Vocabulary:
Battle of Hastings, Norman, Norman Conquest, Normandy, Shibboleth,
Pidgin, Creole
Identifications: Henry II, Eleanor
of Acquitaine
5.81 According to the introduction to
this chapter, what event has had a greater linguistic influence
on English than any other? In particular, what enormous
effect is it going to have?
5.82 Where is Normandy located?
Who is King Rollo and what arrangement did he make with
Charles the Simple in 912 A.D.?
What trait of the Scandinavian culture does Baugh credit
for the success of the Vikings who "went native"
and inhabited Normandy?
5.83 When Edward the Confessor died, his
son Harold tried to claim the throne. Why was this a problem
for Duke William of Normandy?
In addition to Harold Godwinson (the
son of Edward the Confessor's advisor), and William of
Normandy, who was the third claimant
to
the
English throne?
What year did the Battle of Hastings take place?
5.84 What did William the Conqueror do
with the Old English nobility?
Important positions of the government, the military, the
church were filled by people of what ethnicity under William's
rule?
How many Anglo-Saxon bishops managed to maintain their
positions until the end of William's life?
When Lanfranc scorns Wulfstan of Worcester as being ignorant
of French at the king's councils, what does this reveal
about the nature of communications within the English government
under Norman rule?
To run his burgeoning empire, what does William have to
continuously import from Normandy? (hint: it's not any sort
of material goods like paper or lumber.....)
5.85 For how many years after the Norman
Conquest was French the standard language for the upper
class?
5.86 What was the most important factor
in the continued use of French by the English upper class
through 1200?
Why did the Norman nobility find it necessary to continue
speaking French even though the vast majority of the British
population spoke Old English?
5.87 What does Baugh mean when he refers
to French a "shibboleth" in Anglo-Norman England?
What does Baugh state the attitude of the Normans probably
was toward the English language up to about 1200
AD?
5.88 What does court literature reveal
about the status of languages in England through about 1300?
5.89 What sort of evidence shows us that
French and English were fusing?
5.90 What language became associated
with the mass of the common people? What language
was associated
with the law courts and the upper classes?
5.91 At the end of the twelfth century,
what does Baugh say we can conclude from the "somewhat
scanty facts" that survive to the present day concerning
a knowledge of English?
5.92 In towns that were major trading
centers, who were the most prominent business owners and
merchants?