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Windsorsoup
No Norman yoke? What do you think all those thousands of castles were for? Loads knocked down under Cromwell. The ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit. Queens pad at Windsor only survived by one vote in Parliament! But the Norman yoke gives a puzzle as to exactly we “ English” are. Not the Celts, including the Bretons who still play Celtic folk tunes. We are not the Britons.!!!!!!!!!!We have been through great Orwellian brain washings in the past..So our patron saint never visited England though a couple of bits of him are in Windsor Castle. Edward III recruited St George. Lived around the Lebanon. Never fought dragons or visited Ingerland All those football supporters wave a flag of a foreigner!!!Edward wanted a Round Table to echo King Arthur and legitimise Norman, by then Plantagent rule via Saxon history.However the 100 years war, to re -win lost French territories proved expensive so Edward created the Order of The Garter, brave knights, the knights of St George. Hence St Georges Chapel where George’s fingers are supposed to be Heart came later. Illegal immigrant smuggling himself in in bits.Edward tried to claim and define Englishness However French was the language of the court, English that of the paysans. Under next guy, Richard II, Chaucer, Clerk of works at Windsor Castle. spoke French but wrote his Progress in Anglo Saxon. In the Castle, wards, French, outside oldest st Peascod streetConstant rivalry with France continued the story.Such was the divide that a book written in 1903, A Schools History of Middlesex, for schools in the then County actually wrote that the Saxons of Middle Saxony actually civilized their Norman masters and that full feudalism was never imposed in the county.This was written about the time when the Kaiser was at the bedside of his dying granny, Victoria Saxe Coburg Gotha who had she not been a lady would have been like her uncle King William IV the Elector of Hanover.But then came the other great Orwellian brainwash.By 1912 Mrs Saxe Coburg Gotha’s favourite son, the German speaking Arthur Duke of Connaught had to be shipped off to Canada, by 1915 her grandson called himself George Windsor and we were kicking dachshunds.From 1903 to 1915 a compete about turnLets face it we Anglos are German but recent history makes us reject it
Lucy -Norman Yoke
In response to the points raised about Old English versus Norman French and the linguistic effect of the Norman Conquest, which I studied extensively as an undergraduate, it is very easy to overstate the impact of Norman French on Old English. The flowering of Old English literature does die down, as might be expected in a time of upheaval and the replacement of the literate Anglo-Saxon classes by literate Normans. However, any cursory examination of Middle English -Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and especially the Gawain Poet- shows a fusion of language, with most words being English-derived with a sprinkling of French or Latin derived words. (Not all the Latinate words come borrowed via French, in fact several words are borrowed twice, first from the Church and the Romans, and then again from French). It is important to bear in mind that the vast majority of ordinary people would still be speaking some form of English, Norman French did not eclipse English in everyday usage. This is why we all speak English, with almost every word we use in everyday language being derived from Old English, and Modern English remains a mongrel Germanic and not a Romance language. 'Word' 'every' 'day' 'be' 'old' 'English' 'from' 'and' 'not' -these are all words from Old English, and are just a handful of examples. This is the first two lines of the Lord's Prayer 'Fæder ure thu the eart on heofonum; Si thin nama gehalgod'. Say it out loud and you'll see how close it still is to what Christians say today.
Richard White - Norman Yoke
What fun Thursdays are!The area which I felt lacked exploration was that of the way in which law and rights and power were wielded differently after the conquest. There was mention of the change from 5,000 thegnes to 150ish lords, but I thought that even if there weren't the sort of freedoms which were apportioned to the pre Norman times in glowingly romantic terms 700 years later; the rights of the population both rich and poor were changed and the relationship between man and king altered fundamentally. What about the Witan and it's tradition of appointing kings? Even if this is made too much of, I would have liked to hear more about it. I really had thought that one of the fundamental changes that William brought was the notion of Divine Right. The feeling that those at the top were there because they were somehow better and that the people worked for them and not the other way around.Ho Hum...
Phil Green - Norman Yoke
What of William's deathbed confession according to Ordericus Vitalis 1130. 'I have persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them, many I unjustly disinherited, inumerable multitudes perished through me by famine or the sword. I fell on the English of the northern shires like a ravening lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their implements and chattles, to be burnt without distintion, and great herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they are found. In this way I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel famine and so became the barbarous murderer of many thousands, both young and old of that fine race of people. Having gained the throne of that kingdom by so many crimes I dare not leave it to anyone but God. Also the Domesday book shows a shift ownership. Of the 180 tenants with large estates with an annual income greater than £100 only two are English. Of the 1400 lessor tenants in chief about 100 are english. Of the further 6000 sub-tenants there is a sizeable English element but these are leasing land they had freely owned before 1066. Domesday, Michael Woods 1999.
m brown:the norman yoke
given that the Normans were Scandinavians like the Anglo-Saxons, did they speak French?(I am familiar with the Picardy dialect of medieval French)What spoken language did they communicate in to the Anglo-Saxons?
the norman yoke
In reply to Sephen Nightingale, the'Angles' and the'Saxons were different,if related.Genetic evidence by Dr Mark Thomas of UCL amongst others in fact demonstrates the frisia/batavian origin of the Angles,who were the germanic recruits in Claudius' invading army in AD43. This is the same part of the near continent where genetically identical Jutes,Danes,Frisians,and ANGLES come from .This is why there is no evidence for genocide against the 'welsh' post AD410 - The genocide happened post Boadicca's uprising!
