From the Anglo-Norman.

HISTORY—NORMAN CONQUEST.

The Normans, or Northmen, were primarily of the Norse, or Scandinavian, branch of the Teutonic race. They were active, enterprising men—merchants, navigators, soldiers. Restless under the restraints of a power that was slowly and surely consolidating the Scandinavian kingdoms, they broke away from its influence, and boldly ventured forth, conquered the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides, founded the kingdom of Caithness in Scotland, settled Iceland, discovered Greenland, and colonized Vinland, which is supposed to be on the coast of New England.

In 911, Rolf, or Rollo, the Ganger, with his daring band of vikings, obtained a footing in the fertile valley of the Seine. The province, which was afterwards called Normandy, was received by him as a fief from Charles the Simple. Friendly relations were soon established, and Rollo became the king’s vassal with the title of duke, and subsequently married his daughter. The Normans were brought under French law and customs, became Christians, adopted the French language, married into French families, and caught the French spirit.

Edward the Confessor dying without issue in 1066, Harold, his brother-in-law, succeeded to the throne. But William, seventh Duke of Normandy, whose aunt, Emma, had been married to Ethelred II of England, claimed it by hereditary right and by the promise of both Edward and Harold.

Determined to establish his claim, he set sail with thirty thousand followers for the coast of England. On October 14, 1066, he met and defeated Harold, near Hastings, and was soon afterwards crowned king at Westminster. This was the only conquest—and British soil has throbbed to the clatter and tramplings of four—that reached down to the people of the island and thoroughly leavened them. The admixture of a new blood and a new spirit with theirs proved the greatest good that ever befell them. It can be considered as nothing short of a regeneration, for it made the English nation of to-day, the English language, and the English literature.

The modern Englishman owes to his Teutonic ancestry his love of justice and fair play, his religious nature, his physical robustness and intellectual vigor, his love of liberty, and to his French lineage—and we must not lose sight of the fact that, though originally Teutonic, the Normans had been metamorphosed by their life in France—his manner, his tact, his administrative genius, his poetic skill, and his artistic nature. In him are most happily blended the two races, forming a composite better than either component, greater even than both elements while in separation. The changes which Anglo-Saxon thus underwent are vital, fundamental, and, we may say, revolutionary.

Expressive of the change thus effected, a new name is needed. Before 1066, writers refrained from calling the dominant people of the island, or their language, by any other term than Anglo-Saxon. But after the union of the people and of the languages, no name expresses the new condition of things so well as English. As thus applied, English denotes always the race resulting from the marriage of the two peoples, or the speech resulting from the union of the two tongues.

ANGLO-NORMAN LANGUAGE.

The Anglo-Saxons and the Normans lived side by side. It must not be supposed, however, that either the two peoples or the two languages were welded instantaneously. They grew together, and the growth was slow. There were special reasons why such should be the case. The conqueror was of alien blood. National animosity existed between him and the conquered. In the north, more especially than in the south, William’s conquest was ruthless. Harvests were destroyed, cattle killed or carried off, implements of husbandry sacrificed, towns and villages burned, and the inhabitants slain or driven across the border. The entire soil was confiscated, and the land, upon condition of military service, parcelled out among a score or more of great vassals, among hundreds of inferior crown vassals, and among the higher clergy. The meanest Norman was raised to opulence and influence in the new dominion. By the establishment of this modified feudal system, the masses were reduced to a species of serfdom. They became mere tillers of the soil. Shoals of Norman ecclesiastics came across the Channel, and the people were forced to accept religious instruction and consolation from the strangers. Everywhere, in the palace and among the nobility, in the law courts and the schools, as authority dictated, another language than their own prevailed. A keen sense of the scorn with which their lack of culture and their “barbarous tongue” were regarded, added to a painful consciousness of their social and political degradation, only served the more to heighten their aversion to the strangers, and to make the problem of coalescence slow and difficult.

But the influences at work were not wholly those of repulsion. Living together as they did, they had to meet each other in the field and in the town. They were forced to buy from each other and to sell to each other. Time could not but lessen the arrogance of the one, and modify the moroseness of the other. Definite rights were gradually acquired by the subject race. His services became limited, and could be commuted for money considerations. The ownership of his hut and of the plat of ground surrounding it, and the privilege of using the waste land of the manor for the pasturage of his cattle, which were mere indulgences at first, grew into rights that could be pleaded at law. The serf became a power. He was struggling to grow to a copyholder, and the copyholder, to a freeholder. Such things had their effects. The military strength of the nobles waned, the courts of the feudal baronage were shorn of their influence, and the feudal system was fast sinking into decay. In education, as well as in material things, the Anglo-Saxons were improving. Intermarriages were common, and strong social and national feelings were springing up, before which their mutual antagonism was giving away.

