VII. Norman conquest of England
In 1065 the king Adward (who was the descendant of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty) died. As he had no children the King’s Council of wise men offered the crown to Harold (he was a relative to the dead king). But William, the Duke of Normandy, also had claims to the English throne, as he was related to the Edward dynasty. These two pretenders to the throne began preparations to a war to fight for the Crown. The battle between these two pretenders was at the town Hasting (south of England). During the battle Harold was killed. William’s victory made him the king of England. Later, he was called William the Conqueror. He ruled England for 21 years (1066-1087).
Normandy – was dukedom of France, in the north of it. The Normans were Scandinavian Vikings who settled in France. They lived among the French people. They learned to speak French and became like the French themselves. They adopted the manners, the customs and the way of life of the French people. So the Normans brought French language (Northern dialect of French) to England. After the Norman conquering the church power and the temporal power was in hands of the Normans.
Anglo-Saxon military nobility perished or left England for France. The population of villages was enslaved. They were the Anglo-Saxons. Town-dwellers were the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans.
During several centuries the state language in England was French one. It was thelanguage of the government, the courts of law, the church. The English language was reduced to a lower social sphere: the main mass of peasantry and townspeople. The relation between French and English was, thus, different from that between Scandinavian and English: French was the language of the ruling class.
The Norman Conquest put an end to the dominating position of the West Saxon literary language. In the 12th and 13th centuries all English dialects were on an equal footing and independent of each other. In some of them, especially in the North, Scandinavian influence on the vocabulary became more pronounced. Under such circumstances, with two languages spoken in the country, they were bound to struggle with each other and also to influence each other. This process lasted three centuries - the 12th, 13th, 14th. Its results were twofold:
1) the struggle ended in favors of English;
2) the English language emerged from this struggle in a considerably changed conditions; its vocabulary was enriched by a great number of French words.
Many words adopted at the time denoted things and notions connected with the life of the Norman aristocracy. Alongside these, many everyday words penetrated into English, which denoted ideas already having names inEnglish. As a result of borrowing, pairs of synonyms appeared in English, and a struggle between the synonyms would ensue. The outcome of the struggle would be different in different cases. We may state three main possibilities:
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1. The struggle ends in favor of the French word; its nativeEnglish synonym disappears.
2. It is the native word that gets the upper hand; theFrench word, after existing in English for some time, is ousted again.
3. Both words survive, but a difference in meaning develops between
them, which may be either purely semantic or stylistic.
Many French words, as was stated above, were connected with the life of the ruling class, the French nobility. We can state here several main semantic spheres of French words:
(1) Government, the court, and jurisdiction: prince, boron, noble, governen, government royal7 court, justice, judge, сопdетneп, аcquinten (MnE acquit), sentence. However, the words king and queen survived and were replaced by their French synonyms.
(2) Army and military fife: werre (MnE war),army, bataille (MnE battle}, regiment ,lance, mail, castle, banner, harness, siege, victory, defeat.
(3) Religion and church: Religion, saint, frere.(MnE friar), preyen
(MnE pray), sermon, conscience, cloistre, chapel.
(4) Town professions: bocher (MnE butcher), peintre (MnE painter)
tailor. However, words of OE origin are used to denote country professions:
miller, shoemaker, shepherd, smith.
(5) Art notions: art,colour, figure, image, column, ornament.
(6) Amusements: plesir (MnE pleasure), leysir (MnE leisure), ese
(MnE ease) soper (MnE supper), resten (MnE roast), deintee (MnE dainty).
Many other words were also taken over, which were not connected with any specific semantic sphere, such as: air, place, coverer, river, large, change, and a number of others.
When both the native and the French word were preserved in English, there arose a differentiation of their meanings. A well known example of such differentiation is quoted in the first chapter of Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe.
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This concerns names of animals. The native word is used to denote the living animal while the French word denotes the dish made of its flesh: ox – beef, calf – veal, sheep – mutton, pig - pork. The living animal was denoted by a term from the Anglo-Saxon shepherd who took care of it, while the dish was denoted by a word from the language of the French nobility who used it at their dinners.
Another type of differentiation may be found in the pair of synonyms: beginnen- cemmecen. The native verb beginnen has stayed on as a colloquial word, while the French cemmencen is an official term and is mainly used in documents, and the like. In a number of cases the native word has acquired a more concrete character, while the French one is more abstract; compare: work - labor, life - existence.
VIII. Chronological List
6th – 3d B.C. – The Celts invade Britain and overcome the Iberians.
55 B.C. Julius Caesar lands in Britain.
54 B.C. The second invasion of the Romans.
43 A.D. The Romans begin to conquer the South of Britain.e
1st – 5th centuries A.D. - Britain is the Roman province.
407 A.D. The end of Roman rule in Britain.
5th cent. A.D.- The Anglo-Saxons begin to conquer Britain
(except Scotland, Wales and Cornwall).
597 A.D. Christianity is being introduced by the Roman monks.
825 A.D. - Wessex becomes the leading kingdom of Britain..
871..A.D. - The Danes begin to conquer north-eastern part of Britain
1016 A.D. - The Danish king Canute proclaimed as a ruler of
England, which becomes part of his short lived empire.
1066 A.D. - The Norman conquest of England under William I.
Seminar1
1. Origin of English.
2. The periods of the English language history.
3. The Iberians and the Celts as the earliest inhabitants of the British Isles.
4. Traces of the Roman rule in Britain.
5. Anglo-Saxon period. Vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxon period.
6. Scandinavian conquerors. The Scandinavian traces in the British vocabulary.
7. The Norman Conquest. The nature of the French influence on English.
Lecture 2
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