Philip Dunne - Norman Yoke
The lack of unity of the Wessex-ruled England was also shown in the battle of Stamford Bridge, led by the Earl of Northumbria, and by the total absence from Domesday 20 years later of information on modern Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria. Did the Angles still survive in the Northern and hilly areas? There are few Scandinavian names in the North-east beyond the Tees. Of course, the Anglo-norman penetration further north left a legacy in Scotland of a country divided between the Celtic/scandinavian west and north, and the Anglo-norman south and east which claimed to rule the kingdom of Scotland.
Stephen Nightingale. Norman Yoke
It really gets my hackles up when historians talk blithely about the peoples preceding the Norman overlordship being 'anglo-saxon'. Who were these anglo-saxons, who did not exist before the Roman departure, and seem to have over-run the land by the time of Bede just 250 years later? The genetic evidence so well interpreted by Stephen Oppenheimer shows a 3.8% anglo/saxon penetration, most thickly centred around Swaffham. It shows that 63% of those of us labelled 'English' are of more bedrock British stock. The Braggs of Cumbria are more likely more British than Saxon.So let us, please, have a program that explodes the Anglo-Saxon myth. An appropriate guest to anchor the panel would be, I hope the same Stephen Oppenheimer.
Terry Barry - Norman
I found the programme on the Norman Yoke quite comprehensive but it failed to deal with the other parts of the UK where the Norman influence and further conquest was immediatley immense - particulary in relation to Wales. Soon after 1066 William gave land to his Norman military supporters on the Welsh border areas - which became known as the March. It was a real buffer zone designed to keep the Welsh at bay and to incite further conquest.(Indeed even before 1066 the Welsh kings had at times to acknowledge the overriding overlordship of the English kings). These new Norman Lords were given the right to conquer a bit of Wales for themselves in a peacemeal fashion.The whole process of conquest would take 200 years as it was only in 1282 that Edward 1 finally defeated the last of the Welsh indigenous princes. By which time the Normans had become 'Norman-English'. Hence in our history the Welsh are left to ponder both the Norman and Saxon yoke!
John Frankis, Newsletter
Earl Godwin was English but married to a member of the Danish royal family: some of his children had English names, and some (including Harold) had Danish names (which is presumably why Harold never became a royal name in England). Many legends developed about Harold after his death and he was widely regarded as a martyr, if not a saint: he had founded Waltham Abbey and may have been buried there,and it seems to have become the centre of a Harold-cult.Hereward was probably mainly motivated by a desire to regain his preconquest land and status and it is by no mean means clear that regime-change was his initial or main intention; his name too is of Danish origin, but this does not necessarily mean that he would have welcomed a return to Danish rule. There were several Danish probing-raids on England after the conquest, and William took expensive precautions against them. During one of these raids the Danes acquired a good deal of booty, including many relics of saints (now more fashionable than the older kind of Viking booty), some of which probably ended up in the royal Danish church founded in Odense and dedicated to St Alban (that is a long and involved story).
Dr David Barnett, Norman Yoke - Arthur connection?
My mother once remarked to me how similar the reign of Alfred the Great was to the ideals of the Arthur legend. She suggested that people under the "Norman Yoke" may have longed for the golden age of Alfred. However, to hold up a Saxon king as an ideal might not have been too wise, so Alfred's character was superimposed on that of an earlier British king for whom Saxon's were the enemy. Could this have been why Arthur became so popular after the Norman conquest?
Neville Scott - The Norman Yoke
Thank you for a very informative discussion. I was hoping for more about one aspect, namely the development of our language away from 'old english' as a result of the Norman language arriving but the guests seemed to think this theme was relatively unimportant when MB introduced it. Nevertheless, I have as usual been educated and (dare I say) entertained. Thank you again. PS, could we have a programme about where the modern English language came from, if it hasn't already been done.
D Barry Courtier - The Norman Yoke
An interesting, well-executed programme, but no reference at all to the experience in Wales or Scotland. Could there perhaps be a programme on the Saxon Yoke, as seen from the perspective of those two countries.
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