The Anglo-Saxon dominion in England endured for more than five
centuries.
A territorial people had ceased to be roving invaders, but stood
themselves in dread of the invasions of their own ancient brotherhood.
They trembled on their own shores at those predatory hordes who might
have reminded them of the lost valour of their own ancestors. But their
warlike independence had passed away. And, as a martial abbot declared
of his countrymen, "they had taken their swords from their sides and had
laid them on the altar, where they had rusted, and their edges were now
too dull for the field."[1] They could not even protect the soil which
they had conquered, and often wanted the courage to choose a king of
their own race. Sometimes they stood ready to pay tribute to the Dane,
and sometimes suffered the throne to be occupied by a Danish monarch. In
a state of semi-civilization their rude luxury hardly veiled their
unintellectual character. Feeble sovereigns and a submissive people
could not advance into national greatness.
When the Duke of Normandy visited his friend and kinsman, Edward the
Confessor, he beheld in England a mimetic Normandy; Norman favourites
were courtiers, and Norman soldiers were seen in Saxon castles. Edward,
long estranged from his native realm, had received his education in
Normandy; and the English court affected to imitate the domestic habits
of these French neighbours--the great speaking the foreign idiom in
their houses, and writing in French their bills and accompts.[2] Already
there was a faction of Frenchified Saxons in the court of the unnational
English sovereign.
William the Norman surveyed an empire already half Norman; and in the
prospect, with his accustomed foresight, he mused on a doubtful
succession. A people who had often suffered themselves to fall the prey
of their hardier neighbour, lie open for conquest to a more intelligent
and polished race.
The victory of Hastings did not necessarily include the conquest of the
people, and William still condescended to march to the throne under the
shadow of a title. After a short residence of only three months in his
newly-acquired realm, "the Conqueror" withdrew into his duchy, and there
passed a long interval of nine months. William left many an unyielding
Saxon; a spirit of resistance, however suppressed, bound men together,
and partial insurrections seemed to be pushing on a crisis which might
have reversed the conquest of England.[3]
During this mysterious and protracted visit, and apparent abandonment of
his new kingdom to the care of others, was a vast scheme of dominion
nursed in the councils of Norman nobles, and strengthened by the
boundless devotion of hardy adventurers, who were all to share in the
present spoliation and the future royalty? In his prescient view did
William there anticipate a conquest of long labour and of distant days;
the state, the nobles, the ecclesiastics, the people, the land, and the
language, all to be changed? Hume has ventured to surmise that the mind
of the Norman laboured with this gigantic fabric of dominion. It is
probable, however, that this child of a novel policy was submitted to a
more natural gestation, and expanded as circumstances favoured its awful
growth. One night in December the King suddenly appeared in England, and
soon unlimited confiscations and royal grants apportioned the land of
the Saxons among the lords of Normandy, and even their lance-bearers. It
seemed as if every new-comer brought his castles with him, so rapidly
did castles cover the soil.[4] These were strongholds for the tyrant
foreigner, or open retreats for his predatory bands; stern overlookers
were they of the land!
The Norman lords had courts of their own; sworn vassals to their
suzerain, but kinglings to the people. Sometimes they beheld a Saxon
lord, whose heart could not tear itself from the lands of his race, a
serf on his own soil; but they witnessed without remorse the rights of
the sword. Norman prelates were silently substituted for Saxon
ecclesiastics, and whole companies of claimants arrived to steal into
benefices or rush into abbeys. It was sufficient to be a foreigner and
land in England, to become a bishop or an abbot. Church and State were
now indissolubly joined, for in the general plunder each took their
orderly rank. It was the triumph of an enlightened, perhaps a cunning
race, as the Norman has been proverbially commemorated, over "a rustic
and almost an illiterate generation," as the simplicity of our Saxon
prelates, who could not always speak French, is described by Ordericus
Vitalis, a monk who, long absent from England, wrote in Normandy.
Ingulphus, the monk of Croyland, though partial to "the Conqueror,"
however, honestly confesses that when the English were driven from their
dignities, their successors were not always their superiors.
