English nobility speaking french in the middle ages?

[Lobsang]

I saw this post on another message board. It's admittedly a far less 'clever' message board than this one and is mostly populated by ill-informed teenagers.

But this did make me wonder. It's the type of 'fact' that I might conveniently not learn as an English school student.

at one point in the middle ages the FRENCH (that's right) kicked englands ass (it was the britons back then I suppose, or the saxons or some shit I don't know)

everyone was speaking french, thats why theres a shitload of french crap in english

theres almost always a "nicer" way of saying things
ex: to leave, to depart...

thats because back then the nobles spoke french and the crap classes spoke english

So, did English nobles (in Britain) speak mainly french??? (extra '?'s to imply dubiousness)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Absolutely yes!

The Normans spoke French, heavily laced with Norse.

French continued to be the "court" language in most of Northern Europe for centuries, rivaled by Italian and Latin at various times.

[ruadh]

Wow. I'm absolutely amazed that an English person didn't know that.

[istara]

Plus half the nobility WERE actually French.

French remained the international language of diplomacy until very recently. It's still supposed to be used at the Olympic Games, along with the host language/English IIRC. At the Sydney Games, newsreader Mary Kostakidis resigned her Olympic position (she was due to give some speech or suchlike) because she refused to do it in French first, believing it to be stupid and archaic rule.

It is interesting that English did not end up more as a Romance language, despite the Norman invasion. However it does contain a vast amount of Romance words. One of the reasons English is such a rich language with so many words is due to all the invasions. If you look at synonyms, you will often find there is an Anglo/English/Germanic one, a French one, and a Latin one. The English one is usually the commonly-used term, the French the more poetical term, and the Latinate the more technical/official/learned term. Eg:

love/amour/adoration
loathe/detest/abhor
kiss/embrace/osculate

[Daver914]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

I saw this post on another message board. It's admittedly a far less 'clever' message board than this one and is mostly populated by ill-informed teenagers.

But this did make me wonder. It's the type of 'fact' that I might conveniently not learn as an English school student.

So, did English nobles (in Britain) speak mainly french??? (extra '?'s to imply dubiousness)

Short answer, yes. The last Saxon king, Harold, had quite a mess on his hands in 1066. He had Norsemen invading from Scandinavia, and William, Duke of Normandy, was threatening the southeast. Eventually both armies invaded England, and Harold marched his army north to Stamford Bridge, near York, to meet the Norse invaders. He beat them, but lost a lot of troops in the process, and the remainder of his army limped back south to meet William. The Saxons met up with the Normans (who were not technically French, but French-speaking descendants of the early Viking raiders) near Hastings. The Saxons fought hard, but eventually Harold was killed (with an arrow in the eye, no less) and they were defeated.

The Normans took over administration of the country, which meant very little to the common man. Some of the gentry were killed or otherwise disenfranchised, to be replaced by Normans, but the English people continued to speak English (which, at that time, bore very little resemblance to the English of today). On the other hand, the language of the court was Norman French. For several hundred years after the conquest in 1066, most of the kings of England spoke French as a first language and spent much of their time in France. Richard the Lionhearted himself only visited England twice during his ten-year reign.

[syncrolecyne]

I remember from British Literature classes, that I usually dozed off in, that Chaucer's work was a major departure in ENglish literature because much of it was actually in English. And he was writing from around 1380-1400, over three hundred years after the Norman Conquest.

Actually, most Nobles and all churchmen of that time in England probably would have been trilingual or quadrilingual. Latin was the language of the church, and higher education along with Greek. French would have predominated in the courts and in most social settings among royalty and nobles. But I am sure after the initial conquest, most Normans picked up the local Germanic dialect as well, and were able to use it.


Also keep in mind that England, Normandy, and other bits of France (Aquitane) were generally under one monarch most of the time from 1066 on to 1200 and then in the 1300's until the mid 1400's.

[Daver914]

Originally Posted by syncrolecyne

Also keep in mind that England, Normandy, and other bits of France (Aquitane) were generally under one monarch most of the time from 1066 on to 1200 and then in the 1300's until the mid 1400's.

A point well made. The English/Norman crown held large chunks of the south and west of France throughout the middle ages, and fought many long and pointless wars to hold on to them.

