When the Normans invaded they caused a huge cultural and linguistic change due to the growing Anglo-Normam population...

When the Normans invaded they caused a huge cultural and linguistic change due to the growing Anglo-Normam population who would later become what we call English. One huge impact was the introduction of the French language to England and for a long time the English either spoke French (upper class), spoke a mixture (middle class) or had a few french words mixed in (peasants). My question is when did the English stop speaking French as a primary language?

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youtube.com/watch?v=KnieUa2-22o
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremetennacum
homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Heys.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orderic_Vitalis
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Sorry this isn't related to your question OP, but which of those niggas is supposed to be Harold?

He first gets shot in the eye by an arrow and is then cut down by a norman cavalier

Ah, okay. Hope your question gets answered.

Curiously enough, upon close inspection one can see that some stitching has been undone on the second figure of harold where the arrow should be

>different colored pants, shoes, shirt, scabbard and helmet
>different primary weapon
>same guy

Pretty sure the correct answer is "No one knows, but most people assume the guy with an arrow in his eye"

Arrow in the eye nigga

Unfortunately it's a common motif in the bayeux tapestry for figures to be depicted with differing clothes in neighbouring scenes even where the scenes occur at the same event

Around the late 1200s or so. By that time England had lost most of its overseas possessions in France, and the French nobility were either fucking off or integrating more into England. By the time of the late 1300s we can actually see that the Canterbury Tales, one of the first great English literary works, was published in English, something that had never happened before.

One of the main factors was the plague in the 1340s. Much of the land owning class was killed off ( most of Europe was killed off anyway) and the few surviving land owners were in desperate need of labourers to tend to their lands. Pre plague there was a huge population, and labor was never in short supply. However, after the plague passed through England and killed off more than a third of the population, labor became extremely valuable as a resource. Therefore, the lower class, English speaking peasantry were able to demand better wages and positions from desperate land lords- who was going to stop them? It wasn't like there was anyone else they could hire-most of them were dead from the plague!

So, English became more mainstream in upper English society as well as more mainstream as a whole. By the 1400s, it was the predominant language of England.

It’s always been spoken. Even while being ruled by Norman kings, most of England still spoke it

At the time of the Conquest, Old Norse was still being spoken in some parts of England (even Normandy too)

In fact, “Old English” is an older language than “Old French”. “Old English” appears in history before “Old French”. Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxons were writing their laws in Old English while most of Europe was still using Latin.

Henry IV was the first post-1066 King to use English as his first language and to use it in his laws and addresses to Parliament. This is just what records show. Their were probably times before when Norman kings spoke English, maybe when conversing with the English nobles or with their English wives.

Latin and French were still being taught to the upper class as late as the 1800s

Why was french language taught to upper class despite constant feuds between England an France since Richard the Lionheart

For a good education, it was necessary to learn French, among others. For example, in the late 1800s, Harvard students were required to learn Hebrew, Greek and Latin, called the Classics. France was the largest European kingdom and most populous, and so learning French was important if you want to read their books.

German was similar in the early 1900s

Is that why many of the king arthur stories are originally written in French?Such as the tale of Tristan and Iseult despite being written in England was written in French

Ironically enough, they dropped it because their dialect, known as "Frensh", was considered crude and barbarous by mainland French speakers and became something they were ashamed of, leading them to adopt English instead. French autism was at least partly to blame for England no longer speaking French.

Yes, the people who bought and read the books (the nobility) spoke and read French at the time.

They’re Celtic in origin, and many Celts moved to France, specifically Brittany (hence the name)

It’s called a vehicular language. It was replaced by English though. For example, go to /int/ and they’re all speaking English with each other

>when did the English stop speaking French as a primary language?

wtf nigga

the "english" people never spoked French as a primary language, was a upper class thing.

>Brittany

Except 90% of the Arthurian stories came from Central and Eastern France.

Bretons did not speak nor write in French in the first place.

