# English nobility speaking french in the middle ages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 14, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175 "2004-05-14T21:31:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/1 "2004-05-14T21:31:45Z")
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) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/2 "2004-05-14T21:35:02Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/3 "2004-05-14T21:53:50Z")
Wow. I’m absolutely amazed that an English person didn’t know that. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/4 "2004-05-14T21:54:18Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![Daver914](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daver914](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daver914)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/5 "2004-05-14T21:55:11Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/6 "2004-05-14T22:01:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Daver914](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daver914](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daver914)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/7 "2004-05-14T22:15:45Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/8 "2004-05-14T23:49:03Z")
> [@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! ---
**Author:** ![Daver914](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daver914](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daver914)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/9 "2004-05-15T00:17:39Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/10 "2004-05-15T00:20:34Z")
> [@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”. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/11 "2004-05-15T01:11:11Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/12 "2004-05-15T01:33:00Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/13 "2004-05-15T01:44:24Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Daver914](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daver914](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daver914)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/14 "2004-05-15T04:33:42Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/15 "2004-05-15T05:28:26Z")
> [@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). ---
**Author:** ![cabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@cabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cabdude)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/16 "2004-05-15T06:53:20Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/17 "2004-05-15T10:09:09Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/18 "2004-05-15T10:16:10Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/19 "2004-05-15T10:22:23Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175/20 "2004-05-15T10:48:14Z")
> [@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. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-nobility-speaking-french-in-the-middle-ages/245175.md?page=2)