Rex wrote in reply to my point
> John responded to my earlier statement of that position.:
> >...Rollo married a French women,
> I can't reference who he married, but the issue is: why do you call
her
> French? Was she Parisian, or just a river valley girl, speaking a
Romance
> dialect, as a Celt of the former Carolingian Frankish kingdom of
Neustria?
> Was everyone north of the Pyrenees and south of German speakers
instantly
> French as soon as the Roman yoke lifted?
She was Papie of Bayeux, daughter of Count Berenger de Senlis of Bayeax
- good "French" stock, speakers of the lange d'oeil dialect that
shortly became recognised as "la langue francais" or "french".
Their son, Duke William Longsword married Liegard de Vermandois,
herself daughter of Count Herbert II de Vermandois and his cousin
Princess Hildebrandt of France. Princess Hilderbrand was the daughter
of King Robert I of France, who married Beatrice de Vermandois, Count
Herbert's sister. Their father Herbert I of Vermandois was the son of
Peppin II Quentin, Count of Vermandois.
William Longsword, was father to Richard I Duke of Normandy. This
Richard in addition to being the father of the aforementioned Emma of
Normandy, was also the father of Richard II Duke of Normandy who not
only married King Aethelraed II of England, but also Canute. She had
to learn both English and Danish (the language of her forefather Rollo).
Richard II was the Father of Duke Robert II, who through illigitmate
union with Arlette de Falaise, daughter of Fulbert de Falaise, was the
father of William the Bastard, who spent a great deal of effort to
change his appelation to William the Conqueror!
So you see that William the Conqueror was less than 1/32nd Danish and
31/32nds of good "French" stock. No wonder he spoke the Norman dialect
of the French language.
I wrote
> > At the battle of Hastings, the Normans fought, not to a Viking bard
> > recounting the tales of Sigurd, but rather to Taillefer singing the
> > French "Chanson de Rolland".
> This one is highly suspect to me John..is this attested by written
> documentation from the period, or part of the later romanticisation
of the
> time by French historical syncretization? (Its stitched in the hem of
the
> Bayeau tapestry? :-)
At the Battle of Senlac Hill (later the Battle of Hastings), the
Normans feigned a rout, to break the invincible shield wall of Harold
Godwinsson's housecarls. This lured Saxons down the slope. It was
Taillefer (Iron Backside in French), who turned his horse first to
attack the running Saxons. At that time he was singing the story of
the Geste de Rolland.
<Snip>
In reply to my point that Edward I was the first to speak English
without accent, Rex wrote
> Ahh yes..."The Hammer of the Scots"..but a Plantagenet..the first of
which
> did not take the throne till almost a century after Hastings..and more
> accurately Angevin than Norman or French. The English he spoke
> would probably not have existed (certainly not so uniformly) without
> William's consolidations.
True, the effect of the Norman conquest on the development of Middle
English was huge. But it was not because English as it was spoken
before the conquest was mutually intelligible with the Norman French
that had started spreading as a result of Edward the Confessor's Norman
pals (one of whom, Bertrand de Croft was one of my ancestors), but had
received short shrift from the English revival under the Anglo-Dane
Harold Godwinsson.
> There was more Viking already there than William brought: These words
came
> much later as a part of the feudal "overstate" and were..French. And
would
> have been there....with..or without..the events of Hastings.
It is unlikely that French words would have come as a result of the
Feudal state. The English were already busy inventing their own
pre-Norman version of feudalism based on the good Saxon titles of
Thanes and Earls. The need for Dukes and Counts (from French Duke et
Comte from Latin dux and comes) would not have probably spread to
England without the Norman invasion. William brought little or no
Viking tongue to the mix of languages that crystalised as Middle
English. The main Viking words to survive in the Norman French dialect
were some of the personal names (eg Gunnor of Crepon, wife of Duke
Richard I of Normandy).
Hope this helps
John