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Onze Stam. Jaargang 1907 (1907)

Onze Stam. Jaargang 1907

(1907)– [tijdschrift] Onze Stam–rechtenstatus Gedeeltelijk auteursrechtelijk beschermd

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The Battle of Hastings and the English Language.(1)

I. - The Battle.

The battle of Hastings or Senlac or the Battle that was fought in 1066 is merely and simply a fatal result of a series of historical facts that prepared it for the Anglo Saxon nation which was till then an entirely German tribe.

It is generally known that half a century before our Lord, Julius Caesar, when conquering the Gauls and afterwards Great Britain, met a British nation of Celtic origin that a dozen of such remnants witness still in the English tongue. Julius Caesar came and latinised the language; then Christianism introduced a heap of Greek and latin expressions. About 450, Jutes, Danes, Angles and Saxons neared the coast of Britain, sitting on their boats and overpowering the country, where they disembarked. King Alfred the Great withheld them and assigned

to them the part of country situated between the Humber and the Thames. In the beginnig of the Xth century, Rollo, a Roman chief, besieged Rouen, took it and threatened Paris. The king then granted the country corresponding to the actual Normandy to the Normans and their chief.

Aethelred, the Anglo-Saxon king, married Emma, daughter of the duke of Normandy. This event, that appears as very simple, was to have the most important consequences. Edward the Confessor was born from that union and this semi-Saxon, semi-Roman prince had left no heirs. As king Edward died in the beginning of 1066, Harold, a Saxon lord, was proclaimed king by the wise men of his country. But William of Normandy, cousin of Emma, was also the cousin of the late Edward. He was an ambitious prince, being only the son of a prince and a tanner's daughter. His companions mocked at him for his democratic origin, but he would nevertheless become a mighty prince. He afforded that he had saved Harold on his voyage in Normandy and that the grateful Anglo-Saxon prince had sworn upon the relics(1) that he should never stand on the throne of England another king but William, who had so courageously saved him. But Harold did not keep the oath he had taken, being moreorer elected by the wise men of his country.

Harold did not only find a rival in William of Normandy, but also in his own brother, Tostig, whom he beat at York. Tostig had treacheroussly invited the king of Norway to join him, in order to vanquish Harold. As Harold was celebrating his victory at York, a messenger came and announced to him that William of Normandy had fallen into Britain, since four days.

Some lords had already abandoned Harold, who did not meet any more with the general sympathy. His faithful barons followed him with their troops and they met the Norman army near the marshes of Hastings or Senlac, at the place that has

from this momenl been called Battle. The soldiers of William were all good shots. Harold's earls wore a visor and a sugar - loaf shaped helmet. About Harold it is known that he wielded a sword with which he could in a single blow cut through a warrior and his horse. The troops of Harold crowded on a hill surrounded by earthen strengthenings. William did not hope to be able even to attack the soldiers of Harold. For that reason he feigned a retreat, as if he were fearing Harold; the native soldiers pursued the fleeing Normans, but suddenly the sly William ordered to his troops to turn on their heels and to face the faitful and confident lords of Harold. His companions did not withdraw before their enemies, though they were surprised by this unexpected act. The Normans fought fiercely, the Anglo-Saxons defended themselves desperately. and there was no outcome to foresee, when William suggested a new sly act, namely to shoot into the air. The arrows fell back as a shower upon Harold's troops; every body cried ‘havoc!’; a good deal of the soldiers of Harold flew, only the most faithful friends remained about their chief who had been severely wounded by an arrow. Four enemies jumped towards the hero and cut the giant to pieces. The battle had lasted from nine till seven o' clock. William of Normandy had become William the Conqueror, for he had overpowered the country of the German Anglo-Saxons.

The marriage of Aethelred with Emma had prepared long years before the battle took place, the invasion of Great Britain. The education of Edward who spent his holidays at the court of Normandy had engaged a lot of noblemen to imitate that royal instance. The higher classes of England were already gallicised, when William the Conqueror consecrated a situation that existed already in the minds. The moral conqest of the country had been accomplished by the foreign education preached by Edward and his noblemen.

II. - Consequences on the use of the native language.(1)

English was no longer taught at school. At the court and in the castles of the noblemen or in the services of the church, the ancient language was not used any more. At the Law Courts, Latin and French were employed near one another.

