Norman Conquest Back to Top
IMAGE
William the Conqueror (from Bayeux Tapestry)
William the Conqueror (from Bayeux Tapestry)
(from History of Information)
The event that began the transition from Old English to Middle English was the Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy and, later, William I of England) invaded the island of Britain from his home base in northern France, and settled in his new acquisition along with his nobles and court. William crushed the opposition with a brutal hand and deprived the Anglo-Saxon earls of their property, distributing it to Normans (and some English) who supported him.
The conquering Normans were themselves descended from Vikings who had settled in northern France about 200 years before (the very word Norman comes originally from Norseman). However, they had completely abandoned their Old Norse language and wholeheartedly adopted French (which is a so-called Romance language, derived originally from the Latin, not Germanic, branch of Indo-European), to the extent that not a single Norse word survived in Normandy.