The Norman Conquest and the Influence of French on Middle English in England, Appunti di Cultura Inglese I

Scarica The Norman Conquest and the Influence of French on Middle English in England e più Appunti in PDF di Cultura Inglese I solo su Docsity! Introduction Six thousand years ago in a mysterious land called Britain was inhabited. During the bronze age the islander started metalworking, manufacturing leather and cloth. Around 700 BC the celt arrived from the northwest Germany  they introduced iron plough which help during the cultivation of the soil easier, they work shipped the natural elements such as the soon , the moon The romans  55/45 BC led by Julius caser The romans were attracted to the agriculture and they built roads, they brought their culture and teach Christianity to Britain. The romans left Britain in the war against the Saxon Then the Anglo-Saxon and later the Normans for a better opportunity or for a place to stay…, but every single arrived mark the languages, costumes, and traditions. Their society was divided in groupclan . In 829, the kingdom of Wessex was the most important. The population of British Isles was made up of a mixture of different speaking languages. Alfred 'The Great' (r. 871-899) After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw, composed of northern England, the north-east Midlands and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England.[3] Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.  In 1700 Daniel Defoe defended a king of xenophobia attach  In 1948  Britain becomes a multiethnic society Battle of Hastings, (Oct. 14, 1066) Battle that ended in the defeat of Harold II of England by William, duke of Normandy, and established the Normans as rulers of England. On his deathbed Edward the Confessor had granted the English throne to Harold, earl of Wessex, despite an earlier promise to make William his heir. William crossed to England from Normandy with a skilled army of 4,000–7,000 men, landing at Pevensey in Sussex and moving eastward along the coast to Hastings. Harold met the Norman invaders with an army of 7,000 men, many of whom were exhausted from the forced march south to meet William following Harold’s victory at the battle of Stamford Bridge three weeks earlier. The English were defeated after a day-long battle in which Harold was killed. After the battle, the Norman duke moved his army to London and was crowned William I on December 25 Historical context In 1066 William Duke of Normandy defeated the Anglo-Saxon King, Harold II, at the Battle of Hastings and became King of England. In 1085 England was again threatened with invasion, this time from Denmark. William had to pay for the mercenary army he hired to defend his kingdom. To do this he needed to know what financial and military resources were available to him.  At Christmas 1085 he commissioned a survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth and how much was owed to him as King in tax, rents, and military service. A reassessment of the tax known as the geld took place at about the same time as Domesday and still survives for the south west. But Domesday is much more than just a tax record. It also records which manors belonged to which estates and gives the identities of the King’s tenants-in-chief who owed him military service in the form of knights to fight in his army. The King was essentially interested in tracing, recording and recovering his royal rights and revenues which he wished to maximize. It was also in the interests of his chief barons to co-operate in the survey since it set on permanent record the tenurial gains they had made since 1066.  We know that from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that William commissioned the survey (description) at his Christmas court in 1085. Most historians believe that he always intended the results of this survey to be written up in Domesday Book, although some scholars have argued that it was William the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, who ordered the book itself to be written. Whatever the case, the Conqueror threw the full weight of his administrative machinery into the initial survey. English Language Speaking about language we can distinguish three periods or phases of English language: Old English (from the first invasions to the norman conquest in 1066), Middle English (from 1066 to 15th century) Modern English (end of 15th century when printing and humanistic schooling were the basis for a new language). Old English: it is mainly a Germanic language and there are few Latinate words. It is rich in inflection for example it contains cases like German and Greek and Latin. Even if we may think that contemporary English may not share features with its old version we are wrong because many irregular verbs come from Old English like “drink- drankdrunk”. Old English is also characterized by the presence of runes that do not have an equivalent in Modern English. They were part of an alphabet used in Europe by German and Scandinavian tribes and used by Anglo-Saxons after AD 200 (ae stands for the sound in “cat” ) even if some forms were still found in Modern English. Middle English is the result of the mixture of French, Latin and partially of Old English. The main features of Middle English is a simple inflection and a vocabulary that came from Scandinavian and French sources. Not only England had to deal with French influence but the whole