In a chronicle written by Ingulph, abbot of Croyland, the author declared in 1076 that after the conquest of William of Normandy, the Anglo-Saxon elements got despised. The laws of the country and the decisions of the king were written in Latin. Grammar was explained in French; it may be that Ingulph's chronicle has been altered in the course of centuries; but even if interpersions have been committed, the aversion for the language of the Anglo-Saxon tribe is indisputable.

Henry of Huttingdon, who lived in the beginning of the XIIth century, says that the Englishman considered it as a shame, to be taken for an Englishman.

Gervase of Tilbury, in Essex, who wrote in the beginning of the XIIIth, alludes to the custom which reigned already at the time of Harold, to send their sons to France, to make them clever in fencing and to free them from the harshness of their own language. This situation existed under Edward the Confesser and during the short reign of king Harold, king John despised the English language. English was still spoken, but it was no more used in matters of learning and civilisation. Being thus only an instrument in the hands of poor people, it got quite corrupted. The language of usual conversation became French and the means of breeding were Latin; between these two mighty competitors, English was to be crushed. Up to the XIVth century, courtiers did dot even study English any more, in England. Part of the noblemen clung to the ancient tongue, by a spirit of opposition; moreover, the lower classes began

chafing and disapproved of the fact that their priests did not understand English.

An historian, Mathieu de Paris, who lived under Henry III (1216-1272) recounts that Sewal, bishop of York wrote a letter to the Pope, to complain about losses of time and the impossibility for him to let the priests accomplish their mission of doing the service, if they did not know the language of the lower classes. The Pope had recommended several such candidates, but Sewal confessed that he could not appoint them.

When relating the war between the barons and the monarch, Mathew of Westminster declares, how the crowd despised such citizens, who did not understand English.

Henry II was the owner of the half part of France; England was undoubtedly the country, where the supply of weapons and warriors was to be found; as to a higher breeding, there was none. Under John II, England lost Normandy and the intrest of the noblemen, were at once transferred to England and were no longer on the continent. In 1244 Lewis the IXth assembled all the noblemen at Paris and told them they had to choose between England and France for the possession or the loss of their goods. John the IId then also took a resolution in favour of England, namely that all the French noblemen especially the Normans were deprived of their goods in England. Englishmen and Frenchmen did not consider each other any more as belonging to the same nation, their interests having moreover been completely parted. The English language of course got more honoured.

In his revised chronicle, John of Trevisse stated that since the Plague of 1349 the whole system of education had been overthrown and that education via English had been restored. But in English schools managed by religious sects, in cloisters and convents, French was kept as the first language, even under Henry VIII and also under Cromwell. The situation looked ridiculous, for the French taught in such schools was quite different from that of the continent. Chaucer alludes to it, when saying that one of his ladies was clever in speaking

French, but that she knew nothing of the French of Paris. This points at once to the fact that it is very difficult, yea nearly impossible to extirpate a language and that a long situation threatens to become perpetual, if no severe laws are edicted. Edward the IIId understood this urgency and proclaimed in 1362 that French was so longer the language of Britains but English. To make himself unterstood by every body perhaps - the situation must have been very bad, then - he published this proclamation in French, in the language of the enemy!

III. - Influence on the Language.(1)

The Vicar of Berkeley, John of Trevisa, who translated the chronicle of Ralph Higden, the Chester monk, from Latin into English, pointed to the corruption of the English language. In Layomon's Brut which appeared in 1200, there occur about fifty French words. In the Ancren Riwle which has been written in 1250, only two hundred words are to be met with. From this time dates also the difference between sheep and mutton, ox and beef, calf and veal, pork and swine or pig or rather the coexistence of the two words is due to the Norman conquest. As is plainly known, henceforth, the Anglo-Saxon words were used for meaning the animals when alive, the French words being used for the killed beasts or rather for portions or morsels. ‘Fowl’ and ‘chicken’ are used indifferently; ‘poultry’ on the contrary, though it may be derived from the French volaille is used for referring to the collective barnyard fowls. In general, we may say that abstract words are Latin or French and that Anglo-Saxon expressions are concrete.

