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A Fair Field Needing Folk: Anglo-Norman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Anglo-norman literature represents an interesting and fairly rare phenomenon in western culture. For about three centuries an imported vernacular was widely current in England, though in varying degrees. This language, which was basically the Norman dialect of French, took on in England a character of its own, both because of its distance from its home ground and because of the influence of external events. At the same time it produced a considerable body of literature, in part reminiscent of its origin, in part determined by the Latin and English literature of its new home, in part influenced by new importations from France. Then—one might almost say abruptly—although the conquerors were never expelled, the imported language and literature ceased to have independent existence. Yet their influence remained forever in English language and literature, absorbed into the nation as were the conquerors and immigrants themselves.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954
References
1 The substance of this paper was read with the title “An Uncrowded Field: Anglo-Norman” at the Medieval (Interdepartmental) Section of the MLA in Boston, 27 Dec. 1952.
2 The Story of English (Philadelphia and New York [c. 1952]), p. 285.
3 “L'Esprit normand en Angleterre,” La Poésie du moyen âge (Paris, 1895), ii, 46.
4 A Literary History of the English People (New York, 1895), i, 116-156.
5 The Middle Ages and the Renascence, tr. Helen D. Irvine, in Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian, A History of English Literature (New York, 1927), i, 41-46.
6 English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (London, 1921).
7 “Anglo-Norman Literature,” A Literary History of England (New York and London, 1948), pp. 135-142.
8 In Joseph Bédier, Paul Hazard, Pierre Martino, Littérature française (Paris, [c. 1948]), i,5.
9 An expanded revision of Vising's manual based on examination of all known MSS. is in preparation by the present writer.
10 “Chevalier mult estes guariz / Quant Deu a vus fait sa clamur …,” a Crusade song with music probably composed in 1146. It is known from an Anglo-Norman copy preserved in Erfurt MS. 32; plate and transcription in Bédier-Hazard-Martino, ut supra cit. p. 37; edited by Bédier in Les Chansons de croisade (Paris, 1909), pp. 3-16.
11 Psalter (Gallican and Hebraic), Proverbs and Kings; see Vising, Anglo-Norman Language and Literature (London, 1923), pp. 41-42, and literature there cited.
12 Le Mystère d'Adam (Vising, p. 45) extant in a unique MS. (Tours MS. 927), which is also the earliest French MS. on paper, late 12th century.
13 Geffrey Gaimar's Estorie des Engleis, mid-12th century (Vising, p. 49).
14 Mildred K. Pope, From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman (Manchester, 1934; 2nd, rev. ed. [1952]), pp. 424-425.
15 This does not mean that Anglo-Norman was a merely ornamental accomplishment. It was a true vernacular widely used in all those phases of daily life which had to be expressed in writing—official documents, general correspondence between individuals of the middle classes, commerce, town business, artisans' contracts, and so on, as is shown in the Alexander Prize Essay by Mrs. Helen Suggett, based on a large body of materials hitherto neglected: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th Ser., xxviii (1946), 61-83.
16 As early as the 1160's an Anglo-Norman nun of Barking, introducing her versified life of Edward the Confessor, recognized what kind of mistakes insular users of French were likely to make:
Sie joe l'ordre des cases ne gart,
Ne ne juigne part a sa part,
Certes n'en dei estre reprise,
Ke nel puis faire en nule guise.
Qu'en latin est nominatif,
Ço frai romanz acusatif.
Un faus franceis sai d'Angletere,
Ke ne l'alai ailurs quere.
Mais vus ki ailurs apris l'avez,
La u mester iert, l'amendez.
First printed by A. T. Baker in MLR, iii (1907-08), 374; reprinted by Ö. Södergård, La Vie d'Edouard le Confesseur, poème anglo-normand du xiie siècle (Uppsala, 1948), p. 109; on author and date see pp. 16-26.
17 Its character is summarized by Vising, pp. 27-33, and analyzed by Miss Pope, Part v.
18 Vising, pp. 79-88; M. Dominica Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters (Edinburgh, 1950), pp. 
137-141. See also F. Agard in RR, xxxiii (Oct. 1942), 216-235 and literature cited there; and some comments by C. A. Robson in Medium Ævum, xviii (1949), 51-52.
19 Additions and corrections to Vising's list have of course been pointed out in the thirty years of its use. See n. 9.
20 The Cambridge Anglo-Norman Society, founded about 30 years ago to edit MSS in Cambridge libraries, published only one volume: Poem on the Assumption, ed. J. P. Strachey, Poem on the Day of Judgment, ed. H. J. Chaytor, Divisiones Mundi, ed. O. H. Prior (Cambridge, 1924).
21 Constance B. West, Courtoisie in Anglo-Norman Literature (Oxford, 1938); Legge, ut supra cit. (n. 18).
22 C. A. Robson in Medium Ævum, xviii (1949), 49-60, proposed a reconstruction of an Anglo-Norman poem, “Twelve Lays of Modwenna.” C. A. Knudson in RR, xxxviii (1947), 348-353, pointed out that enough work on the A pocalypse has by now appeared to justify a search for the sources of the version glosée.
23 The organization of the Anglo-Norman Text Society was recounted briefly in Symposium, i (Nov. 1946), 147.
24 On the importance of a foundation of Latin paleography for the study of vernacular texts, see S. H. Thomson in RR, xxix (April 1938), 112-119.
25 B. Edwards in MP, xxxvii (Feb. 1940), 310; Marie de France, Lais, ed. A. Ewert (Oxford, 1944), p. vii; R. J. Dean in RR, xl (April 1949), 138.
26 E.g., R. J. Dean, RR, xxx (Feb. 1939), 3-14; M. K. Pope, MHRA, No. 19 (June 1948), 11-20; M. D. Legge, Rev. de Ling. romane, xvii (1950), 213-222.
27 Pope, MHRA, ut supra cit., pp. 16-18.
28 R. W. Frank in ACLS Newsletter, iii (Summer 1952), 13.