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.
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
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.
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
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
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”.
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.
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.
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
True enough. There is probably no real reason to speak of a seperate “France” until the Treaty of Verdun in 843.
- Tamerlane
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”?
Britanny didn’t really belonged to the french kingdom, anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Roughly 4 to 5 hundred years ago. My History is bad, I know.
I was good at science at school.
It should be noted that it’s very easy[sup]1[/sup] 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.
[sup]1[/sup] Done more often than not in texts on the history of English
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.
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.”
That time period is generally called the Rennaisance. The people ruling England were Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and German at that point…
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!