Influence of Norman Conquest on Middle English Life & Literature.

Norman Conquest

The Normans were residing in Normandy (France) defeated the Anglo-Saxon king of the battle of Hastings (1066) and conquered England. The Norman Conquest inaugurated a distinctly new epoch in the literary as well as socio-poetical history of England. The Anglo-Saxon authors were then as suddenly and permanently displaced as the Anglo-Saxon King. The literature afterwards read and written by Englishmen was there by as completely transformed as the sentiments and tastes of England rules. The foreign types of literature introduced after Norman Conquests first found favour with the monarchs and courtiers and were deliberately fostered by them, to the disregard of native forms. No effective protest by the Anglo-Saxons, were possible, and for centuries to come, English thought was largely fashioned in the manner of the French.

It may be noted that for two countries England had remained culturally a province of French. As the Norman rules imposed their own laws and administration on the conquered people, the only culture known in the Island for these two countries was the French culture. Latin still held its sway as the official language, but French became the language of the culture and polite people - the aristocrats, who were mostly French. The aristocracy was the only educated section of the mixed population and they read only Latin and French, but not the native tongue. As a result the native language suffered from neglect and the gulf between the upper classes and common people was wide. As a result, the native Anglo-Saxon literature was completely silent for a century and all types with the past was severed. French poets found patrons among the Aristocrats and cultivated the new poetry of courtly love and adventure. The social order had become foundal and chivalrous on the pattern of the French. A cult of Romantic love formed the basis of the higher order of the society. Love and war became the two occupations of the barons. Their manners, department, music, poetry, dance etc. became knightly and chivalrous. Women were highly respected honorable/brave and become almost objects of worship. The original dwellers of the Island stood apart from the tide of this new culture and civilization. They still kept on their native traditions, nurturing inwardly their insular patriotism. The result was a consultant clash between the conquerors and the conquered. While the Aristocrats preferred French to English poetry, the squires, the yes-men and the common folk welcomed their professional story-tellers called the 'Gleeman'. In course of time the two people lost their initial hostility and became part and parcel of one nation.

The growing needs of business and family life, court life and chivalry, new discoveries in industry and fine arts, the clergy, the itinerant monks and the cosmopolitan orders did much to intensity this intercourse and exchange of ideas. The Norman not only brought with them soldiers and artisans, and traders, they also imported scholars to revive knowledge, chronicles to record memorable events, minstrels to celebrate