I thought English just referred to anyone who lived in England

Most Arthurian tales are derived from welsh tales. French writers added some popular Arthurian motifs such as camelot and the grail, although most of everything else was a French take on welsh tales

Where can I view the full Bayeux Tapestry in HD?

>welsh tales
>french authors never went to England
>lancelot(french) cucks arthur(breton)
>arthur is an impotent cuckhold in french "arthurian" myths

Bayeux.

precinemahistory.net/bayeux.htm

Arthurian legend has a British/Welsh core in Northern England (Cumbria).

Not anymore. France is giving it to England

Thanks but I'm looking for one in higher detail.

Where did the original Arthurian legends come from? If I remember, much of th Arthurian legends were add ons

It’s not full, but you might like this

youtu.be/LtGoBZ4D4_E

Loaning it. And about time too.

Northern Cumbria, Borders region.

>Arthurian legend has a British/Welsh core

I never said otherwise. I was responding to the guy who claimed that French "Arthurian" myths authored by French authors in French using French folklore are somehow Welsh

Arthurian legends aren’t French, Henri.

Thanks that was pretty cool. Also found a Lindyberg video that has good images

youtube.com/watch?v=KnieUa2-22o

Why are you turning this into a nationalist discussion. Yes there were many notable French contributions to the Arthurian tales such as that by Chrétien de Troyes. Although the majority of Arthurian tales are derived from welsh legends written by monks such as nennius. Geoffery of Monmouth first popularised him and a bunch of English authors following the Arthurian craze at the time started writing tales based on the old welsh myths. Then with the Angevin empire these English tales became popular in France and so French writers took up the tales writing story cycles such as the lancelpt cycle and vulgate cycle. Then in the post vulgate cycle of stories some English authors begin building upon these French tales which eventually culminates in sir Thomas Mallory's Death of king Arthur (alright it was called le morte d'Arthur although it was written in modern english. Curiously enough one of the first books in English)

I guess that Messiah of Handel isn't English but Jewish then, same goes for Passion of St Mathew by Bach too.

I think his point is that Arthurian legends were a British invention built upon by French writers. Such as that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and others improved upon it

...

>improved upon it
The French Lancelotian legend is barely related to the British Arthurian legend,

Well apart from featuring most of the original characters, sure it's nothing like it. I don't get what you're implying though

There are several authors who demonstrated that Arthurian myths derive from Sarmatian/Ossetian folklore. It seems quite probable considering there are more German(via the Poles)/French(via the Alans) Arthurian myths than British Arthurian myths.

If we follow you're logic then you may as well say Thomas Mallory invented the Arthurian tales. He wrote it exactly as we know it today in his Death of king arthur collection. Also it's unlikely the Britons ever had any contact with the Sarmations so I have no idea where anyone could get that idea apart from extreme extrapolation of story tropes that are probably very general and vague.
It was Geoffery of Monmouth however that reinvented Arthur from the old welsh tales as the figure most recognisable today. I get the feeling you're trying to suggest that France can 'claim Arthur as their cultural heritage' or something, which would be preposterous and very foolish. It's like saying Napoleon was English.

The lords of England were largely Normans who came from Northern France.

Why did they continue to teach it to their children who lived in England though? For one, it was impractical and for another I thought England and France hated each other?

>Steppeniggers we wuzzing this hard

Normans werent french

They were when they invaded, but became English over time

bought a second-hand copy of mallory yesterday
is his version that good?

