General history in medieval England Many of the earliest documents in
Old French are found in England. In medieval
France, it was not usual to write in the
vernacular because
Latin was the language of the
Church,
education,
historiography and it was used for records. In medieval England, Latin also remained in use by the Church, the royal government, and much local administration in parallel with
Middle English, as it had been before 1066. The early adoption of Anglo-Norman as a written and literary language probably owes something to this history of
bilingualism in writing. In the first centuries after the Norman Conquest of England, the French-speaking elite primarily relied on Latin for record-keeping rather than their own language, while English continued to have a written tradition and was used in religious services until 1154, when the Angevins came into power. Englishmen seeking words associated with government, culture, or entertainment would likely use French terms in their English speech to operate in upper-middle-class social settings would not only learn some French but also imitate the Frenchified English of bilingual speakers. Nevertheless, educated Englishmen in the 12th and 13th centuries could read and speak French to some extent. This explains why the first French loanwords entering English were introduced through written texts and passive knowledge of the language rather than active use. However, as French began to be used for record-keeping in England due to its growing prestige during the mid-13th century, approximately 90% of the total 10,000 French loanwords in English began to be documented in the language. Around the same time, as a shift took place in France towards using French as a language of record in the mid-13th century, Anglo-Norman also became a language of record in England, although Latin retained its pre-eminence for matters of permanent record (as in written
chronicles). From around this point onwards, considerable variation begins to be apparent in Anglo-Norman, which ranges from the very local (and most
anglicised) to a level of language which approximates to and is sometimes indistinguishable from varieties of continental French. Typically, therefore, local records are rather different from continental French, with diplomatic and international trade documents closest to the emerging continental norm. English remained the vernacular of the common people throughout this period. The resulting virtual
trilingualism in spoken and written language was one of medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English.
Language of the king and his court From the time of the
Norman Conquest (1066) until the end of the 14th century, French was the language of the king and his court. During this period, marriages with French princesses reinforced the royal family's ties to French culture. Nevertheless, during the 13th century, intermarriages with
English nobility became more frequent. French became progressively a second language among the upper classes. Moreover, with the
Hundred Years' War and the growing spirit of English and French nationalism, the status of French diminished. French (specifically
Old French) was the mother tongue of every
English king from
William the Conqueror (1066–1087) until
Henry IV (1399–1413). Henry IV was the first to take the oath in (
Middle) English, and his son,
Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English. By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite.
Language of the royal charters and legislation Until the end of the 13th century,
Latin was the main language of all official written documents. Nevertheless, some important documents had their official Norman translation, such as
Magna Carta of 1215. The first official document written in Anglo-Norman was a statute promulgated by the king in 1275. With effect from the 13th century, Anglo-Norman therefore became used in official documents, such as those that were marked by the
private seal of the king whereas the documents sealed by the
Lord Chancellor were written in Latin until the end of the Middle Ages. English became the language of
Parliament and of legislation in the 15th century, half a century after it had become the language of the king and most of the English nobility. This variety of French was a technical language, with a specific vocabulary, where English words were used to describe everyday experience, and French grammatical rules and morphology gradually declined, with confusion of genders and the adding of
-s to form all plurals. Law French was banished from the courts of the
common law in 1731, almost three centuries after the king ceased speaking primarily French. French was used on moots in the
Inner Temple until 1779. Anglo-Norman has survived in the political system in the use of certain Anglo-French set phrases in the
Parliament of the United Kingdom, where they are written by hand on
bills by the
Clerk of the Parliaments or
Clerk of the House of Commons to endorse them during their progress to becoming law, or spoken aloud by the Clerk of the Parliaments during a gathering of the
Lords Commissioners, to indicate the granting of
Royal Assent to legislation. The exact spelling of these phrases has varied over the years; for example, ''s'avisera
has been spelled as s'uvisera
and s'advisera
, and Reyne
as Raine''.
Language of the people Though the great mass of ordinary people spoke forms of English, French spread as a second language due to its prestige, encouraged by its long-standing use in the school system as a medium of instruction through which Latin was taught. In the courts, the members of the
jury, who represented the population, had to know French in order to understand the plea of the lawyer. French was used by the merchant middle class as a language of business communication, especially when it traded with the continent, and several churches used French to communicate with lay people. ==Characteristics==