All who were eager to court their new lords were brought to dissemble
their native rusticity. They polled their crowns, they cut short their
flowing hair, and throwing aside the loose Saxon gown, they assumed the
close vest of the more agile Norman. "Mail of iron and coats of steel
would have better become them," cried an indignant Saxon. We have seen
what a martial Saxon abbot declared to the Conqueror, while he mourned
over his pacific countrymen. This was the time when it was held a shame
among Englishmen to appear English. It became proverbial to describe a
Saxon who ambitioned some distinguished rank, that "he would be a
gentleman if he could but talk French."
Fertile in novelties as was this amazing revolution, the most peculiar
was the change of the language. The style of power and authority was
Norman; it interpreted the laws, and it was even to torment the rising
generation of England; children learned the strange idiom by construing
their Latin into French, and thus, by learning two foreign languages
together, wholly unlearned their own. Not only were they taught to speak
French, but the French character was adopted in place of their own
alphabet. It was a flagrant instance of the Conqueror's design to
annihilate the national language, that finding a College at Oxford with
an establishment founded by Alfred to maintain divines who were "to
instruct the people in their own vulgar tongue," William decreed that
"the annual expense should never after be allowed out of the King's
exchequer."[5]
The Norman prince on his first arrival could have entertained no scheme
of changing the language, for he attempted to acquire it. The secretary
of the Conqueror has recorded that when the monarch seemed inclined to
adopt the customs of his new subjects, which his moderate measures at
first indicated, the Norman prince had tried his patience and his ear to
babble the obdurate idiom, till he abhorred the sound of the Saxon
tongue. If because the Conqueror could not learn the Saxon language he
decided wholly to abolish it, this would seem nothing more than a
fantastic tyranny; but in truth, the language of the conquered is
usually held in contempt by the conquerors for other reasons besides
offending the delicacy of the ear. The Normans could not endure the
Saxon's untunable consonants, as it had occurred even to the unlettered
Saxons themselves; for barbarians as their hordes were when they first
became the masters of Britain, they had declared that the British tongue
was utterly barbarous.[6]
But not at his bidding could the military chief for ever silence the
mother-tongue. Enough for "this stern man" to guard the land in peace,
while every single hyde of land in England was known to him, and "put at
its worth in HIS BOOK," as records the Saxon chronicler. The language of
a people is not to be conquered as the people themselves. The
"birth-tongue" may be imprisoned or banished, but it cannot die--the
people think in it; the images of their thoughts, their traditional
phrases, the carol over the mead-cup, and their customs far diffused,
survived even the iron tongue of the curfew.
The Saxons themselves, who had chased the native Britons from their
land, still found that they could not suppress the language of the
fugitive people. The conquerors gave their Anglo-Saxon denominations to
the towns and villages they built; but the hills, the forests, and the
rivers retain their old Celtic names.[7] Nature and nationality will
outlast the transient policy of a new dynasty.
The novel idiom became the language of those only with whom the
court-language, whatever it be, will ever prevail--the men who by their
contiguity to the great affect to participate in their influence. In
that magic circle of hopes and fears where royalty is the sole magician
of the fortunes of men, the Conqueror perpetuated his power by
perpetuating his language. Ignorance of the French tongue was deemed a
sufficient pretext for banishing an English bishop pertinacious in his
nationality, who had for a while been admitted to the royal councils,
but whose presence was no longer necessary to the dominant party.
To the successors of the Norman William it might appear that the English
idiom was wholly obliterated from the memories of men; not one of our
monarchs and statesmen could understand the most ordinary words in the
national tongue. When Henry the Second was in Pembrokeshire, and was
addressed in English--"Goode olde Kynge," the King of England inquired
in French of his esquire what was meant? Of the title of "Kynge," we are
told that his majesty was wholly ignorant! A ludicrous anecdote of the
chancellor of Richard the First is a strange evidence that the English
language was wholly a foreign one for the English court. This chancellor
in his flight from Canterbury, disguised as a female hawker, carrying
under his arm a bundle of cloth, and an ell-measure in his hand, sate by
the sea-side waiting for a vessel. The fishermen's wives inquired the
price of the cloth; he could only answer by a burst of laughter; for
this man, born in England, and chancellor of England, did not know a
single word of English! One more evidence will confirm how utterly the
Saxon language was cast away. When the famous Grosteste, bishop of
Lincoln (who would no doubt have contemned his Saxon surname of
"Great-head"), a voluminous writer, once condescended to instruct "the
ignorant," he wrote pious books for their use in French; the bishop
making no account of the old national language, nor of the souls of
those who spoke it.