Somewhat along the same lines, the Visigothic government in Spain was conquered by Muslims from North Africa in the 8th century A.D., and for the next 700 years the language of educated Spaniards, regardless of their ethnicity, was Arabic. The common people spoke a post-Latin/proto-Spanish dialect with Arabic influences, called Mozarabic. A lot of important literature from Islamic Spain is relatively unknown nowadays in Western culture because when the northern Christian kingdoms from Castile and Aragon finally pushed the Muslims in the 15th century, they expelled most of the literate Muslims and Jews. Cervantes, like Chaucer, was a pioneer in that Don Quixote was one of the first major works written in Castilian, rather than Arabic.

[istara]

Originally Posted by Daver914

...the Normans (who were not technically French, but French-speaking descendants of the early Viking raiders)...

It always fascinated me somewhat that the Normans (and general other Celts throughout Europe?) absorbed Romance languages as spread by the Romans, but those in the British Isles never did. English remains a Germanic language, despite its huge number of Romance loan words.

They conquered us, but not our language!

[Daver914]

Originally Posted by istara

It always fascinated me somewhat that the Normans (and general other Celts throughout Europe?) absorbed Romance languages as spread by the Romans, but those in the British Isles never did. English remains a Germanic language, despite its huge number of Romance loan words.

They conquered us, but not our language!

The Normans weren't Celts. They came from Scandinavia, and originally spoke a language that was a cousin of English. The Vikings ranged all over Europe in their day, raiding Scotland, Irelend, England, and all over the Continent as far east as Russia and as far south as Spain and Sicily. The ones that stuck around in France adopted the local language, but their name (Norman => Norse Man) identified them as outsiders. There were (and still are) Celts in the Northwest of France, the Bretons. These were the last remnants of the Gauls that dominated France and the Benelux countries in Roman times.

The Saxons had never completely conquered Britain anyway. They managed the Southeast, the Midlands, and Yorkshire/Northumbria, but the Western fringes of the country, along with Scotland and Ireland, were still mostly Celtic. Welsh (a Celtic language) is still spoken in Wales, and Cornish and Manx were other Celtic languages which only died out in the past few centuries (at least I think Manx is extinct -- Lobsang, can you confirm or deny that?) In the case of Cornish, at least, efforts are underway to revive the language for day-to-day use.

I think the reason that English never became a fully Romance language was that the peasantry never had much use for French. Regardless of what the court was speaking, English was still the language in the markets and villages, and as the Crown lost its posessions and interests in France, the desire to use French waned. Besides, Anglo-French was seen as an inferior dialect by speakers on the Continent.

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by istara

Plus half the nobility WERE actually French.

As a point of fact, and not even a quibble- almost NONE were "french". True, many were Norman, and Normandy is NOW part of France. But not then. In afct, for a while the King of England ruled over more than half of what we now call "France".

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by istara

It always fascinated me somewhat that the Normans (and general other Celts throughout Europe?) absorbed Romance languages as spread by the Romans, but those in the British Isles never did. English remains a Germanic language, despite its huge number of Romance loan words.

They conquered us, but not our language!

Very different situations. You should rather compare it with germanic language which never took over latin/early french in France. The situation were somehow comparable. The germanic speaking Franks (and other germanic people) conquered, settled in and ruled the country , the ruling class went on speaking its germanic dialect for centuries, but eventually it died out, and the people's language prevailed.


The difference is that in these cases, it was only the language of a small local elite with only limited interactions with other places where this language was spoken too. IOW, despite it being spoken by the elites, only an isolated minority language. Especially once the english kings had lost most of their lands in France or when the Germany and France became really distinct and somehow united entities, resulting in both cases in close ties with the places where the language had originated being severed.


Latin, on the other hand, was the language of the whole empire, of which the countries which adopted it were only a part. It was the language of the capital, Rome. It was the language of trade, of the administration, of the religion. A lot more people moved, travelled, made business in other places than during the middle ages. It was a needed "lingua franca". It was the language of many people who settled in these teritories. It was the language of the armies. It was also the language of the "civilized" world (while there wasn't much of a difference in cultural development between the Norman invaders and the saxons, and in the case of the Franks and Gaul, it was rather the other way around). Finally, it was a written language, contrarily to the celtic ones, hence was necessarily the language of litterate and educated people. And this situation lasted for centuries. It's no wonder that local languages mostly dissapeared in this cases while they didn't in the former.


Had the normans brought with them a superior culture and civilization, conquered most of western Europe and ruled it, including England, from Normandy, with a constant population movement between the continent and the british isles for 4 of 5 centuries, the anglo-saxon language would probably have disapeared too.