>Also it's unlikely the Britons ever had any contact with the Sarmations so I have no idea where anyone could get that idea apart from extreme extrapolation of story tropes that are probably very general and vague

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremetennacum

>For most of its existence the fort was garrisoned by Sarmatian auxiliaries, first stationed in Britain by Marcus Aurelius in 175

Anglo-Saxon England was an advanced state with many friends on the continent, and diplomatic/religious ties through the Catholic Church
However, by virtue of France's size and the fact it bordered numerous states, it was an important cog in the European machine and its citizens important as 'middle men' as much as anything else
Normandy itself was of course a 'vassal' of the French Kingdom, and most of the thousands of Normans who came to England had a vested interest in maintaining ties with home because of land, property and family there
To reinforce Norman hegemony in England, wives and husbands were generally sought in Normandy rather than from amongst the Anglo-Saxon people (with exceptions, of course)

I'd say that the influence of L’anglo-normand on Old & Middle English was as much due to the drift of Norman-descended Francophones into the lower strata of society as it was Anglo-Saxons 'larping' as their new rulers

Intermarriage better explains the adoption of new vocabulary than sycophancy

>Through one small irrelevant fort an entire mythos of British legend is created
I have severe doubts...Sounds like wewuzzing from steppenigs

Fun anecdote for you anons:

During the later stages of the hundred years war (1400's) the English, when dealing with a treaty they did not like or negotiations were not going in their favour they simply pretended they couldn't understand the French and postponed the negotiations to manuver into better positions diplomatically

Perfidious Albion strikes again!

That's probably not even the stupidest cunning play that was attempted

>France can 'claim Arthur as their cultural heritage' or something, which would be preposterous and very foolish. It's like saying Napoleon was English.
Most of the French people knows only the Chretien de Troyes takes on the Arthurian myths, and although we're aware that it is sets mainly in great Britain (although Britanny is a big contender) we still view Arthur as a part of our cultural heritage and we're quite familiar with the myth.

>we still view Arthur as a part of our cultural heritage and we're quite familiar with the myth.
WE WUZ ANCIENT BRITISH KANGZ

You know the ultimate cuckery isn't Lancelot and Guinevere, It's the fact that the French celebrate the most British king ever as part of their heritage all because there was a writer who wrote about him in French

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable this to do.

All is fair in war.

...

Check me

Now

Definitely got it

Fuck

YESSS
Also King Arthur was not French

This British historian begs you to reconsider

and the french stole it from brittany whomst in turn migrated from britain, full circle

>guys, guys, listen to me, right, we have no history or culture that wasn't brought here by immigrants, the french are superior y'know, I own a house in the dordogne, and y'know really we need immigration because we are bland and stupid and they also run our national health service
ralph ellis sounds like a stupid fucking cunt

>I own a house in the dordogne

Truely a pest. They live in self-created ghettos, speak English with everyone, and are extremely condescending.

They never did, only the nobles could do that but the pre norman england used to speak a germanic variant (I don't know the name sorry)

guy getting cut down because he was pictured with an axe earlier in the tapestry

>My question is when did the English stop speaking French as a primary language?

The huge majority of the country never spoke french, only the Norman elite did, its prestige status obviously influenced Middle English but that's it.

There's a sort of "official" trilingualism in England during the Norman and Plantagenet kings, the peasants spoke English, the clergy Latin and the nobility French. That changed with the later Plantagenet kings and French quickly falling out of favor due to the Hundred Years' War, after that point English became the language of the nobility.

Didn't the lower nobles speak anglo-norman which was the combination that evolved into english.
Apparently the Romanovs in Russia also spoke french as a court language. Was French just the most convenient language of the day like English is today?

The English language already existed but was heavily influenced by its Anglo-Saxon heritage, it was with the Norman conquest that gave birth to Medieval English, look at something like Beowulf and compare it to The Cantebury Tales, and you'll see the french influence creeping in.

>Was French just the most convenient language of the day like English is today?

Pretty much. Thanks to Louis XIV and his immense success in making France a world power, French became the language of scholars, merchants, diplomats and the like.

If you wanted to be someone important in the 18th century, you had to learn French, same as English is today.

Most of the European nobility descend from various Medieval French clans, so it's only natural for French to be their common language

The Normans became primarily English speaking by the 12th century, and had relatively little influence on the English language.