When the fate of conquest had overthrown the national language, and thus
seemed to have bereaved us of all our literature, it was in reality only
diverging into a new course. For three centuries the popular writers of
England composed in the French language. Gaimar, who wrote on our Saxon
history; Wace, whose chronicle is a rhymed version of that of Geoffry of
Monmouth; Benoit de Saint Maur (or Seymour); Pierre Langtoft, who
composed a history of England; Hugh de Rotelande (Rutland), and so many
others, were all English; some were descendants from Norman progenitors,
but in every other respect they were English. Some were of a third
generation.
Our Henry the Third was a prodigal patron of these Anglo-Norman poets.
This monarch awarded to a romancer, Rusticien de Pise, who has
proclaimed the regal munificence to the world, a couple of fine
"chateaux," which I would not, however, translate as has been done by
the English term "castles." Well might a romancer so richly remunerated
promise his royal patron to finish "The Book of Brut," the never-ending
theme to the ear of a British monarch who, indeed, was anxious to
possess such an authentic state-paper. Who this Rusticien de Pise was,
one cannot be certain; but he was one of a numerous brood who,
stimulated by "largesses" and fair chateaux, delighted to celebrate the
chivalry of the British court, to them a perpetual fountain of honour
and preferment. We may now smile at the Count de Tressan's querulous
nationality, who is indignant that the writers of the French romances of
the Round Table show a marked affectation of dwelling on everything that
can contribute to the glory of the throne and court of England,
preferring a fabulous Arthur to a true Charlemagne, and English knights
to French paladins.[8] When Tressan wrote, this striking circumstance
had not received its true elucidation; the hand of these writers had
only flowed with their gratitude; these writers composed to gratify
their sovereign, or some noble patron at the English court, for they
were English natives or English subjects, long concealed from posterity
as Englishmen by writing in French. It had then escaped the notice of
our literary antiquaries at home and abroad, that these Englishmen could
have composed in no other language. How imperfect is the catalogue of
early English poets by Ritson! for it is since his day that this
important fact in our own literary history has been acknowledged by the
French themselves, who at length have distinguished between Norman and
Anglo-Norman poets. M. Guizot was enabled by the French government to
indulge his literary patriotism by sending a skilful collector to
England to search in our libraries for Norman writings; and we are told
that none but Anglo-Norman writers have been found--that is, Englishmen
writing on English affairs, and so English that they have not always
avoided an unguarded expression of their dislike of foreigners, and even
of Normans!
It is worthy of observation, that even those Norman writers who came
young into England soon took the colour of the soil; and what rather
surprises us, considering the fashion of the court at that period,
studied the original national language, translated our Saxon writings,
and often mingled in their French verse phrases and terms which to this
day we recognise as English. Of this we have an interesting evidence in
an Anglo-Norman poetess, but recently known by the name of "Marie de
France;" yet had she not written this single verse accidentally--
Me nummerai par remembrance,
_Marie ai num, si sui de France_--
we should from her subjects, and her perfect knowledge of the vernacular
idiom of the English, have placed this Sappho of the thirteenth century
among the women of England. This poetess tells us that she had turned
into her French rhymed verse the Aesopian Fables, which one of our kings
had translated into English from the Latin. This royal author could have
been no other than Alfred, to whom such a collection has been ascribed.
We learn from herself the occasion of her version. Her task was
performed for a great personage who read neither Latin nor English; it
was done for "the _love_ of the renowned Earl William Longsword"--
----Cunte Willaume,
Le plus vaillant de cest Royaume.
