Middle English Session 6

Norman Conquest

1066

Transition from Old English to Middle English begins.William the Conqueror invaded the island of Britain and settles with his nobles and court. The conquering Normans descended from Vikings, but had abandoned Old Norse, and adopted French.

Last Entry of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

1154

Rule of Norman King Henry II

1154

Many more Francien words from central France were imported in addition to their Anglo-Norman counterparts. The Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine was regarded the most cultured woman in Europe. she also championed many terms or romance and chivalry. Many more Latin-derived words came into use largely connected with religion, law, medicine, and literature.

Founding of the University of Oxford

1167

And also the founding of the University of Cambridge in 1209 increase literacy.

Loss of the French part of Normandhy

1204

Normans spoke Anglo-Norman, or Norman-French, different from Francien. The Loss of Normandy under King John marked the differences even more isolating England even more from continental Europe.

Resurgence of English

1204

It is English, not French that emerges as the language of England. Norman noble lose touch with their french properties and with the French court and culture, they begin to look at themselves as English. French degenerates and English becomes the lingua franca.

Anglo-Norman French Becomes the Language of Nobility

1215

Anglo-Norman was the language the verbal language of court, administration, and culture. Latin was mostly used as written language, especially by the church and official records. The lower classes continue to speak English. The languages merged when people started to inter-marry. This mixture between Anglo-Norman and Old English is what is usually referred to as Middle-English.

French (Anglo-Norman) Influence

1250

Normans passed on 10,000 words to English related to matters of crown and nobility, government and administration, court and law, war and combat, authority and control. Humble trades retain their Anglo-Saxon names; more skilled trades adopted French names. Farm animals kept English names; once served, they became French. Sometimes a French word completely replaced an Old-English word.

French (Anglo-Norman) Influence

1250

Sometimes French and Old English components combined to form a new word. Sometimes English and French words survived, but with significantly different senses. Often different words with roughly the same meaning survived, and a whole host of new, French-based synonyms entered the English language. Bilingual words were being compiled as early as the 13th century.

Middle English After the Normans

1300

English becomes the third language in its own country. It was a spoken rather than written, it fell to the levels of patois and creole. There was a proliferation of regional dialects to the point that people from one part of England could not understand other people just 50 miles away.

13th and 14th Century

1301

The dialect of Chaucer which is the most difficult, it is what is the most close thing to English recognized today. English is the language of the masses. Many of the grammatical complexities and inflections of Old English gradually disappear. Noun genders die out, adjectives which once had up to 11 different inflections are reduced to w (singular and plural) then just one.

The Hundred Year War

1337

Brands French as the language of the enemy. After the plague, the English-speaking laboring and merchant classes grew in economic and social importance and, within a decade, the linguistic division between the nobility and the commoners was over.

King Edward III

1362

First king to address Parliament in English. By 1385 English becomes the language of instruction in Schools