The vast majority of the French influence came in the 13th and 14th century, where French (Parisian French, not Norman French) became widely spoken among England's upper and middle class as a second language.

homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Heys.htm

It seems despite common belief English could be spolen easily among nobles within 50 years. The apocryphal belief that they solely spoke French stems from the fact that administrative documents and literature were in French. This has lead to supposed trivial 'facts' claiming Richard I didn't speak English which is entirely false. In fact he learned English and French from birth. His councillor William Longchamp was accused of being unable to speak English thus indicating knowledge of English was a necessity

>Oderic Vital
>son of a norman knight

A French priest*
Orderic was born on 16 February 1075 in Atcham, Shropshire, England, the eldest son of a French priest, Odelerius of Orléans,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orderic_Vitalis

Tales are always thousands of years old. Id bet you anything the french was based off an even older tale going all the way back to Greece and beyond

Words to stand for ages.

The Normans never spoke French. What we call French is Parisian. They spoke a different dialect. For example let's take the word quarter. We pronounce this q as 'kw' and this is how we believe the Normans would have done so. But in Paris they said 'ka' instead as they do now. It's not the same dialect. This dialect was spoken by the aristocracy in the earlier years after the Norman conquest but over time the nobles started to speak Anglo-Norman instead, which was more mixed. The majority of the population still spoke English throughout all this, although it changed over time and there were many different dialects.

By the end of the Hundred Years War English had largely subsumed Anglo-Norman into itself which is where the French influence comes from. Hence the lower orders started to speak with more French terms. Proper Parisian French was learnt by many learned Englishmen in the ensuing centuries because French was the lingua franca of the time due to France being a major world power.

Because France was not a single nation state as it is today. There were many Dukes and such who owed allegiance to the French King. However the King's hold over these vassals was tenous at best. At the time of Richard, the Kings of England came from Normandy and the Duke of Normandy was one of those vassals. Richard fought with the King because he claimed that he was not subservient to the French King at all, this is where the motto 'Dieu et mon droit' comes from - Richard was saying that only God and his right (to Normandy) had authority, not the French King. Anglo-Norman was still the language of the upper class at this point because England still owned French territories and saw themselves as being Norman rather than English. They only began to truly see themselves as English after the loss of the French territories after the Hundred Years War, where they began to take pride in being English (and also speaking English).

Did nationalism not exist before hundred years war?

No, perhaps patriotism for one's kingdom did but Nationalism did not, that was largely a product of the French Revolution. And such patriotism was confined to the lower orders for a long time for the reasons I outlined in that post.

How did the English and French patriots see the Angevin empire?

What I don't understand is if the Norman dukes were more powerful than the French king then why didn't they themselves decide to stop being a vassal? Why didn't William I denounce the duchy and declare himself King of England and Normandy?

So what if the French got pissy William would have beaten hem in a war anyway.

I doubt they really cared much. Patriotism was probably largely only a thing during wars.

It would've been too much trouble. Why sink money and lives into a risky war when he already got what he wanted (England)? Bear in mind he was having trouble putting down English revolts too. I'd also add that William tried to learn English which shows that he took his new job rather seriously.

Of course the English Kings DID stop being a vassal to the French Kings, which is why there were constant wars with France.

Richard the Lionheart had constant wars with Philip II, I think he held more of France than Phillip

Until John lost Normandy and most of the Angevin Empire, yes the King of England owned more of France than the French King did. Philip II is considered a great king in France for expanding French control.

Do the French not see Richard as French? Is it like the English seeing George Washington as English?

I wouldn't know, I'm not French. I highly doubt it though considering that he fought against the King of France. In modern day French historiography I imagine the common Frenchman largely equates the Kingdom of France with the modern French state although large areas of France fought against the French King.

>Is it like the English seeing George Washington as English?
Wait, this isn't a thing, is it?

Not really, no.

We are aware that he fought for Great Britain against the French, but the American colonialists were already distinct from Great Britain itself by then. And always were, really.