Lesson 4. The Norman Conquest. Part II

The Growth of a National Feeling
1. The Rivalry between England and France
  1. French Reinforcements
    1. In the reign of King John began a fresh invasion of foreigners mostly from the south of France: in the times when Norman nobility had lost continental connections and identified itself wholly with England.
      1. Peter des Roches, a Poitevin clerk, was made bishop of Winchester, and rose to be chancellor and later justiciar of England. He attracted John's attention and won his favor.
      2. During the reign of Henry III, John's son, 3 great inundations of foreigners took place in England as a result of the king's French connection.
        Year 1233. Henry III, by the advice of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, dismissed all native officers of his court from their offices and appointed foreigners from Poitou in their places.
        The king also invited men from Poitou and Brittany, about 2000 knights and soldiers who were placed in charge of the castles of the kingdom
        These men oppressed the natural English subjects and nobles, calling them traitors
        It seems that nothing was done in England except what the bishop of Winchester and his host of foreigners determined on.
        Year 1236. Henry III's marriage to Eleanor of Provence brought a second stream.
        The queen inherited eight maternal uncles and a generous number of more distant relatives. Many of them came to England and were richly provided for: lands, possessions, money.
        Peter of Savoy, one of the queen's uncles, was given the earldom of Richmond. Another, Boniface, was made archbishop of Canterbury.
        Year 1246. Third flux from Poitou. Henry's mother, after the death of king John, had married her first love and borne him five sons.
        Henry enriched his half-brothers and their followers and married their daughter to English nobles
        In short, during Henry III's reign (1216-1272), the country was eaten up by strangers.
  2. The Reaction against Foreigners and the Growth of a National Feeling
    1. Under the rule of Peter des Roches, in 1234 a number of bishops told the king that the people who were coming were dangerous for the reign because they hated English people and were holding the king's dominions, castles and treasury.
      1. The king reacted upon the threat of excommunication and dismissed the foreigners from office, but they were soon back, and popular feeling grew more bitter.
        The barons and the middle class were driven in a common cause. The leader of this coalition was Simon de Montfort.
        The outcomes of the oppsition were:
        The Provisions of Oxford (1258)
        The Barons' War (1258-1265)
        During these years, the foreigners were driven from England
        Once peace was restored and later Edward I came to the throne, we enter a period in which England becomes conscious of its unity:
        The governmental officials are for the most part English, and the king in a summons to Parliament (1295) attempts to stir up the feelings of his subjects against the king of France.
    2. The effect of incursions during the 13th century:
      1. Delay of the "natural" spread of the use of English by the upper classes that had begun.
      2. Hostility to foreigners and stimulation of the consciousness of a national feeling. The knowledge of English was then regarded as a proper mark of an Englishman (Henry III did not seem to know English.)
2. A New Situation for English and French
  1. English and French in the 13th Century
    1. The upper classes continued to speak French, but the reasons for doing so were not because it was their mother tongue
      1. French became a cultivated tongue supported by social custom and by business and administrative convention.
        The knowledge of French was sometimes imperfect.
        Interesting evidence: the bills or petitions presented to the justices in eyre at the close of the 13th and the begining of the 14th centuries by those seeking redress at the law.
        Custom required these bills to be in French, but they are not written by lawyers but by professional scribes or possibly the parish priest. The editor of a volume of such petitions says "they neither spoke French nor were accustomed to hear it". Furthermore, the declension and conjugation are often incorrect or peculiar.
      2. English made steady advances when the separation of the English nobles from their interests in France had been about completed.
        It was becoming a matter of general use among the upper classes.
        At this time, the adoption of French words into the English language assume a great proportion: when those who know French and have been accustomed to use it try to express themselves in English. Also, the literature for polite circles begins to be made into English.
        We do not know whether Henry III understood English, though he probably did. His brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall, certainly did. Henry's son, Edward I, spoke English readily, perhaps even habitually.
        The references to the language are not numerious but suggestive: a bishop preaches in it, a judge quotes in it, monks joke in it, friars use it to explain to the people of Worcester a legal victory, a royal proclamation...
        Example of the extent to which English has rise in the social scale by the mid 13th century:
        A little treatise written by Walter of Bibbesworth to teach children French: it is treated as a foreign language. The person for whom the manual was prepared was Dionysa, who belonged to the upper circle of the nobility. Therefore the language through which she acquired French was English.
        A noticeable attitude at this time is the attitude that the proper language for English to know and use is English (a matter of patriotism).
        The Provisions of Oxford were in Latin, French and English. Latin was naturally the language of record. The document was sent in English to the sheriffs of every county to be publicized. Whether it was also sent in French is not known but seems likely.
  2. Attempts to Arrest the Decline of French
    1. At the close of the 13th century, French was losing its hold on England. The tendency to speak English was becoming stronger even in the church and universities.
    2. In the last decades of the 13th century, the great Benedictine monasteries of Canterbury and Westminster adopted regulations forbidding the novices to use English in school or cloister and requiring all conversation to be French
    3. Similar regulations were taken at the universities
      1. A 14th-century statute of Oxford required the students to construe and translate in both English and French. Others required that the conversation of students be in Latin or in French.
      2. Cambridge had similar rules: students were expected to speak Latin except that they might use French "for a just or reasonable cause...but very rarely English".
    4. The Parliament in 1332 decreed "that all lords, barons, knights, and honest men...teach their children the French language". These indicate how artificial was the use of French in England by the 14th century.
    5. Further evidence: numerous manuals for learning French, like Walter of Bibbesworth's Traité. In succeeding years there were several adaptations of it.
3. The Hundred Years' War
  1. Period of open hostility with France (1337-1453).