Finally, concerning Latin in Britannia : well, Britannia was only at the margins of the empire, and never came close to be as romanized as Gaul was. The roman presence in Britannia was extremely limited by comparison to other much more central parts of the empire.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

As a point of fact, and not even a quibble- almost NONE were "french". True, many were Norman, and Normandy is NOW part of France. But not then. In afct, for a while the King of England ruled over more than half of what we now call "France".

Not really. Normandy was part of France when William invaded England. And it stayed so.

The duchy of Normandy (previously "western Neustria") was granted by the french king Charles III to the norman Rollon. William the conqueror was a direct descendant of Rollon and as such vassal of the the king of France.

After the conquest of England, the lands owned in France by the english kings were still part of the kingdom of France. They ruled them as dukes of Normandy and latter dukes of Aquitaine, not as kings of England. As a proof of that there has been an ongoing dispute between the kings of England and the kings of France on the issue of the "hommage" the english king had to swear to the king of France as vassal for his french fiefs. Some english kings did so, other refused. But not on the basis that Normandy or Aquitaine weren't part of the kingdom of France, but on the basis that as kings, they shouldn't swear hommage to another king.

As for the english french-speaking nobility being "french", that's another matter entirely.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by Daver914

. There were (and still are) Celts in the Northwest of France, the Bretons. These were the last remnants of the Gauls that dominated France and the Benelux countries in Roman times.
.

Not so. The celtic language spoken in Britanny isn't a remain of the Celt language previously spoken in Gaul. It was the language of Celt invaders driven away from Britannia (hence the name of Britanny) by the anglo-saxons, and as such closely related to Welsh.


Some Bretons nationalists hold to the contrary (for obvious reasons of historical legitimacy), and roughly state that the Celtic language had for some reason widely survived in Britanny, and that the Celts coming from the British isles (that they can't deny the presence of) somehow settled peacefully, welcomed by their Celt-speaking Breton cousins, and that both languages mixed over time. But that's not serious history. Just nationalistic BS.

[Daver914]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Not so. The celtic language spoken in Britanny isn't a remain of the Celt language previously spoken in Gaul. It was the language of Celt invaders driven away from Britannia (hence the name of Britanny) by the anglo-saxons, and as such closely related to Welsh.

Whoops, my mistake. Gaulish is now extinct, I gather, except for place-names and some borrowings in French.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by istara

It always fascinated me somewhat that the Normans (and general other Celts throughout Europe?) absorbed Romance languages as spread by the Romans, but those in the British Isles never did. English remains a Germanic language, despite its huge number of Romance loan words.

They conquered us, but not our language!

You've got it wrong. The Celts in England prior to the Anglo/Saxon invasion were to a certain extent Romanized. "Anyone who was anyone" probably spoke Latin. The Angles and the Saxons invaded at about the same time that the Romans withdrew. As they (the A/Ss) eventually took over England, the Celts were pushed into the remote areas (like Cornwall) or else migrated to mainland Europe (Britany). The Angles and Saxons were never Romanized, and so the English language did not get submerged into a Latin vulgate as happened in most of France, Spain, Italy, and Romania.

Latinate words came into English mainly thru the Church (true Latin words) or after the Norman conquest (Old French).

[cabdude]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Not really. Normandy was part of France when William invaded England. And it stayed so.

The duchy of Normandy (previously "western Neustria") was granted by the french king Charles III to the norman Rollon. William the conqueror was a direct descendant of Rollon and as such vassal of the the king of France.

What you have stated supports what DrDeth posted - the Normans weren't French. The Normans were Vikings from Scandinavia. Their lands might have been part of 'France,' although the concept of a nation in Europe didn't really exist at the time but the people weren't French - they were invaders from elsewhere.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by cabdude

What you have stated supports what DrDeth posted - the Normans weren't French. The Normans were Vikings from Scandinavia. Their lands might have been part of 'France,' although the concept of a nation in Europe didn't really exist at the time but the people weren't French - they were invaders from elsewhere.

I was responding to his claim that Normandy wasn't part of France at these times, which is a different issue.