The vast possessions, partly hereditary and partly acquired by marriage, held by the English kings in France, served but to aid this feeling. To hold these against the French kings required not only a united people, but a people unified by the strong sentiment of nationality. And to make progress against the encroachments of their own kings the nobility were forced to make common cause with the people. To what extent the interests of barons and commons were identified may be seen from the provisions of the Great Charter extorted from King John in 1215.

For a long time after the Conquest there existed in England the singular spectacle of two languages declining to coalesce and yet spoken by two peoples living together. Neither language would give way to the other. How little these two languages had blended in the vocabulary of authors, may be seen when it is said that Layamon’s Brut, a poem of thirty-two thousand lines, written in 1205, does not contain a hundred and fifty French words; and that in the Ormulum, a poem of twenty thousand lines, which appeared in the year of Magna Charta, hardly fifty French words are found. But the difficulties in the way of coalescence were slowly diminishing. Such as were political have already been spoken of, but those more properly linguistic will now be considered.

This period was, to the subject race, one of general depression. Very little literature, and that of an indifferent quality, was produced. Their language was no longer spoken, and their standards in it forgotten. Anglo-Saxon had been banished from the schools, was no longer used at the palace and castles of the nobles, or in the courts. Few were writing it. It seems to have been left in the care, if care it can be called, of those ignorant of its literature and grammar, and familiar only with the vocabulary employed in colloquial speech. The effect of all this upon the language can be easily inferred. A large fraction of the vocabulary, the more dignified and scholarly portion, fell into neglect and then into oblivion. The grammatical inflections, denoting case, person, number, tense, of the words kept in circulation, almost entirely perished. These inflections would only be retained by those who knew their importance, but they sloughed off as the words fell from the tongues of those who were ignorant of them. When, then, this Anglo-Saxon speech had forced itself upon the Normans, as it had fairly done by the latter half of the fourteenth century, it was far easier to master than would have been the case immediately after 1066. Nearly one-half of the words in the vocabulary before the Conquest, it is estimated, dropped out of it in the three hundred years immediately following, and it is certain that the grammar had been vastly simplified. With one-half of its words lost, and the remaining half nearly flectionless, the work of learning the language was made comparatively easy for the Norman.

This forcing of the tongue of a conquered people upon its conquerors was a signal achievement and of far-reaching consequences. Upon the authority of John of Trevisa, we are told that, after the great pestilence of 1349, the instruction of youth was revolutionized. John Cornwall changed the instruction in the grammar-school from French into English, and was followed by Richard Pencrich and others, so that in 1335 in all the grammar-schools of England the children were being taught English rather than French. In 1362 French was exchanged for English in the courts of law, Parliament having passed an act that year ordering that in all the courts “all pleas ... shall be pleaded, shewed, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue.” Great writers had now arisen—Wyclif, 1324-1384, in prose; Chaucer, 1340-1400, in poetry. They wrote in English, and their influence upon the plastic language of their day, and upon all subsequent writers, is simply incalculable.

The adoption of the Anglo-Saxon by the Norman was greatly facilitated by the fact that the French he was using was not the French of Paris, but the degenerate tongue of Normandy, which was at best but provincial. But during the centuries of its use in England it had been kept from free contact with the dialect of Normandy, and so had deteriorated even from the imperfect standard. Even the Norman himself had grown ashamed of it, and was not unwilling to part with it.

When it is said that by 1400, or even earlier, English was generally used, it is meant a speech not in existence by itself till long after the Norman Conquest, a speech neither Anglo-Saxon nor French, but Anglo-Saxon and French. It was a speech to which both of these languages contributed, to form which both of these were combined. The adoption of words was not all done by the Norman. While he borrowed many from the Saxon, the Saxon borrowed some from the Norman. English may, therefore, be considered a compromise, a compound. It is one speech after the union, but not univocal, not all of a piece, every speaker of which being bilingual.

