Founded in England after Guillaume's conquest of England in 1066, Guillaume of the Norman dynasty ruled all of England in less than 10 years. This was possible because he introduced the French feudal system into England. Guillaume divided Britain into ...
Founded in England after Guillaume's conquest of England in 1066, Guillaume of the Norman dynasty ruled all of England in less than 10 years. This was possible because he introduced the French feudal system into England. Guillaume divided Britain into 37 counts and ruled by introducing the French judicial and administrative system. At the time of Guillaume's conquest of England, less than 10,000 Normandy took control of the British royal family, administration, and church. At that time, France of the Capet Dynasty was divided into several feudal lords, and the language was also divided into regional dialects, and linguistic unification was not achieved. Normandy, the Duchy of Guillaume, spoke the French regional dialect, Norman, and with Guillaume's conquest of England, the Norman language, a dialect of the Normandy language, was transplanted into England. Norman language, which was thus transplanted into England, was an important language in the Middle Ages along with the French royal language. The language used in England as a British royal and administrative judicial language by Guillaume is called Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French.
After Guillaume's conquest of Norman, the Norman dynasty's interest in the French duchy of Normandy continued. This political situation was followed by social and cultural exchanges between the kings of the Norman dynasty and England and Normandy, maintaining relations between the two countries.
In Henry II's Plantagenet dynasty, following the Norman dynasty, Anglo-French continued its authority as the king's language, and the English-speaking dynasty began to decline with the rise of Henry IV's Lancaster dynasty. However, Anglo-French was a second language beside spoken English, but it was still the language of the upper class of England. Most of the British population spoke spoken English, but French continued to function as the king's language.
In the Plantagenet dynasty, the charter and laws were written in Anglo-French from the 13th century, and French translations of the Latin text Magna Carta were circulated. The Common Law French Code was created in 1250–60. As the role of chancellor expanded in the administrative sector, Anglo-French was used in monetary casting and forest-related documents, and Anglo-French was used in the National Assembly until the 15th century. In addition, with the preference for personal seal and signature in sealed documents, Anglo-French was used as the dominant language, especially during the reign of Edward III and Richard II. With the development of common law and Year Books in the courts, the importance of Anglo-French was further expanded. In particular, the use of Anglo-French under Edward I(1272-1307) was greatly expanded because both Year Books and lawsuits were conducted in French. Of course, the court proceedings of all Counts in the province were conducted in French, and the use of French in court was finally prohibited by law in 1731.
This action reminds us of the French Edict of Viller-Cottrêts(1539). However, there is a difference that the UK banned the use of French, and France banned the use of Latin. The use of Anglo-French was absolute in the royal, legal, judicial, and administrative affairs of the Plantagenet dynasty. Therefore, the upper class had to know French and they needed to learn French. This is why large quantities of French study books emerged in England in the 12th century. Starting with the French lexicon (Nomalia), the first French grammar book, Donait Francois (1400), was published in the United Kingdom, including Femina and Treitiz, and French courses were offered at Oxford and Cambridge. In addition, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's were established in London as specialized schools to foster future lawyers.
However, the Anglo-French language, which enjoyed this authority, began to retreat from the Lancaster dynasty. The ascension of the New Dynasty required the confidence of the British people. In particular, from the reign of Henry V, French disappeared from sealed documents and English took over its function, which was the answer of the New Dynasty to public opinion. The Hundred Years' War, in particular, accelerated the use of English in the United Kingdom by establishing language and national identity. Edward III encouraged the barons to participate in the Hundred Years' War by appealing to them to participate in the war, saying that the French victory would mean the destruction of English. Henry V, in particular, won the Battle of Azincourt(1415), which inspired the British people's consciousness, and the emergence of Chaucer, who was sponsored by him, was a decisive factor in replacing French as the king's language. Prior to Guillaume's conquest of England, Anglo-Saxon literature flourished greatly in the Alfred dynasty, but it became rare after Guillaume's conquest and was revived splendidly by Chaucer. Thus, in the mid-15th century, English began to replace French in the English royal family.
Lancaster's royal English became the language of the king between 1420 and 40 and spread to England from 1460 and had a great influence on the development of English. During the 16th century, most of Latin's vocabulary was silent on consonants (e.g., debt, doubt's consonant b, receipt's consonant p) and Latinization of English was all influenced by royal English. Thus, Lancaster's royal English became the birthplace of modern English.
As can be seen above, Anglo-Saxon was authorized as a literary language during Guillaume's conquest of Norman, but with Guillaume's conquest of England, Anglo-French became the language of the king, administration, and law. The Anglo-French authority in the British royal family was immense, and it was not until the early days of Henry V's reign that English, the popular and spoken language, was restored as a literary language. In particular, it is a well-known fact that Anglo-Saxon has been greatly modified in terms of syntactic, spelling, and vocabulary during this period. In particular, 22% of the medieval English vocabulary at the end of the Middle Ages came from French words, which were strongly influenced by Anglo-French, including Chaucer. Examples include count, duke, peer, legal court, creme, and political word chancellor, government, and nation, which refer to aristocrats. In particular, medieval English borrowed the Franch languages of northern, western and Paris as well as the Normans. An example is the ei-type of the Paris Francian language, ch (kival<cheval) and w (warder>garder). This shows that modern French proie, voile, chat, chaser, gage, guere and English free, veil, cat, catch, wage, war have the same origin. The Anglo-French language also greatly influenced English spelling.
The Anglo-Saxon written letter was fixed during the Norman Conquest. The Normandy people who settled in England chose to spell as they heard, which resulted in a gradual transformation of the English spelling system. The Anglo-Saxon words "sunu" (son), "comen" and "lupu" (likes" in Middle English, are therefore spelled "son", "comen", "love" in modern English. Similarly, from 1300 onwards đ and 1400 onwards þ were replaced by modern English "th".
Following Guillaume's conquest of Norman, Anglo-French reigned in England as the language of the king for more than three centuries, but it never established itself as a popular English language. However, as we have seen so far, Anglo French, the king's language, left a big mark on English.
The Anglo-French language, a local language of the Normandy region that was transplanted into Britain, was the most important branch of French language, along with the French French of the 11th–15th century.