As for the Normans not being french, you'd have to define what was a frenchman at these times, but anyway : The northmen took over Normandy, but didn't drive out/replace the local population. 150 years (which is quite a long time) later, when the normans invaded England, most probably the bulk of the invaders were of local descent. As for the nobles, they might have been of french, viking, or mixed heritage (William was definitely a direct descendant of the northman Rollon), but in any case they had adopted both the local language and local customs. So, the invaders weren't "vikings" in any meaningful sense, except for the fact that their leaders probably had some "viking blood" in their veins.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by cabdude

although the concept of a nation in Europe didn't really exist at the time .

Also : the concept of "nation" possibly didn't exist, but the concept of "kingdom" definitely did. It's not like they didn't had laws and customs. And to which kingdom the lands mentionned belonged to was very clear during the middle age, and the issue wasn't debatted.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by cabdude

What you have stated supports what DrDeth posted - the Normans weren't French. .

Finally (sorry for answering in three parts), given the content of the post DrDeth was responding to, it didn't seem to me he was refering to the normans not being french, but to the english nobility of norman descent not being so, since Istara was apparently talking about the english nobility during the middle-ages in general, not about the norman invaders.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by istara

.

French remained the international language of diplomacy until very recently.

I would point out that this isn't really related to the OP. French became the diplomatic language much latter, when, roughly at the same time :

-France became the major power in western Europe
-Diplomacy became a much more elaborated activity
-Latin began to fade away


But during the middle-ages, french wasn't the "diplomatic language" (except possibly in the particular case of the franco-english relations, since it was the language of both courts) . It wasn't even spoken in large parts of France itself.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by syncrolecyne

Latin was the language of the church, and higher education along with Greek. .

Don't quote me on this, but I have a big doubt concerning greek. AFAIK, during most of the middle-ages, the knowledge of greek was extremely rare in western Europe.

[zephyrine]

Originally Posted by John Mace

The Celts in England

Sorry to nitpick, but did you mean Britain, rather than England?

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by zephyrine

Sorry to nitpick, but did you mean Britain, rather than England?

I doubt it, as he was referring to the 'Romanized' Celts living in what later became Anglo-Saxon England.

Clairobscur stole everything else I was going to say/nitpick/be an insufferable pedant about .

- Tamerlane

[Lobsang]

I was probably imagining the wrong period of history when I was asking the question. I did not realize that middle ages actually refers to roughly 1000 years ago.

[Captain Amazing]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

And to which kingdom the lands mentionned belonged to was very clear during the middle age, and the issue wasn't debatted.

Although it was clearer with regards to Normandy than Aquitaine. The Dukes of Aquitaine were more independent of the royal authority.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by Captain Amazing

Although it was clearer with regards to Normandy than Aquitaine. The Dukes of Aquitaine were more independent of the royal authority.

Depends on the period. By the time that the Angevins gained title through Eleanor, Aquitaine was definitely incorporated into the notion of the French kingdom. It's period of quasi-independence was more in the waning days of the Merovingian dynasty, particularly from 632-769.

- Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

CA - Oh, if you mean that Aquitaine was farther outside the sphere of royal control during the time of Duke William, I'm not sure if that is really supportable either. French royal control was probably just as weak in closer Normandy ( which was under a reasonably strong central administration somewhat hostile to the throne ) as it was in slightly more distant Aquitaine ( which was nothing even close to a unitary nature in the 11th -13th centuries - the Poitevins controlled little outside of the county of Poitou itself and a little chunk around Bourdeaux - Eleanor's inheritance was mostly a matter of feudal overlordship, rather than actual ownership of land ).

- Tamerlane

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Finally (sorry for answering in three parts), given the content of the post DrDeth was responding to, it didn't seem to me he was refering to the normans not being french, but to the english nobility of norman descent not being so, since Istara was apparently talking about the english nobility during the middle-ages in general, not about the norman invaders.

Yes. The English Nobles in the Middle ages were "Anglo-Norman" (very few if any were pure Anglo-saxon but also most of the Normans had intermarried with the residents). The "Norman" part were Vikings who claimed a portion of what is now France- and I wouldn't be surprised if they had also intermarried with the local Breton/norman stock (and the Bretons considered themself Bretons, not French).

True- at one time, Normandy was a fief of the Isle de France- but that was only Charles the III making the best of a defacto situation. William the Bastard did not consider himself a vassal, and the "French" King in what would now be Paris had absolutely no control over him. Nor did they in any way shape or from consider themselves "French". (About that time, I'd say only the Isle de France considered themselves "French").

