Anglo-Norman

“ When I had the honour to be elected to the Professorship of Romance Languages in the University of Oxford, it was my intention to deal with the Study of Anglo-Norman in an Inaugural Lecture, but owing first to the War, and then to ill health, I have been hindered until now from carrying out my intention.
I must further apologize for the choice of my subject. Modern thoughts and modern studies are the fashion of the day, and it requires a little courage, even in this ancient seat of learning, to urge the claims of mediaeval lore. ”

“ A recent investigation [21] has shown that before 1300 few letters were written in Anglo-Norman except by members of the aristocracy, but fifty years later all but the lowest classes of the community conducted their correspondence in that language. But bilingualism, the severance of intimate intercourse with Normandy (after 1204) , and the gradual absorption of the Norman element in the population accelerated the decay of Anglo-Norman. For a long time, however, it maintained itself as the language of the aristocracy. ”

“ The desirability of arriving at an agreement must be obvious to every one, and I trust I have given adequate reasons for preferring 'Anglo-Norman'.
In my attempt to show that Anglo-Norman was a homogeneous language with distinctly Norman characteristics, I have broadly outlined its history down to the close of the fourteenth century. There remains the more difficult and delicate task of forming an estimate of the value (literary or linguistic) of the records which have been preserved. So many works are accessible only in MSS. or in faulty editions that a final verdict cannot yet be passed. ”

“ But I would plead that the Middle Ages should be better known, especially that period of the Middle Ages in which France and England shared a common language and a common literature, and took part in the same social and religious activity. The study of Anglo-Norman, revealing, as it must, the points of contact as well as the differences between the two nations, will lead to surer knowledge and greater mutual appreciation. ”

“ But Philip, who had fought side by side with the English in the Holy Land, and face to face with them in Normandy in the days of Cœur-de-Lion, understood what kind of people they were, and well knew that, whatever the Anglo-Norman barons and the citizens of London might say, the English as a nation would never submit to the rule of a foreigner, and that foreigner a French prince. ”

“ The Danes were heathens; they professed not Christianity—this Norman did; yet when England was ruled over by a king who had been elected by the voice of the whole witena-gemot, an election that had scarcely ever been disputed, this Norman bastard, this son of Robert the Devil, came over with his hired cut-throats, and armed robbers, and having drenched a once happy country with blood, he covered its smiling shores and cheerful fields with desolation and blackened ashes. ”

“ More recent critics have seldom followed their good example. The Cambridge History of English Literature devotes special chapters to Anglo-Saxon and to the Latin literature produced in England, but refers only incidentally to Anglo-Norman production. ”

“ If we cannot agree with this able champion in viewing the warfare he describes as a healthy process of evolution, we may at least gladly admit that some knowledge of this dark period, lighted only by the lurid torch of rapine and internecine strife, is as essential to a right understanding of the Anglo-Norman settlement as is the study of English history, for some generations before the Conquest, the necessary prelude to a comprehension of the Norman Conquest itself. ”

“ Of all the institutions of the Anglo-Norman state, none is more important and none more characteristic than the exchequer, illustrating as it does at the same time the comparative wealth of the sovereigns and the efficient conduct of their government. ”

“ To say that the Anglo-Norman settlement, with its conquest, or rather half conquest, of the country, proved a blessing to Ireland, is a proposition that no one, probably, would care to maintain. Why this should have been so is one of those fascinating problems that must ever arouse the speculation and stir the interest of the student. The far earlier Scandinavian settlements in Normandy and in Eastern England have little in common with the exploits of Strongbow’s daring band. Sicily in every way affords a closer parallel. ”

“ The English-speaking peoples owe a great deal to the Celts; and there is Celtic blood in a good many who are of mostly Nordic stock. But the British Empire and the American Republic were founded and are led more by Anglo-Normans than even Anglo-Normans know. For the Anglo-Normans include not only the English and their descendants overseas but many who are called Scotch and Irish, because, though of Anglo-Norman blood, they or their forefathers were born in Scotland or Ireland. ”

“ Poems based on Biblical stories are numerous and still imperfectly known, but they are surpassed in number by treatises on the Deadly Sins, the follies of mankind, poems on the Love of God, exhortations to saintly life, dull reading when judged by modern standards, but not devoid of interest as the source of some of the earliest Middle-English writings. But the real value of Anglo-Norman civilization lies in the new orientation it gave to human thought. ”

“ The Danes now proceeded to march into East Anglia, a kingdom whose inland barrier was marked by vast sheets of water that set in from the Wash, and went winding away into the low marshes of Cambridge, far away beyond Ely, over a country above an hundred miles in extent. Along this boggy and perilous course did the pagans advance with their plunder, their cars, and their cavalry; razing the monastery of Ely to the ground as they passed, nor pausing until they came to the residence of the king of East Anglia, which stood beside a river that then divided Suffolk from Norfolk. ”

“ A true appreciation of Anglo-Norman literature is hardly possible until more texts have been edited, and several of the existing editions revised and corrected. Here is a great opportunity for young philologists desirous of acquiring useful experience. The careful editing of a text affords an excellent exercise. It stimulates the initiative and sharpens the critical faculties. Moreover the field is wide and provides for a variety of tastes. Some texts offer a purely linguistic interest; others can best be studied in connexion with the Middle-English works derived from them. ”

“ Modern scholarship, too, has greatly strengthened our case. A careful study of the vocabulary of Middle-English led Professor Behrens [34] to the conclusion that the French words taken up by the English language before the end of the fourteenth century point, almost without exception, to a Norman origin. This view has been confirmed by recent investigations, e.g. those of J. M. Booker on The French inchoative suffix in Middle-English, [35] and of Zachrisson on the Anglo-Norman influence on English Place-Names. ”