The tongue brought over by the Conqueror has been called Norman-French. It is in reality Latin. Just before the Christian era Julius Cæsar subdued the people then in possession of Gaul, what is now France, and imposed upon them his language, which was that of Rome. This language, used for a thousand years by a people to whom it was not the vernacular, was acquired by the Normans, of still another alien stock, and by them introduced into England. Spoken a whole millennium by people whose mother-tongue it displaced, and from them learned by strangers, it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the words had lost much of their original form and meaning. Proofs, in the words themselves, are not wanting to sustain the assertion. Outwardly they were almost invariably shortened. By a dropping of vowels or consonants, or of both, two or three syllables had been squeezed into one, as some examples will conclusively show. French sûr, our sure, came originally from the Latin securus; French règle, our rule, from Latin regula; French île, English isle, from insula. And not unfrequently the final and unaccented syllable or syllables seem not to have been caught by the subject Gaul, or, if caught by his ear, were not retained on his tongue. The Latin domina, for instance, appears in French as the truncated dame; medius as midi; and malum, as mal. Though changed, yet it must be patent to all that the French words are Latin, as their essential identity with the words used by Horace and Virgil unmistakably show.

NAMES—THEIR DERIVATION.

A.

Avis. Avis, advice, opinion. Avise, from the same radix.

Auter. Auter, an altar.

Ayler. Ayel, a grandfather; ere, an agent. An active grandfather.

Ayles. Ayeles, genitive of ayel, a grandfather. Belonging to a grandfather.

B.

Batchelor. Bachelor, an unmarried man, a knight, one who has taken his first degree in a college.

Bayard. Bayard, a bay horse, a blood-horse; so called in Chaucer, and in old romances. Byard, abbreviation of the term.

Beauford. Beau, beautiful; ford, a ford. A beautiful ford.

Belfield. Bel, beautiful; feld, a field. A beautiful field.

Belford. Bel, beautiful, good; ford, a ford. A good ford.

Bellamy. Bel amy, from bel, good, and amy, a friend. A good friend.

Bellenere. Belle, beautiful; nere, a refuge. A beautiful refuge.

Bokel. Bokel, a buckle.

Borell. Borel, coarse cloth of a brown color, made of plain, coarse stuff. Borel folk, borel men, were laymen.

Bortel. Bordel, a brothel.

Bos. Bos, a protuberance.

Bosek. Bos, a protuberance; ig, an adjective termination. Bossy. Bose, Bosee, from the same roots.

Boser. Bos, a protuberance; ere, an agent. One who, or that which, has a protuberance.

Boshart. Bos, a protuberance; heort, a hart. A humped hart.

Bossard. Bosard, a buzzard, a species of hawk unfit for sporting. Bossart, Bossert, identical in derivation and meaning.

Boswell. Latin bos, an ox; well, a well, a fountain. An ox-well; a well where oxen are watered.

Bosworth. Bos, an ox; weordh, value, price. Ox-value.

Botler. Botel, or botelle, a bottle; ere, an agent. A bottler. Butler, from the same radix.

Bottle. Botel, or botelle, a bottle.

Brear. Brere, a briar, a bramble.

Brearey. Brere, a bramble; ig, an adjective termination. Briery; brambly; full of briars; rough.

Brearley. Brere, a bramble; líc, like. Bramble-like; briery.

Brinton. Brin, a sprig, a slip; tún, a house, an enclosure. A hot-bed; a green-house; a nursery.

Buffett. Buffette, a blow.

Burdon. Burdoun, a humming noise, the base in music.

C.

Cappell. Capel, a horse.

Caron. Caroigne, carrion, dead, or putrefied flesh.

Carrick. Carrik, a large ship.

Case. Cas, chance, condition, circumstance.

Casler. Cas, chance; lár, doctrine. Doctrine of chance.

Casely. Cas, chance; líc, like. Chance-like; accidental. Casley, from the same root.

Casey. Cas, chance, condition; ig, an adjective termination. Accidental; conditional.

Cattell. Catel, goods, chattel.

Cellerier. Celerer, the officer in a monastery who had the care of the provisions.

Chambers. Chamberes, genitive of chamber, a chamber, a room, an apartment. Belonging to a chamber.

Chambley. Chamb, for chamber, a chamber; ley, for líc, like. Chamber-like.

Chesser. Ches, chess; ere, an agent. A chess-player.

Chessman. Ches, chess; man, man. A chessman; a piece used in chess.

Chesson. Ches, chess; sun, son. A son fond of chess.

Chestney. Chesteyn, a chestnut. Chestin, perhaps, from the same root.

Clary. Clarré, wine mixed with honey and spices, and afterwards strained till it is clear. Clarey, of like relationship.

Clerke. Clerk, one who has received school-learning.

Clink. Clinke, a ring, to tinkle.

Clinker. Clinke, to tinkle; ere, an agent. That which tinkles.

Coate. Cote, a coat.

Compayre. Compère, a gossip, a near friend.

Coates. Coate, Coate; s for sun, son. Son of Coate.

Cope. Cope, a cloak.

Couch. Couche, to lay, place; past participle couched, laid. Couched with pearls means laid or trimmed with pearls. Couch, also, a bed.

