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CHAPTER III

THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1350)

I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

THE NORMANS.  The name Norman, which is a softened form of Northman, tells its own story.  The men who bore the name came originally from Scandinavia,—­bands of big, blond, fearless men cruising after plunder and adventure in their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they appeared.  It was these same “Children of Woden” who, under the Danes’ raven flag, had blotted out Northumbrian civilization in the ninth century.  Later the same race of men came plundering along the French coast and conquered the whole northern country; but here the results were altogether different.  Instead of blotting out a superior civilization, as the Danes had done, they promptly abandoned their own.  Their name of Normandy still clings to the new home; but all else that was Norse disappeared as the conquerors intermarried with the native Franks and accepted French ideals and spoke the French language.  So rapidly did they adopt and improve the Roman civilization of the natives that, from a rude tribe of heathen Vikings, they had developed within a single century into the most polished and intellectual people in all Europe.  The union of Norse and French (i.e.  Roman-Gallic) blood had here produced a race having the best qualities of both,—­the will power and energy of the one, the eager curiosity and vivid imagination of the other.  When these Norman-French people appeared in Anglo-Saxon England they brought with them three noteworthy things:  a lively Celtic disposition, a vigorous and progressive Latin civilization, and a Romance language.[42] We are to think of the conquerors, therefore, as they thought and spoke of themselves in the Domesday Book and all their contemporary literature, not as Normans but as Franci, that is, Frenchmen.

THE CONQUEST. At the battle of Hastings (1066) the power of Harold, last of the Saxon kings, was broken, and William, duke of Normandy, became master of England.  Of the completion of that stupendous Conquest which began at Hastings, and which changed the civilization of a whole nation, this is not the place to speak.  We simply point out three great results of the Conquest which have a direct bearing on our literature.  First, notwithstanding Caesar’s legions and Augustine’s monks, the Normans were the first to bring the culture and the practical ideals of Roman civilization home to the English people; and this at a critical time, when England had produced her best, and her own literature and civilization had already begun to decay.  Second, they forced upon England the national idea, that is, a strong, centralized government to replace the loose authority of a Saxon chief over his tribesmen.  And the world’s history shows that without a great nationality a great