Who would calculate the "largesse" "Count William," this puissant
Longsword, cast into the lap of this living muse when she offered all
this melodious wisdom; whose beautiful simplicity a child might
comprehend, but whose moral and politic truths would throw even the
Norman Longsword into a state of rational musing? Her "Lais," short but
wild "Breton Tales," which our poetess dedicated to her sovereign, our
Henry the Third, are evidence that Marie could also skilfully touch the
heart and amuse the fancy.
In her poems, Marie has translated many French terms into pure English,
and abounds with allusions to English places and towns whose names have
not changed since the thirteenth century. Her local allusions, and her
familiar knowledge of the vernacular idiom of the English people, prove
that "Marie," though by the accident of birth she may be claimed by
France, yet by her early and permanent residence, and by the constant
subjects of her writings, her "Breton Tales," and her "Fables" from the
English, by her habits and her sympathies, was an Englishwoman.
At this extraordinary period when England was a foreign kingdom, the
English people found some solitary friends--and these were the rustic
monk and the itinerant minstrel, for they were Saxons, but subjects too
mean and remote for the gripe of the Norman, occupied in rooting out
their lords to plant his own for ever in the Saxon soil.
The monks, who lived rusticated in their scattered monasteries,
sojourners in the midst of their conquered land, often felt their Saxon
blood tingle in their veins. Not only did the filial love of their
country deepen their sympathies, but a more personal indignation rankled
in their secret bosoms at the foreign intruders, French or Italian--the
tyrannical bishop and the voluptuous abbot. There were indeed monks, and
some have been our chroniclers, base-born, humiliated, and living in
fear, who in their leiger-books, when they alluded to their new
masters, called them "the conquerors," noticed the year when some
"conqueror" came in, and recorded what "the conquerors" had enacted. All
these "conquerors" designated the foreigners, who were the heads of
their houses. But there were other truer Saxons. Inspired equally by
their public and their private feeling, these were the first who,
throwing aside both Latin and French, addressed the people in the only
language intelligible to them. The patriotic monks decided that the
people should be reminded that they were Saxons, and they continued
their history in their own language.
This precious relic has come down to us--the "Saxon Chronicle"[9]--but
which in fact is a collection of chronicles made by different persons.
These Saxon annalists had been eye-witnesses of the transactions they
recorded, and this singular detail of incidents as they occurred without
comment is a phenomenon in the history of mankind, like that of the
history of the Jews contained in the Old Testament, and, like that, as
its learned editor has ably observed, "a regular and chronological
panorama of a people described in rapid succession by different writers
through many ages in their own VERNACULAR LANGUAGE." The mutations in
the language of this ancient chronicle are as remarkable as the fortunes
of the nation in its progress from rudeness to refinement; nor less
observable are the entries in this great political register from the
year One of Christ till 1154, when it abruptly terminates. The
meagreness of the earlier recorders contrasts with the more impressive
detail of later enlarged and thoughtful minds. When we come to William
of Normandy, we have a character of that monarch by one who knew him
personally, having lived at his court. It is not only a masterly
delineation, but a skilful and steady dissection. The earlier Saxon
chronicler has recorded a defeat and retreat which Caesar suffered in his
first invasion, which would be difficult to discover in the Commentaries
of Caesar.
The true language of the people lingered on their lips, and it seemed to
bestow a shadowy independence to a population in bondage. The remoter
the locality, the more obdurate was the Saxon; and these indwellers were
latterly distinguished as "Uplandish" by the inhabitants of cities. For
about two centuries "the Uplandish" held no social connexion; separated
not only by distance, but by their isolated dialects and peculiar
customs, these natives of the soil shrunk into themselves, intermarrying
and dying on the same spot; they were hardly aware that they were
without a country.
It was a great result of the Norman government in England that it
associated our insular and retired dominion with that nobler theatre of
human affairs, the Continent of Europe. In Normandy we trace the first
footings of our national power; the English Sovereign, now a prince of
France, ere long on the French soil vied in magnitude of territory with
his paramount Lord, the Monarch of France. Such a permanent connexion
could not fail to produce a conformity in manners; what was passing
among our closest neighbours, rivals or associates, was reflected in the
old Saxon land which had lost its nationality.