Week 2: The Rythms of Life: Languages
Tuesday
Glossary for Magna Carta (useful generally for legal terminology of early 13th-century England)
Maps:
The Angevin “Empire”:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil035.jpg
Henry III’s territories:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/gardiner/gard012.jpg
Medieval England and Wales:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil034.jpg
Wales and the Marches in the Thirteenth Century:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil036c.jpg
Map of England by Matthew Paris:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/319matthewparismapbig.jpg
Video:
The Roman Calendar (7:59 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG4nwf5E65M
Readings:
Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 633-645 (Rhythms of the Day, Week, and Year)
Topics:
Time reckonings and divisions
Solar year
Lunar year
7-day week
Day/night
Ecclesiastical calendar (holy days and seasons, vigils, sabbath)
24-hour day (“natural,” with variable hour lengths; “conventional” with equal hour lengths)
Sundials and water clocks
Mealtimes (dinner at midday or early PM)
Roman calendar (12 months; 7-day weeks; reckonings by calends, nones, and ides)
Botanical year and harvest seasons (click here for illustrations of the “labors of the months”)
Law terms (and academic terms)
Quarter-days for paying rent
Regnal or pontifical year
Dating by celebrated public or natural events (e.g., coronations, famous deaths, earthquakes)
The Story of English: episode 2, The Mother Tongue (Robert MacNeil, Part 1, 9:18 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&list=PLCF16776907155D79 (with remaining segments of this episode)
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (West Saxon dialect, 0:49 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW3cWDtJOR4
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (Mercian dialect, 0:28 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56wj6GHEeOE
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (Northumbrian dialect, 0:26 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6p2xi4Gu0g&feature=related
The Lord’s Prayer in Old French (0:44 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kK-0cGsxG0
Reading:
Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 482-506 (Languages and Literatures)
Crane, “Social Aspects of Bilingualism in the Thirteenth Century”
Topics and Terms:
Spoken and written Latin
Spoken and written French
Spoken and written English
The interplay of languages
Evolution of pidgins and creoles (see Crane article, pp. 107-8)
Language and national identity (see Crane article, pp. 111-12)
The Norman Conquest created a bilingual elite, and a trilingual clergy
Anglo-Norman (“insular” dialect of French — i.e., used in British Isles– used in British Isles after 1066; a mother-tongue until c. 1200; and a wholly-learned language thereafter, which led to its “death” as a living language)
Anglo-Norman was the language of gentility, literature, the royal court, the law courts, and of legal and administrative texts, and it was the vernacular of the monastery and the schoolroom
Many Latin texts were translated into Anglo-Norman for female audiences (whose elite credentials were thus validated by their knowledge of Anglo-Norman, unlike ladies in France, where French was the mother-tongue of all classes)
Note use of some non-Latin-alphabet letters in Old English and Middle English (such as “thorn” (þ): see Crane article, lines from Guy of Warwick on p. 108)
Anglo-Norman kept striving to conform to continental French, which restricted its development, while Middle English borrowed freely from French (especially after c. 1250), which greatly enriched it
Few texts composed in English survive from the post-Conquest period, and virtually none from c. 1150-1200. Only in the 13th C. do new texts in English recur.
Images:
First page of the Peterborough Chronicle (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written at Peterborough Abbey, c. 1122-55; now Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 636); transcription and translation
Page from a 13 C. English royal genealogy, written in Anglo-Norman, showing Alfred and his daughter Aethelflaed (now British Library, MS Royal 14 B V)
Practice for Assignment 1 (due in class next Thursday)
Letter from G. de Neville, chamberlain to the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, to Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester, undated (October 1222 x March 1226). The “Lord Richard” (1209-72) was the brother of Henry III; in 1227 he was made Earl of Cornwall. The Earl of “Sarum” (i.e., Salisbury) was William “Longspee” (Longsword), 3rd Earl of Salisbury (d. 7 March 1226), illegitimate son of Henry II and uncle of Henry III:
“To the venerable Father in Christ and Reverend Lord, and if it so please, kinsman, Ralph, by the grace of God Bishop of Chichester, his own in all things, G. de Nevill, chamberlain, eternal greeting in the Lord. — I beseech your paternity earnestly, that for the sake of yourself, and at my entreaties, you will deign so kindly to listen to the entreaties which the Lord Richard, brother of the Lord King, and the Lord Earl of Sarum, pour forth to you, on behalf of him, who has carried himself so faithfully in the service of the Lord King, and of the lord his brother in Gascony, that it may result to your honour and advantage. Farewell in Christ.”
The same letter, broken down into short segments:
“To the venerable Father in Christ and Reverend Lord, and if it so please, kinsman, Ralph, by the grace of God Bishop of Chichester,
his own in all things, G. de Nevill, chamberlain, eternal greeting in the Lord.
– I beseech your paternity earnestly, that for the sake of yourself, and at my entreaties,
you will deign so kindly to listen to the entreaties
which the Lord Richard, brother of the Lord King, and the Lord Earl of Sarum, pour forth to you,
on behalf of him, who has carried himself so faithfully in the service of the Lord King, and of the lord his brother in Gascony,
that it may result to your honour and advantage.
Farewell in Christ.”
Source: Taken verbatim from W. H. Blaauw, “Letters to Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester (1222-24) [sic], and Chancellor to King Henry III,”Sussex Archaeological Collections, 3 (1850), p. 73, no. 308 (now TNA, SC 1/6/71).
Another Sample Letter to Translate into English:
(Source: W. H. Blaauw, “Letters to Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester (1222-24) [sic], and Chancellor to King Henry III,” Sussex Archaeological Collections, 3 (1850), p. 61, no. 677, available online at: http://www.archive.org/stream/sussexarchaeolo62socigoog/sussexarchaeolo62socigoog_djvu.txt [accessed 16 August 2011]. This letter is a follow-up to an earlier letter (no. 676; Letter 9 in my online collection of Neville letters) in which Simon de Senliz requested that Bishop Neville ask the prior of Boxgrave to grant the vicarage of Wauburton to Philip, the bishop’s clerk.)
To his Reverend Lord Ralph, by the grace of God Bishop of Chichester, his devoted Simon de Senliz, greeting, and both devoted and due obedience and reverence in all things. —I send to the feet of your holiness your clerk Philip, bearer of this, returning to your excellency manifold thanks upon bended knees, that by your favour you have been pleased to request the lord prior of Boxgrave about the vicarage of Wauburton. I hope, indeed, that the said prior will assent to your petition, if you would confer with him; which Philip indeed will inform you, by word of mouth, about your business in Sussex, and on that account I send you no other letters at present, and the said Philip will personally explain to you your affairs. May your holiness always fare well in the Lord.
The same letter, broken down into clauses:
To his Reverend Lord Ralph, by the grace of God Bishop of Chichester,
his devoted Simon de Senliz, greeting, and both devoted and due obedience and reverence in all things. —
I send to the feet of your holiness your clerk Philip, bearer of this,
returning to your excellency manifold thanks upon bended knees,
that by your favour you have been pleased to request the lord prior of Boxgrave about the vicarage of Wauburton.
I hope, indeed, that the said prior will assent to your petition, if you would confer with him;
which Philip indeed will inform you, by word of mouth, about your business in Sussex,
and on that account I send you no other letters at present,
and the said Philip will personally explain to you your affairs.
May your holiness always fare well in the Lord.