The whole "vassal fuedage" thing is complex, with rulings & "the vassal of my vassal in not my vassal ", and there were many types. Even tho the English Kings did at one time swear fealty to the King of France for the land the English King owned- the English had absolute control over it, and the french King had no authority over the English King at all. King Henry's swearing fealty to the French King for his lands in what we now call modern France did not make him in any way shape or form "French".

Thus- even though Rollo might have sworn fealty to the King of France- that did not make him "French". His populace did not consider themselves "French". The later Viking-Norman Dukes did not consider themselves "French". William the Conquerer and his nobles did not consider themselves "French" (they were Norman by that time). Just becuase Normandy is NOW part of France makes no difference.

True for a couple centuries a form of the French language was mostly spoken by the Royalty and Nobility of England. However, almost everything was written in Latin- and that does not make England a "Roman" nation (even though the Romans did conquer it once). The term used by all histoians for that period for the Nobility is "Anglo-Norman", no expert calls them "French".

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

Depends on the period. By the time that the Angevins gained title through Eleanor, Aquitaine was definitely incorporated into the notion of the French kingdom. It's period of quasi-independence was more in the waning days of the Merovingian dynasty, particularly from 632-769.

- Tamerlane

I believe Captain Amazing rather meant that Aquitaine had de facto a very large independance in the sense that the kings of France weren't really in control of Aquitaine. But they didn't control Normandy at the times of William the conqueror, either. Actually, any major fief holder ruled his fief independantly for the most part, even though their domains were de jure part of the kingdom.


Aquitaine during the period you're refering to was in a totally different situation. Depending on the moment, it was controled by the frank kings, independant de facto, or even independant de jure. Anyway, there wasn't any "France" to speak of at these times, only a collection of kingdoms, sometimes united, but more often than not independants, so there isn't much point in discussing whether Aquitaine was "french" or not under the merovingian dynasty.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

.

Clairobscur stole everything else I was going to say/nitpick/be an insufferable pedant about .

- Tamerlane

I'm highly flaterred that you didn't have anything to add/nitpick/be pedant about what I posted. I'm not used to this.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

Yes. The English Nobles in the Middle ages were "Anglo-Norman" (very few if any Nor did they in any way shape or from consider themselves "French". (About that time, I'd say only the Isle de France considered themselves "French").

Eh, it's not that simple. If I may quote:

As the Normans gradually adopted Frankish culture, they were themselves thought of as Franks. The text beneath one of the senes in the Bayeux Tapestry reads: 'Here the English and trhe Franks fell in battle.' It was the Franks who conquered England in 1066. A few years later Guibert of Nogent expressed a similar view, referring to Bohemund, the Norman ruler of Sicily: Bohemund was a Frank, because he came from Normandy, 'which is a part of Francia.' However if it was part of Francia, it was also a distinct part, with a seperate identity. Dudo emphasizes the Normans' Danish antecedents, but he also added a legendary genealogy, whereby - like the Franks - they were descended from the Trojans.

From France in the Middle Ages, 987-1460 by George Dubuy, transated by Juliet Vale ( 1991, Blackwell Publishers, Inc. ).

The Dukes of Normandy were the only "French" noble of any import not to attend Philip I's coronation in 1060 and they jealously guarded their preogatives. But I think it is a mistake to regard 11th century Normandy as "non-French". It was clearly not a truly seperate realm ( even if they had a distinct identity ) by that point, despite the weakness of the French crown, and the Normans were obviously regarded by outside contemporaries as French/Franks.

- Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Aquitaine during the period you're refering to was in a totally different situation. Depending on the moment, it was controled by the frank kings, independant de facto, or even independant de jure. Anyway, there wasn't any "France" to speak of at these times, only a collection of kingdoms, sometimes united, but more often than not independants, so there isn't much point in discussing whether Aquitaine was "french" or not under the merovingian dynasty.

True enough. There is probably no real reason to speak of a seperate "France" until the Treaty of Verdun in 843.

- Tamerlane

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

The "Norman" part were Vikings who claimed a portion of what is now France- and I wouldn't be surprised if they had also intermarried with the local Breton/norman stock

Im not sure on what basis you're claiming they were viking, except in the very loose sense that, as I said before, they probably had some viking blood. They didn't speak a scandinavian language, they didn't use scandinavian laws, they didn't followed scandinavian customs, they didn't have a scandinavian culture, so how could you call them "vikings"?

(and the Bretons considered themself Bretons, not French).

Britanny didn't really belonged to the french kingdom, anyway.

