Effects that outlasted the fighting
The Norman takeover is usually remembered for a battle, but some of its most lasting effects were slow and cultural. The people who ran England after 1066 spoke French, used Latin for writing, and brought legal and church practices from the continent. The Norman language influence on English can still be seen in everyday words.
Three languages in one kingdom
After 1066, three languages were in regular use, each in its own settings. English was the language of most of the population. French, in the form often called Anglo-Norman, was spoken by the new landholders and used at court. Latin was the language of the church, of learning and of most formal records.
This was not a neat split, and many people, especially in towns and the households of great lords, would have understood more than one. Intermarriage, trade and service in noble households encouraged bilingualism. Over the next few generations, the French-speaking upper class slowly shifted toward English, though French remained prestigious for a long time. English reappears as a written language of government and literature much more widely in the fourteenth century.
How English changed
The changes to English began before the conquest and continued afterward: simplified endings, a more fixed word order and a shifting vocabulary. The Norman presence sped up some of this. The result, after a few centuries, was the form known as Middle English, familiar from writers such as Chaucer.
The most visible effect is vocabulary. Thousands of words were borrowed from French, often from the areas of government, law, religion, fashion, warfare and food. Examples include:
- government and law: court, crown, judge, justice, parliament, tax
- religion: prayer, sermon, saint, religion
- food and cooking: beef, pork, mutton, roast
A well-known pattern is that English kept the older Germanic words for the animals in the field (cow, pig, sheep) while the French-derived words appear for the meat on the table (beef, pork, mutton). This is often explained by who tended the animals and who ate the meal. It is a neat illustration, though not a full account, because the pattern is not perfectly consistent and other factors played a part.
Borrowing from French did not stop with the earliest generations. Much of it appears in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, when more of the written record has survived, so it is hard to date exactly when a given word entered everyday speech.
Law and government
The Normans did not abolish English law, and William said he would respect the laws in use under Edward. Shires, hundred courts and the system of royal writs, or written orders, continued and were later developed further. At the same time, the new rulers brought their own notions: stronger royal control over castles, heavier emphasis on the king’s peace, and eventually a distinctive system of royal justice.
Several specific changes are associated with the conquest:
- Forest law. Large areas were set aside as royal hunting preserves, with their own rules and penalties, which caused resentment.
- The murdrum fine. A community could be fined if a Norman was found killed and the killer was not produced, which suggests the new rulers feared attacks.
- Trial by combat. The judicial duel, discussed elsewhere as a form of trial, is generally thought to have been brought to England by the Normans, although historians note that the evidence is limited.
Over the following century, kings built on these foundations. Royal officials traveled to hear cases, and the use of royal courts spread. These developments eventually fed into the tradition later known as common law, though that process was long and not a direct product of 1066 alone.
The church
The medieval church in England was reshaped in the decades after the conquest. William had the support of the pope for his enterprise, and he used it to reorganize the English church. Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was removed and replaced by Lanfranc, who had been an abbot in Normandy. Over time, most senior English clergy were replaced by Normans or other continental churchmen.
Some practical changes followed:
- Several bishops moved their seats from small rural settlements to larger towns, which were easier to defend and administer.
- Church courts began to be separated from the secular courts that had previously handled many church matters.
- New cathedrals and abbeys were built in the Romanesque style, with massive stone walls and rounded arches, on a far larger scale than before.
- Some monastic houses in Normandy were granted English estates.
The church remained a powerful partner of the crown, but it also came to see itself more clearly as part of a wider Latin Christendom, with a stronger link to Rome than before. The details of how far Lanfranc’s reforms were new rather than a continuation of existing trends are still discussed by scholars.
Names, writing and records
Even personal names changed. Old English names like Æthelred or Godwine gradually gave way to continental names like William, Robert, Henry and Richard. By the twelfth century, these dominated among the nobility and became common more widely, though the shift was uneven.
Writing changed too. The English written tradition had been unusually strong, but after the conquest most official records were in Latin, and the English chronicle tradition faded, with the Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continuing until the middle of the twelfth century.
How much was really changed
It is tempting to treat everything French in later England as a result of 1066. In reality, links between England and Normandy already existed under Edward, who had spent years in exile there, and the language was already changing. The conquest widened and accelerated those links by putting a French-speaking elite in charge. The safest statement is that the effect on English law, church and language was lasting and deep, but gradual, and that the evidence for the speed of each change remains incomplete.