Colpe. Coulpe, a fault.

Crowne. Crown, crown of the head, top of the head. Crown, from the same radix.

Curtis. Curteys, or curteis, courteous, polite.

D.

Dresser. Dresse, to address, to apply; ere, an agent. One who addresses, or applies himself to any task.

Drury. Druerie, courtship, gallantry, love, a mistress.

F.

Fay. Fay, faith, confidence, trust. Faye, from the same radix.

Fayer. Fay, faith; ere, an agent. One who has faith; a believer.

Fayle. Fay, faith; le, for el, denoting a person. A person of faith; a believer.

Fein. Feyne, to feign, to pretend.

Fey. Fey, faith, trust, confidence.

Feyer. Fey, faith; ere, an agent. One that has faith; a believer.

Feyhl. Fey, faith; hl, for el, denoting a person. A believer.

Floyd. Floyte, a flute.

Forster. Forster, a forester, an officer of the forest. Foster, a kindred term.

Fowl. Fowel, a fowl, a bird.

Fowler. Fowel, a fowl; ere, an agent. One who pursues or traps wild fowl.

Fowles. Fowle, Fowl; s for sun, son. Son of Fowl.

Foyle. Folye, folly, foolish conduct, indiscretion.

Franklin. Frankeleyn, the father of a family. This is the application in Chaucer’s time. Spencer uses the term in the sense of a freeholder, but in Queen Elizabeth’s day it denoted a yeoman, or a man above a vassal, but not a gentleman.

Frearson. Frere, a friar; sun, son. Son of a friar.

G.

Gabb. Gabbe, to jest, to talk idly, to lie.

Gaylord. Gaylard, gay, licentious. Perhaps from galliard, a sprightly kind of dance.

Gentil. Gentil, gentlemanlike, gentlemanly. Gentel, Gentle, of like kinship.

Gentry. Genterye, gentility. Chaucer spelt the word with the additional e’s. Even at the present day it is not unusual to find some writing the name—Gentery.

Gerry. Gery, changeable, inconstant, uncertain.

Geyler. Gylour, a deceiver.

Glose. Glose, a comment, an interpretation.

Grace. Grace, favor, kindness, good-will, benignity.

Gracey. Grace, favor, kindness; ig, an adjective termination. Gracious; kind.

Grange. Graunge, a farm-house.

Granger. Graunge, a farm-house; ere, an agent. One who has a farm-house; a farmer.

Greeley. Gree, pleasure, satisfaction, prize, grade; líc, like. Pleasurable; satisfactory; estimable; gradual.

Greaser. Grees, grease, ointment; ere, an agent. An anointer.

Greasly. Grees, grease; líc, like. Grease-like; unctuous.

Grone. Grone, to groan, to grunt.

Groner. Grone, to groan, to grunt; ere, an agent. A groaner; a grunter.

Groning. Grone, to groan, to grunt; ing, expressive of action. Groaning; grunting.

H.

Hamburg. Hamburgeon, diminutive of hauberg, a coat of mail.

Hamburger. Hamburgeon, a coat of mail; ere, an agent. One who wears a coat of mail; a warrior.

Haire. Haire, hair-cloth.

Hackney. Hakeney, a hackney, an ambling horse, or pad.

Harney. Harneys, armor, furniture.

Hauberger. Hauberg, a coat of mail; ere, an agent. An armor-bearer; a knight; a warrior.

Houpt. Houped, hooped, hollowed, shoaled.

K.

Keep. Keep, care, attention.

L.

Lacey. Laas, or lace, a lace, a net, a snare; ig, an adjective termination. Resembling a lace, or net.

Large. Large, spacious, free, prodigal.

Larger. Larger, comparative of large, spacious, prodigal. More spacious; more prodigal.

Largey. Large, large, prodigal; ig, an adjective termination. Large; prodigal.

Largly. Large, large, free; líc, like. Large-like; largely; freely.

Layard. Liard, a name of a horse, belonging originally to a horse of a gray color. A gray horse.

Lodge. Loge, a lodge, a habitation.

Logerman. Loge, a lodge; ere, an agent; man, a man. A person who lodges, or is lodged; a lodger.

Logue. Loge, a lodge, a habitation.

Loos. Loos, praise, approval.

Luce. Luce, the fish called a pike.

M.

Mallison. Malisoun, a malediction, a curse.

Maner. Manere, carriage, behavior, kind, sort.

Maris. Marreys, a marsh.

Mauger. Maugré, in spite of.

Marvill. Mervaille, marvel, wonder. Marvel, from the same radix.

