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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-10 > 0907907865


From: Brian M. Scott< >
Subject: Re: Goldsmiths, Godiva ...
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 04:37:45 GMT


On Thu, 08 Oct 1998 17:56:01 -0700, "David C. Jack"
<> wrote:

[snip]

> Where was Orderic born? I get the impression that the Normans were
>assimilated quite rapidly in Ireland but I'm not so sure about England,
>especially around court. Richard I was buried in Rouen as Duc de
>Normandie.
>Even as late as the Black Prince they seemed to have no problems
>communicating in Guyenne, or did they speak English around Bordeau?

The English aristocracy spoke French, but they learned it as a second
language. There's not much doubt that by the mid-13th c. at the
latest even the gentry were thinking primarily in English terms; see,
e.g., Cecily Clark, 'Anglo-Norman Influence on English Place-Names',
and several other papers by her in _Words, Names and History_, ed.
Peter Jackson (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995).

Brian M. Scott

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