“ THE ICINGLAS FOR a century after the Norman Conquest, continental visitors, in journeying through England as it then was, were surprised, ever and anon, after passing the strong fortresses—heavy, massive, and frowning—with which the Norman conquerors had crowned every height, to come upon lonely two-storied houses, quite unfortified, standing in parks of ancient oaks, amidst which swine fed and kine grazed. These were the dwellings of such of the Anglo-Saxons of rank as had escaped the Norman sword or the exile which to many of them was worse than death ”

“ The students who frequented the English seminaries were seldom of the nobler class. So late as the reign of Henry II., the Anglo-Norman barons preferred sending their sons to French schools and universities, out of a nervous dread lest their Norman speech should be barbarised by any admixture of the English accent. ”

“ The Anglo-Norman empire of the twelfth century was the marvel of its day, while the history of the Norman kingdom of Sicily showed that the Norman genius for assimilation and political organization was not confined to the dukes of Rouen. Highly significant during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Norman institutions remained of permanent importance, affecting the central administration of France in ways which are still obscure, and exerting a decisive influence upon the law and government of England. ”

“ Tanquerey's study of the evolution of the verb in Anglo-Norman [56] is more exhaustive. It is a praiseworthy attempt to solve a most intricate problem. Although some of the conclusions may have to be revised in the light of fuller knowledge, a great part of the work will prove of permanent value. The comparative study of Middle-English and Anglo-Norman philology has already yielded interesting results, [57] but there is ample room for further investigation. The abundant material supplied by Professor Wright's Dictionary of English Dialects should be carefully explored. ”

“ The Danish-Norwegian settlements, and the Danish dominion in England, by subduing for a time the political power of the Anglo-Saxons, had not only prepared the way for the first victory of the Normans, but also for the future progress and establishment of the Norman power in England, and especially for the ultimate triumph of the Norman popular spirit over the remains of the ancient Saxon nationality. ”

“ Two centuries later, when her nationality had become more firmly established, when her Highland clans, her Anglo-Norman colonies, her Norse settlements, and her Lowland commonalty had been brought nominally under a supreme government, though not yet formed into one people, she exhibited to the world a magnificent spectacle of prolonged, stubborn, and successful resistance to the encroachments of a very superior power ”

“ But it was not until the Norman invasion and complete subjugation of England, and Norman laws, customs and ideals had completely dominated that country and the semi-Latin tongue now known as English had taken the place of the Anglo-Saxon spoken till the Normans came, that the real breach of amity between the English and Irish happened.
It was against the aggressive spirit of this Anglo-Norman power that Ireland first rebelled and rebels to this day. The Normans 432found the conquest of Ireland a far more difficult undertaking. ”

“ The Danes, Norwegians, or Norsemen, for it matters not by which title we distinguish them, descended from the same primitive race as the Anglo-Saxons—the old Teutonic or Gothic tribes. But to enter fully into the mixed population, all of whom sprung from this ancient stock, and at different periods invaded England, we should have to go deeply into the early history of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Their religion was the same as that which we have described at the commencement of the Saxon invasion. ”

“ They can hardly be reckoned as specimens of literature, but they give us a comprehensive view of the beliefs and superstitions which were current in their days, and of the naïve theories which accounted for natural phenomena, and explained their inner and higher significance. History proved equally attractive to the Normans. Whilst in France, with a few notable exceptions, it continued to be written in Latin down to the time of Froissart, England was flooded with a mass of chronicles rhymed in French. ”

“ Allowance must be made also for those 'uplondisshe men' who, like William of Wadington, were reared in the country, where there was neither burg ne cité, and wrote a language of which they readily admitted they had but an imperfect knowledge. The rise of Paris as a seat of learning and the home of a brilliant court finally established for all times the superiority of Parisian French over other dialects, even over Provençal and Anglo-Norman, and made it the literary language of the whole of France. ”

“ When Edward's Norman friends presented themselves, they met with the most cordial welcome; and being, for the most part, men of adventurous talents, they soon began to look upon the country as their property, and grasped at every office which the king had to bestow. Ere long, Norman priests found themselves bishops in England; Norman warriors figured as governors of English castles; and the court became so thoroughly Normanized, that the national dress, language, and manners, went wholly out of fashion.
The Anglo-Saxon nobles do not appear to have manifested any jealousy of the king's friends. ”

“ We need only refer to the extracts we have already given in the body of our history, from the Welsh bards, to prove this. The literature in no country was ever built upon so original a foundation as that of the Anglo-Saxons. Their language at an early period was enriched by the Danish: their habits resembled those of the sea-kings. Long before the Norman conquest, they had melted into one; the sea-horses, and the road of the swans, were to them familiar images; there was a sublimity about the ocean, and the storm, and the giant headlands, which they felt and understood ”

“ The Englishman is justly proud of his native land, of its internal freedom, and external greatness. But when he extols his country in respect only of its being “Anglo-Saxon,” or praises the merits of the Anglo-Saxons and Norman-French, whilst he unconditionally condemns the Danish expeditions and settlements, as having been merely devastating and destructive, he commits both an historical error and an evident injustice. The Anglo-Saxons performed their share in the civilization of England, and the Norman-French did still more ”

“ But the majority of their countrymen were quite content with the knowledge of what was still a fashionable and aristocratic language. John Peckham (†1292) , a distinguished Oxford teacher, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, continued to write his letters in Anglo-Norman, although he had studied and taught many years in the University of Paris. [32] Even in the fourteenth century, when Parisian French had long outdistanced other dialects as a literary medium, the French language spoken in England was still fairly uniform. ”