the colloquial features of their speech. And it is acknowledged by many scholars that no other author, except Chaucer, who would have better supported for the view that there is an underlying correspondence between the natural rhythm of English poetry and that of English everyday conversation.
The famous opening 18-line sentence of the General Prologue to “The Canterbury Tales” shows us how Chaucer makes meaning out of the linguistic resources of his time and place.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(Spriketh hem nature in hir corages),
Than longen folkto goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
When it happens that April, with his
sweet showers, has pierced the drought
of March to the root, and bathed every
vein in that fluid from whose power the
flower is given birth; when Zephyr also,
with his sweet breath, has inspired the
tender crops in every wood and heather,
and the young sun has run half of this
course through the sign of the Ram, and
little birds make melody who sleep all
night with their eyes open (so Nature
stimulates them in their hearts), then
people desire to go on pilgrimages, and
professional pilgrims desire to seek
strange shores; and they wend their way,
especially, from the end of every country
in England to Canterbury, in order to
seek the holy, blissful martyr who had
helped them when they were sick.
These lines juxtapose new words of French and Latin origin with roots and forms of Old English or Anglo-Saxon origin. We see French, for example, in perced, veyne, licour, and flour. The word vertu comes from Latin vir, meaning man; here, we interpret it as power. Combined with engendred, we get a sense of the power of regeneration in the spring. Summing up we may conclude that French words mostly reflected culture, whilst English ones mainly depicted nature and landscape. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400, the "Father of English Poetry" was the greatest narrative poet of Middle Ages. He made a distinct advance in literature, in most of his poems Chaucer used the heroic couplet, a verse having five accents with the lines rhyming in pairs. Chaucer's greatest work is The Canterbury Tales, becoming a herald of the Renaissance. Geoffrey Chaucer's realistic approach and humanitarian atmosphere, his whole-hearted optimism and folk spirit make his The Canterbury Tales immortal. It is a splendid picture of the 14th c. England. It is a marvelous trilingual picture of the history of the English language of his time, its trilingualism being presented together in a profound synthesis of nature (English), culture (French), and religion (Latin)[11, p.43].
CONCLUSIONS
Over the past few decades, historians have signfincantly broadened their outlook on the past.
The growth of social, cultural, and economic history brought categories such as class, gender, race, culture, and quantitative analyses into the mainstream of historical work. Optimists credit new approaches with historians’ richer understanding of the past, pessimists blame them for the fragmentation of the historical profession, but none would deny that they are the driving force behind much recent productive historical work, not least because they spur the incorporation of approaches from other social sciences.
As language is studied from many viewpoints, the perspectives of linguists, literary
scholars, ethnographers, and so on are relevant to its role in history. This holds especially
true for the Middle Ages.
In the given investiagtion we are looking at the interplay of three languages during this period: English, French and Latin. The Latin language was the most powerful cultural symbol in Western Europe perhaps until
the 19th century.20 In the period under consideration, Latin played a variety of roles. Most
international secular written communication and all clerical communication was in Latin.
Throughout the Middle Ages, Latin was an effective spoken lingua franca for clergy and
educated laymen. Regional pronunciation differences and modern vocabulary deficits only
became endemic in the 15th century, if not later. Most of all, the history of Latin in this
period shows how it became increasingly a tool of power for church and secular elites over
those who originally spoke it.
Postconquest England is the most well-known medieval bilingual society. Anglo-Norman
(the insular dialect of French)/English bilingualism helped define life in England into the
seventeenth century. At first, Anglo-Norman was the language of the ruling Norman nobility,
serving both to distinguish them from the English and restrict access to certain professions,
like Frankish in Gaul. Most English-speakers never knew French, but quickly realized its
function: “from soon after the conquest there are indications that monolingual speakers
perceive their ignorance of French to be a factor in their subordination.” Yet Anglo-Norman relatively quickly became like Latin, a language which anyone had to learn for
certain societal advances, but no one spoke natively. W. Rothwell has shown that the
numerous idiosyncrasies of thirteeen century English guides for learning Anglo-Norman
are best understood as intended for adult learners with some non-native Anglo-Norman
experience.
So, in the given investigation we have spoken about the historical background which led to the tringual nature of the language, then we have discussed the cultur of that time.
In the second Chapter the dialects of English language were analyzed and also on the basis of political/religious documents and the piece of that time literature we have seen the interplay of these three languages.
Thus the aim of the course paper outlined in the Introduction has been reached.
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