N.

Nice. Nice, foolish, simple, silly. Nyce, a kindred term.

Noon. Noon, the ninth hour of the natural day, nine o’clock in the morning, the hour of dinner.

Norris. Norice, a nurse.

Nowell. Nowel, Christmas.

O.

Oliphant. Olifaunt, an elephant.

Oliver. Oliver, olive-trees.

Opie. Opye, opium.

P.

Paase. Paas, a foot-pace.

Paramore. Paramour, love, gallantry.

Pardee. Pardé, a common oath, literally, by God. Purdie, of like kinship.

Parvis. Parvis, a portico before a church. Purvis, perhaps, from the same root.

Pass. Passe, to surpass, to excel, to pass sentence.

Peer. Peere, a peer, an equal.

Pergin. Peregrine, wandering.

Perry. Perrye, jewels, precious stones.

Person. Persone, a man, a parson, a rector of a church.

Pierie. Pierrie, jewels, precious stones.

Pile. Pile, pyle, to rob, to plunder. Pyle, from the same radix.

Platt. Platte, or plat, flat, plain.

Pleydell. Plye, to bend; dál, a dell, a valley. An undulating valley.

Poke. Poke, a pocket, a bag.

Pollak. Pollax, a halberd. Pollock, Polock, from the same derivation.

Pomeltree. Pomel, any ball or round thing, as an apple; treow, a tree. An apple-tree.

Poynter. Poynt, the principal business, a point, a stop; ere, an agent. That which acts as a point, or a stop; a pointer.

Poynton. Poynt, a point, a stop; tún, a house. A point-house; a business place.

Prentis. Prentys, an apprentice. Prentiss, a kindred term.

Presley. Prees, a press, a crowd; líc, like. Crowd-like; dense; compact.

Preston. Prest, from prese, to press, to crowd; tún, a house. A crowded house.

Prevear. Preve, to try, to demonstrate by trial; ere, an agent. An experimenter; a demonstrator.

Price. Prys, price, value, praise.

Prime. Prime, the first quarter of the artificial day. Sometimes metaphorically used in Chaucer for the season of action or business. Perhaps, from pryme, daybreak.

Prow. Prow, profit, advantage.

Pye. Pie, a magpie, a prating gossip, a tell-tale.

Pyne. Pyne, pain, grief, sorrow.

Q.

Quint. Queynt, strange, cunning, artful, trim, neat.

Quinton. Queynt, neat, trim; tún, a house. A neat home.

R.

Raffles. Rafles, plays with dice.

Rampe. Rampe, to climb. Rempe, doubtless, from the same root.

Rampson. Ramp, Rampe; sun, son. Son of Rampe.

Ransom. Raunsoun, a ransom.

Rems. Remes, realms, regions.

Revel. Revel, entertainment, sport, festivity.

Ribaut. Ribaude, a low, profligate man.

Roche. Roche, a rock.

Rochester. Roche, a rock; ceaster, a castle. A rock-castle.

Rocholl. Roche, a rock; ol, a termination denoting a personal noun. A rock-dweller; a man of decision.

S.

Scollay. Scolay, to attend school, to study.

Sergeant. Sergeaunt, a squire attendant upon a prince or nobleman.

Spence. Spence, a store-room for wine or victuals. A buttery; a larder; a store-room.

Spencer. Spence, a store-room; ere, an agent. One who has charge of the spence.

Suel. Sue, to follow; el, implying a person. A follower.

T.

Tally. Taille, a tally, an account scored upon a piece of wood.

Talent. Talent, desire, affection.

Targett. Targe, a small shield; et, implying a diminutive. A small shield.

Timbers. Timbres, basins. Timbesterre was a term applied to a woman who played tricks with timbres, or basins of some sort or other, by throwing them up into the air and catching them upon a single finger; a kind of balance-mistress.

Tourison. Tour, a tower, and sun, a son. Son of a tower.

Tresse. Tresse, an artificial lock, or gathering of hair.

Tressley. Tresse, an artificial lock of hair; líc, like. Tress-like; gathered into a tress.

Tressler. Tress, a tress; lár, knowledge. Tress-knowledge.

V.

Verrey. Verray, true, faithful.

Voucher. Vouche, contraction of vouchen sauf, to vouchsafe; ere, an agent. One who vouches a thing safe. In Chaucer, such expressions as voucheth sauf, vouchsafe ye, and the king vouches it save, the king vouchsafes it, were of common occurrence.

W.

Waite. Waite, to watch. Wait, Waitt, Wayte, kindred terms.

Warden. Wardeyn, a guard, a keeper of a gate.