True- at one time, Normandy was a fief of the Isle de France- but that was only Charles the III making the best of a defacto situation. William the Bastard did not consider himself a vassal, and the "French" King in what would now be Paris had absolutely no control over him. Nor did they in any way shape or from consider themselves "French". (About that time, I'd say only the Isle de France considered themselves "French").

Well...The french king had essentially no control over any fief outside its own domain. So, it isn't anything specific to Normandy. And it doesn't change my point that Normandy was part of the french kingdom. Besides, if you decide to restrict the word "french" to the royal domain, indeed, they weren't "french" by this standard. But by this standart you could as much say that people living in Reims weren't "french", either, but rather "Champenois".

Still there was an entity called "France" which included Normandy, and there was a culture in northern France which could be differenciated from others, and it included Normandy too. That's why I state that the normans were "french", and more so, I would argue, than for instance people living in say, Aquitaine, despite your insistance on the normans being "vikings". I'm not sure what your definition of "french" is, actually. Honestly it seems to me you're essentialy making it up in order to be able to state that the normans weren't french, for some reason.

The whole "vassal fuedage" thing is complex, with rulings & "the vassal of my vassal in not my vassal ", and there were many types. Even tho the English Kings did at one time swear fealty to the King of France for the land the English King owned- the English had absolute control over it, and the french King had no authority over the English King at all.

I never said such a thing. I only stated that Normandy and the other continental fiefs of the kings of England were part of the kingdom of France. Not that the french king had any authority over the english king.

King Henry's swearing fealty to the French King for his lands in what we now call modern France did not make him in any way shape or form "French".

I never stated that he was french, either. That would be Istara who made a comment to this effect. I don't have enough knowledge about the early successors of William to comment on this issue, anyway. Apart from the fact they were probably less "english" than their own subjects.

Thus- even though Rollo might have sworn fealty to the King of France- that did not make him "French". His populace did not consider themselves "French". The later Viking-Norman Dukes did not consider themselves "French". William the Conquerer and his nobles did not consider themselves "French" (they were Norman by that time). Just becuase Normandy is NOW part of France makes no difference.

I never say that Rollo was french. He was a northman, but he was living 150 years before the conquest of England, once again. His populace being mostly locals, they were as french or unfrench if you really prefer that they were before.
I already answered the rest of your comments. Your argument only rests on your definition of "french" as "people living in the royal domain under the direct control of the king". I hapen to disagree with this restrictive, and to say the truth, weird, definition. These people were living in the kingdom of France, and shared a common culture with most of the people living in northern France. If it doesn't make them french according to you, then so be it.

True for a couple centuries a form of the French language was mostly spoken by the Royalty and Nobility of England. However, almost everything was written in Latin- and that does not make England a "Roman" nation (even though the Romans did conquer it once). The term used by all histoians for that period for the Nobility is "Anglo-Norman", no expert calls them "French".

Once again, this has nothing to do with what I posted. I never stated that the english kings were french for two centuries, nor that england was a roman nation.

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

I was probably imagining the wrong period of history when I was asking the question. I did not realize that middle ages actually refers to roughly 1000 years ago.

The middle ages refer to the period between the end of the western roman empire in 476 to the discovery of the Americas in 1492. Of course, there has been a big deal of changes over such a long period. The part we're refering to is the period extending from the middle of the XI° century to the middle of the XIII° century. Roughly the most "classical" part of the middle ages, as we tend to imagine them, with the feudal system blooming.


Just out of curiosity, what period were you thinking about?

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Just out of curiosity, what period were you thinking about?

Roughly 4 to 5 hundred years ago. My History is bad, I know.


I was good at science at school.

[dtilque]

It should be noted that it's very easy¹ to overemphasize the influence of the French-speaking upper class on the English language. The plain fact of the matter is that even if William had lost the Battle of Hastings, English would still have lots of French loan words.

English began borrowing French words before that battle and continued borrowing them well after the English court and parliament stopped using French as the official language. In fact, according to M-W 11th Collegiate Dictionary, there are some that date as recently as the 1980s. Future dictionaries will probably have some borrowed in the 1990s and 21st century.

Indeed, so many have been borrowed that about 25% of dictionary words come from French. It's hard to say what the percentage would have been without the Normans, but I'd say at least 20%. Note that even though the Romans did not conquer England, words borrowed directly from Latin make up another 25% of English dictionary words. Clearly, conquest is not a requirement for a massive number of loan words.