    1. Causes: active interference of France in England's efforts to control Scotland led Edward II to put forth a claim to the French throne and to invade France.
      1. Victories of the English at Crézy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) followed a period of reverses and long periods of truce.
        In the reign of Henry V there was a victory at Agincourt (1415), but the success did not continue after the young king's death, and the exploits of Joan of Arc (1429) marked the beginning of the end.
        There remained a feeling of animosity and during all these time it was impossible to forget that French was the language of an enemy country. The Hundred Years' War contributed to the disuse of French.
The Definite Reestablishment of English
1. The Rise of the Middle Class
  1. The condition of the labouring classes rapidly improved during the latter part of the Middle English period
    1. In 1349, "The Black Death" plague: immunity was slight and in the absence of any system of quarantine the disease spread through the community. Mortality was high: about the 30 percent.
      1. Effects
        The rich suffered less than the poor: mortality was accordingly greatest among the lower classes.
        Many cotters left the land in search of the high wages commanded by independent workers.
        The ones left behind felt more acutely the burden of their condition and a general spirit of discontent arose, which culminated in the Peasant's Revolt of 1381.
        An increase of the economic importance of the laboring class and with it the importance of the English language which they spoke.
  2. The rise of the craftsmen and merchant class. The townsfolk were engaged in trade or in the manufacturing crafts and banded together into commercial fraternities or guilds for their mutual protection and advantage.
    1. There arose in each town an independent and sometimes a wealthy and powerful class, halfway between the rural peasant and the hereditary aristocracy.
      1. These changes benefited the English-speaking part of the population.
2. General Adoption of English in the 14th Century
  1. Evidence in the polite literature: they frequently begin with a prologue explaining their intention in the work that follows and incidentally make interesting observation on the linguistic situation.
    1. Examples: William of Nassyngton's Speculum Vitae or Mirror of Life (c. 1325). North English Homily Cicle, ed. John Small. Also a romance called Arthur and Merlin (c. 1325). They are quite specific in the statement that old and young, learned and unlearned, all understand English.
    2. French had some currency at the court. It was also known in the legal profession and the church, kept up as the language of conversation in the monasteries, it was the language of parliament and local administration. The business of town councils and the guilds seems to have been ordinarily transacted in French. It was very common in letters and local records, and probably written by people who did not habitually speak it.
      1. We may be sure that the court that Chaucer knew spoke English even if its members commonly wrote and often read French.
        For Robert of Brunne, French is chiefly the language of two grops, the educated classes and the French.
      2. Edward III knew English and Richard II addressed the people in it at the time of Wat Tyler's rebellion. Outside the royal family English was the language best understood.
    3. In 1362, the chancellor opened Parliament for the first time with a speech in English. English appears at this time also in the acts of towns and guilds.
    4. In the last year of the century, in the proceedings at the deposition of Richard II, the articles of accusation were read to the assembles Parliament in Latin and English, as the document by which Richard renounced the throne. The order deposing him was read to him in English, and Henry IV's speeches claiming the throne and later accepting it were delivered in English. It was again the principal tongue of all England.
3. English in the Law Courts
  1. In 1362, in the Parliament, the Statute of Pleading was enacted: it said all lawsuits shall be conducted in English. The reason stated is that "French is much unknown in the said realm". It constitutes, however, the official recognition of English.
  2. In 1356, the mayor and alderman of London ordered that proceedings in the sheriff's court of London and Middlesex be in English.
4. English in the Schools
  1. A statement of Ranulph Higden in the 14th century shows that in his day the use of French in the schools was quite general. After 1349 English began to be used in the schools, and by 1385 the practice had become general.
5. Increasing Ignorance of French in the 15th Century
  1. The fact that many nobles could not speak French indicates a condition that became more pronounced as time went on. Even the ability to write it was becoming less general among people of position.
  2. Ignorance of French must have been quite common among the governing class in England from the beginning of the 15th century. Before the middle of the century, it was necessary to have a "Secretary of French language" among the government officials.
6. French as a Language of Culture and Fashion
  1. When French went out of use the reasons for its cultivation also changed.
    1. In the first decade of the 15th century, John Barton gives 3 reasons for Englishmen's learning the language. He says nothing about the need to communicate among themselves
      1. First, it will enable them to communicate with their neighbors of France.
      2. Second, the laws are largelly in French.
      3. Third, gentlement and women willingly write to each other in French.
  2. In this century and after times , the feeling that French was the language of culture and fashion was largely prompted. This feeling was strengthened in the 18th century.
7. The Use of English in Writing
  1. The use of Latin for written communication was due partly to a habit, partly to its international character and partly to the feeling that it was a language that had become fixed while the modern languages seemed to be variable, unregulated, and in a constant state of change.
    1. But in the 15th century, English succeeds in displacing both Latin and French
      1. English letters first occur among the Paston letters and in the Stonor correspondence between 1420 and 1430. After 1450, English letter are everywhere the rule. It is rather similar with wills. The wills of Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI are all in English.
      2. English is adopted for the records of towns and guilds and in a number of branches of the central government. At York, the ordinances of the crafts begin to be in English from about 1400 on.
      3. The records of Parliament are usually in French down to 1423. After this date they are often in English. In 1485 they begin to appear in English alongside of French, and in 1489 French entirely disappears.
      4. The reign of Henry V (1413-1422) seems to have marked the turning point in the use of English in writing. The king used English in his letters and made efforts to promote the use of English in writing, which established a precedent. The end of his reign and the beginning of the next mark the period at which English begins to be generally adopted in writing. 1425 represents very well the aproximate date.

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Lesson 4. The Norman Conquest. Part II

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