The Norman Conquest: The Impact

The Norman Conquest: The Impact

Modern English patriots view the Battle of Hastings as a national 
catastrophe; the year 1066 is the most well-known date throughout English citizens. “No 
other conquest in European history has had such disastrous consequences for 
the defeated”. However, modern England owes their government, culture, and 
language to the ideas the Normans brought. 
In the early years after the Conquest, Englishmen who pledged their 
allegiance to the King were allowed to keep their land. Nevertheless, between 1067 
and 1070, there were many uprisings against the Norman rule, including at least 
one disturbance each year. Many English, though, cooperated with the new 
rulers. 
The English “resented becoming an oppressed majority in their own country”. 
In fact, there were only about 10,000 Normans living among one or two million 
Saxons. To protect themselves, the Normans lived in small units. They built 
castles from which a small group could rule a large area and population. More 
than 4,000 landowners were replaced and forced to turn over their land to 
less than 200 barons. England and Normandy now shared a ruler, forming a 
connection between the two areas. William, still a Norman Duke in addition to his 
English title, owed his allegiance to the King of France, and therefore 
English politics became French politics. 
Because of the allegiance William still owed to France, he spent most of his 
time there, instead of in the country he ruled. This was a major change from 
the previous rulers, who lived in the country. William never really liked 
England or its people. He gave up trying to learn the language and only stayed 
in the country when it was absolutely necessary. As a result, he had to plan 
for when he would be absent. Under normal circumstances, a family member would 
act as regent while the king was away. However, William had no relatives 
whom he trusted enough to leave England in their hands. This began the tradition 
of one of the king’s servants, usually a bishop, representing the king while 
he was away. 
Another political change in England was the formation of Anglo-Norman 
feudalism. Several features of feudalism are: “vassalage, military groupings, and 
the fragmentation of authority”. The time after the Conquest was the first 
public demonstration of the power the king held over the land. William 
essentially took back all of the land and redistributed it to his own vassals or, as 
they came to be known, barons. The barons then divided up their own sections 
and granted the areas to their own vassals. A “feudal pyramid” can begin to 
be seen, in which the classes were very defined, and everyone, in the end, was 
led by the king. 
In addition to these political changes, their were cultural changes, too. The 
Normans were shocked at their arrival to find such low moral and cultural 
standards in England. With the invasion of the Normans, England received a new 
ruling class, culture, and language. French became the language of law, 
estates, song, verse, chanson, and romance. It was considered the “language of the 
civilized”, and all of the noblepeople all over Europe knew, in addition to 
their own language, French. The English architects and artists borrowed 
French designs, such as Romanesque and Gothic, which are now well-known as the 
styles of most of the famous landmarks in Europe, such as Westminster Abbey, and 
Bath. 
Prior to the invasion of French culture, England had been a land mostly 
influenced by its neighbors to the north, what is now known as Scandinavia. The 
language was in use from the first immigrants in the Fifth Century, until it 
became common in the Eighth Century. It remained relatively unchanged until 
1150, when the linguistic effects of the Norman Conquest began to appear in 
everyday use and the language shifted to Middle English. Even in Modern English, 
the correlation between the two languages is apparent. 
One of the most significant differences between Old English and Middle 
English is the amount of borrowing from other languages, which expanded mainly 
with the Norman Conquest. The Old English speakers hesitated from using foreign 
words, and generally made up their own equivalent of words rather than 
borrowing directly. The French, however, kept words and sounds similar to their 
foreign roots. One example of foreign sounds directly affecting English phonemics 
is the difference between [v] and [f]. In Old English, these were both 
similar ways of saying [f], like Modern English’s long and short vowels. The 
introduction of the French word ver, which sounded like Old English’s fer forced 
speakers and listeners to make a difference between the two sounds. 
Another effect that the Conquest had on the English language was due to the 
scribes. As Old English quickly lost its status, the French scribes, who didn’
t care much about correctly spelled Old English began to write the language 
phonetically, as they heard it with their French conventions. This change can 
also be seen in Modern English, such as the shift from Middle English [u] to 
the French [ou] as in house. 
Both the English language and the culture have gone through many evolutions, 
all as a result of the introduction of new ethnic groups into Britain. From 
the first invasions of the Angles and Saxons in 450 A.D. through the ongoing 
influx of immigrants from all over the world, England has been a country 
influenced by its ever-changing population. The most influential of these 
developments was the Norman Conquest in the year 1066. The results of the Conquest 
have shaped the history of England, and are still apparent in today’s English 
traditions, government, and language. By looking at modern England, we can 
still see the threads that stemmed from the influence of that event, so many 
years ago.