¹ Done more often than not in texts on the history of English

[ftg]

Just to remind folks of something: the Norse didn't show up all at once in Normandy and then no more Northmen ever went there. There was a continuous influx of new settlers from Scandinavia from Rollo to William. Most were Danish but not all.

This of course means that the degree of adoption of French language and customs was quite varied among the Normans when they invaded in 1066. Even William's father was said to have secretly worshipped the "old gods".

Many of these latecomers formed key parts of other adventures of the Norsemen in other areas of Europe. E.g., in Sicily, Byzantium, and the early crusader states. While they might be referred to as "Normans" by the writers of the period, many were hardly "French" in general.

Also note the Scandinavian custom of last names based on farm names. If you moved to a new farm, you had a new last name. So "where someone is from" was viewed as a highly transitory matter. Calling someone a "Norman" many times just meant that they had recently come from Normandy, nothing more. It would be impossible at this late date to say for certainty whether an everyday ex-Norman was French-speaking, Christian, etc.

[Grimpen]

Originally Posted by clairobscur

Don't quote me on this, but I have a big doubt concerning greek. AFAIK, during most of the middle-ages, the knowledge of greek was extremely rare in western Europe.

That's true. Knowledge of Greek only began to be recovered in western Europe about the time of the Renaissance.

As I recall, there was an abbreviation used in medieval texts when the copyist ran into a passage in Greek in the original. The abbreviation signified: "This is Greek, and therefore incomprehensible."

[Captain Amazing]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

Roughly 4 to 5 hundred years ago.

That time period is generally called the Rennaisance. The people ruling England were Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and German at that point...

[Lemur866]

Of course, strictly speaking Rome didn't conquer "England", since there were no Anglo-Saxon kingdoms on the island at the time they conquered it up to Hadrian's wall. But the area they conquered definately contains all of what is now England.

But I suspect you just mis-spoke. But I gotta get my pedantry points in!

[dtilque]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Of course, strictly speaking Rome didn't conquer "England", since there were no Anglo-Saxon kingdoms on the island at the time they conquered it up to Hadrian's wall. But the area they conquered definately contains all of what is now England.

But I suspect you just mis-spoke. But I gotta get my pedantry points in!

Nope, I meant what I said. Rome did not conquer England. It conquered the area that later became England, but that was irrelevant to Latin borrowings in English. As far as I know, no Latin-derived word in English comes from the fact that what's now England used to be the Roman province of Britannia. (There are people who are under the wrong impression on this matter, so I want to emphasize it.)

The earliest Latin borrowings in English actually pre-date the Anglo-Saxon migration to the island. There's a small number that were borrowed into German during the Empire. After that, the next Latin borrowings were church-related words from the time the English were Christianized. But the Angles and Saxons by-and-large displaced the Latin and Celtic speakers from Britannia and didn't borrow any words from them. Placenames, yes, but not words.

[JRDelirious]

Originally Posted by Daver914

Cervantes, like Chaucer, was a pioneer in that Don Quixote was one of the first major works written in Castilian, rather than Arabic.

Whoa, whoa, WHOA!!! Then what do we call La Celestina? De Hita's Libro del Buen Amor? Infante Juan Manuel's Libro de los Ejemplos aka [/i]El Conde Lucanor[/i]? Heck, the oldest written copies of El Cantar del Cid are from the 1300s and they are NOT in Mozárabe, they're very much in Castillian. Middle Castillian, mind you, hard to understand if you don't know what you're looking at, but then so's Chaucer. What are today Asturias, Cantabria, and Catalonia were either never, or only very briefly, Arab-controlled, and the northernmost parts of Castille and Leon were independent as of the 1000s.

The first standardized gramar of Castillian, Nebrija's, was published around 1492. By 1600, Cervantes could even already be said to be writing in Spanish.

[Tusculan]

Originally Posted by Grimpen

The abbreviation signified: "This is Greek, and therefore incomprehensible."

Graeca sunt, non leguntur.

[SCSimmons]

Originally Posted by Grimpen

The abbreviation signified: "This is Greek, and therefore incomprehensible."

Originally Posted by Tusculan

Graeca sunt, non leguntur.

AKA "It's Greek to me!"

[return to original subject]
One of my worst "Huh?" moments in Braveheart was when Princess Isabella and her handmaid were talking in French to avoid being understood by any English courtiers who might happen to overhear ...