The book of the Custom-Officers contains fifteen words that have been introduced from the French, namely: zucre, peivere, anise.

Chaucer uses hundreds of Greek, Latin or French words, but it is sometimes very difficult to ascertain whether the borrowing took place directly or indirectly from the French and if it dates from the introduction of Christianism into England, or even from earlier (J. Caesar's conquest). Only one thing is clear, namely that Renaissance is beyond question here. In Chaucer, we read: similitude, fugitif, philosophical which have certainly been borrowed from Greek or Latin; further we pick up: veyne, licour, vertue, engendred, tendre, nature, corage, existence taken from French.

Several philological phenomena are stated also which are certainly due to the Conquest. In that way we meet with coexisting forms as to amend and to mend; to appeal and to peal; spy and the French espier; bishop and episcopos, an event that is scientifically called apheresis. At the end of several words, letters have dropped; this is called apocope and stated in cases as beast, feast (Cf. beste, feste). - Syncope is witnessed in Gloster for Glocester (pron.), chimney, written instead of cheminée, curfew derived from couvre-feu. Interspersions are more over in flower instead of flour in fault another form of faute. The accent has been of great influence in damage, where an m has dropped, in enemy, where an n has disappeared, and in other similar cases.

An average idea is given of the proportion of foreign introductions, when one says that in the midst of the XIIth century, only twelve borrowings from the French element are observed, whilst a century later there are more than hundred foreign words and this at once points to the slow but decisive influence of the Conquest considered from a philological and puristic standpoint.

IV. - The influence on the literature.(1)

As the political history and the history of the language point

to a period of sickness, in the same way, the history of English literature affords a period of decay, coming after the brilliant time in which the author of the Beowulf had lived and Caldmon, the poetic shepherd had written his impressions about the splendours of nature and creation and before the time of Chaucer, who stands at the head of the period of mediaeval renaissance. The contrast is doubly striking and produces a painful impression. When the language is not spoken any more by the higher classes, when it is no more used in the church, at the law-court and in the school, when it is no more an utterance for breeding and not the mirror of progress, literature must fatally decay.

Some poems and other writings have been saved from oblivion. The following are worth quoting: Old English Homilies; A moral Ode; Soul's Ward; Wooing of our Lord; An Orison of our Lady; A Bestiary; Old Kentish Sermons; Proverbs of Alfred; English Version of Genesis; The Owland the Nightingale; Havelock the Dane. But these poems have no other but a philological value.

The first English poem after the Conquest is Layomon's Brut, which is an adaptation of the French text by Richard Wace, who had himself been influenced by the History of the Britons by Monmouth. It has a noble tendency and is written in a picturesque style and is varying in rhyming and alliterative verses. It contains thirty lines in which are found only about hundred French words.

The Ormulum (1215) has been called after the name of the writer Orm; it describes religious customs. Its origin is probably to be looked for in the North East of England. The Ormulum numbers 10.000 long verses. As to its outward appearance, there was a doubled consonnant after every short syllable.

The Ancren Riwle has been written in prose and was simply the relation of religious uses of a sect of monks called anachoretes. It contains four times more French words than Laymon's Brut. Genesis and Exodus (1250) was a poem of the Old Testament.

A fine tale that seems already to announce the coming of a Chaucer, is King Horn. It reveals a far greater inspiration in the author. There is also an idea of struggle between Horn and Fikenhild. The latter elopes, with Rymenhilde, the beautiful bride of King Horn who with his masked friends in the shape of minstrels, penetrates to Fikenhild's home and kills the faithless friend and his companions.

But two writers appear a few years after the proclamation of Edward III, who in 1362 had by his law declared that English was again the official language of the country; the first one is John Wiclef, the Luther of England. He translated the Bible into the English of the Midland and gave to his nation a book, the tongue of which was to prevail in the whole country. Wiclef's Bible being written eighteen years after the publishing of Edward's law, gave practical means to the whole country for speaking in the same accents on the most sacred matters, duty, soul and immortality. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were in verses the consecration of Wiclefs prose. The severe and most respectable language of Wiclef became on the lyre of Chaucer the expression of the noblest feelings, of courage and love. And now was forcilbly to come a period of earnest and elegant revival.

 

Fr. Vanden Weghe.


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