Europe. The Arthurian Middle English is easier to understand than the Old English even if we have to bear some obstacles: phonetics which is more rough, lexis which can be very different from Modern English but an unknown word may seem unknown but in reality it’s a known word with a different spelling. the century the poet Seamus Heaney (b. 1939), a Nobel Prize winner, successfully translated Beowulf. Christian poetry and prose Most of old English poems are Christian and develop a religious theme whereas we don’t have many documents for pagan poetry. We know Three Anglo-Saxon writers who were all Christian: Caedmon (658-680) but only a few lines survived, Aldhelm (640-709) of whom nothing has survived and Cynewulf (8th century) whose long poem is titled Elene about St Helena. Cynewulf’s poems are all religious and about saints’ lives. Many poems reflect Cynewulf’s manner and they are called “poems of the school of Cynewulf”. Christianity was adapted to Anglo-Saxon ideals for example in The dream of the Rood the Holy Cross talks about Christ as a young and strong hero. Talking about Anglo-Saxon literary prose, king Alfred the Great had a great influence because he wanted many books translated from Latin into English. It included Gregory the Great’s “Pastoral Care and Dialogues” and Boethius’ “The consolation of Philosophy” and St Augustine’s “Soliloquies”. Aelfric was a writer that refined Old English prose thanks to the influence of Latin. King Alfred is considered the father of English prose because of his efforts that gave birth to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle that records the main events in England in that period. We have many versions: one of them is the Peterborough Chronicle that continued till 1154. Thanks to it we have a record of an important event that took place in 1066: the Norman conquest led by William the Conqueror. Old, Middle and Modern English We know that there are three phases of English: Old English, Middle English that began in 1066 and finished in 1450-1500 and Modern English from 1450-500 onwards. 1066 was an important year not only because we have the Middle English “era” but also because Norman conquest starts. So normans carried not only their armies but also their culture and language that is French. For this reason Middle English develops as a mixture of Old English and French. But why French? Because they were Vikings who first settled in the North of France. So this change is not sudden but progressive. The main figure we associate to Norman conquest is the king William the conqueror. They carried with themselves also a new idea of State: feudal organization. Anglo-Saxon state was centered on the king and everything belonged to him. His barons received a land and they had to defend it. Feudal hierarchy was characterized by the king, barons and knights who received a land from the barons but in exchange they had to follow the barons during military expeditions. At a lower level we have the peasants who had to work in the land and ruled by their lord. This organization of the State was the same in the whole Europe. Culturally speaking, French became the most important language in England because it was the language of government and law, but also Latin that was the language of culture and Church. However, French was not spoken by normal people who still used Old English. Middle English is the result of the mixture of French, latin and partially of Old English. The main features of Middle English is a simple inflection and a vocabulary that came from Scandinavian and French sources. Not only England had to deal with French influence but the whole Europe. The Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes influenced many English works like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (verse) and Thomas Malory Morte Darthur in prose. French culture was also allegorical poetry in the 13th century such as Le roman de la Rose from which also Chaucer’s production was influences. Chaucer was influenced by the French fabliau in The Canterbury Tales. William Langland in Piers Plowman mixed allegorical poetry and religion. Middle English is easier to understand than the Old English even if we have to bear some obstacles: phonetics which is more rough, lexis which can be very different from Modern English but an unknown word may seem unknown but in reality it’s a known word with a different spelling. French influence is also the rhyme and stanzas but something that this literature kept from Anglo- Saxon tradition was the alliteration. Production of poetry preceded the one of prose even if this production was not written but at first oral then written. Thanks to a written medium there is the development of prose although English people don’t mark this distinction. Another tendency was to use the first person that wants to focus on the author himself (Chaucer) but also on a psychological level (Langland). In the 12th century perhaps a sort of book revolution occurred: this means that more and more people were interested in literary works and for this reason this led to a circulation of them. There was no printing: we’ll have to wait for 15th century but many scribes transcribed them and they were well organized. This wasn’t a literal copying but the text was a bit changed and commented. Many writers didn’t mention the fact that they were the real authors of that book but they said that they summarized two or three books.