GEN-MEDIEVAL-L Archives

Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-10 > 0907815451


From: Tony Jebson <>
Subject: Re: Goldsmiths, Godiva ...
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 21:57:31 -0500


David C. Jack wrote:
[snip]
> Indeed, Celtic Christians at first hated the Saxons so
> much that they preferred not to proselytise these heathens,
> such was the resentment between the two races" So much for
> cultural continuity!

Hmm .. I feel this argument takes Gildas rather too literally!

[snip]
> Isn't it quite possible that the ruler and ruled used seperate
> languages, much as the Normans and Anglo-Saxon English did for
> many years?

There is a fair amount of evidence that the Normans (outside of
the immediate royal circle) gave up speaking Norman French
quite early. For example, Orderic Vitalis, who was born in 1075,
learned no French from his family, even though his father
was from Orleans and was a counsellor to a Norman magnate.

We know this because he remarks that when he was sent to France
to become a monk at age ten he felt like an exile because he could
not understand the language. Orderic was not uneducated: his father
had ensured that he started to learn Latin at the age of 5.

[snip]

--- Tony Jebson

This thread: